Research Catalog

Earning their wings : the WASPs of World War II and the fight for veteran recognition

Title: Earning their wings : the WASPs of World War II and the fight for veteran recognition / Sarah Parry Myers.
Author: Myers, Sarah Parry
Publication: Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2023]

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	JFE 23-2948	Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description

246 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"Established by the Army Air Force in 1943, the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program opened to civilian women with a pilot's license who could afford to pay for their own transportation, training, and uniforms. Despite their highly developed skill set, rigorous training, and often dangerous work, the women of WASP were not granted military status until 1977, denied over three decades of Army Air Force benefits as well as the honor and respect given to male and female World War II veterans of other branches. Sarah Parry Myers not only offers a history of this short-lived program but considers its long-term consequences for the women who participated and subsequent generations of servicewomen and activists. Myers shows us how those in the WASP program bonded through their training, living together in barracks, sharing the dangers of risky flights, and struggling to be recognized as military personnel, and the friendships they forged lasted well after the Army Air Force dissolved the program. Despite the WASP program's short duration, its fliers formed activist networks and spent the next thirty years lobbying for recognition as veterans. Their efforts were finally recognized when President Jimmy Carter signed a bill into law granting WASP participants retroactive veteran status, entitling them to military benefits and burials"--

Subject

Genre/Form

History.
Informational works.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

I Was Happiest in the Sky: From Air-Minded Barnstormers to Weapons of War -- We Live in the Wind and Sand and Our Eyes Are on the Stars: Identity and Camaraderie in Training -- Looked upon as a Man's Game: Battling Contested Airspaces at Army Air Force Bases -- Not One of Congress's Cares: The 1944 Congressional Militarization Bill -- I Never Flew an Airplane That Asked If I Were a Mr. or a Mrs. or a Ms.: Contesting Definitions of a Veteran and Receiving Veterans Status.

Call Number

JFE 23-2948

ISBN

9781469675022
1469675021
9781469675039
146967503X
9781469675046 (canceled/invalid)
9781469675053 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2023014323

OCLC

1374820381

Author

Myers, Sarah Parry, author.

Title

Earning their wings : the WASPs of World War II and the fight for veteran recognition / Sarah Parry Myers.

Publisher

Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2023]

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chronological Term

1900-1999

Other Form:

ebook version : 9781469675053

Research Call Number

JFE 23-2948

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