Tag Archives: 1940s

Margaret Chase Smith

A mention of the WAVES wouldn’t be complete with a mention of Margaret Chase Smith. Smith was a Congresswoman during World War II (she would later become a Senator) and has been called by some “the mother of the WAVES.”

It’s a title she disavowed, but she was a strong supporter of women in military service, and was a part of the Congressional committee which expanded duties for WAVES, eventually allowing them to serve overseas. She said later:

I can only say to you that while I knew there was great reluctance and criticism, my feeling has always been that if women were to serve as men, they must accept the responsibilities as well as the privileges.  If they needed these women in spots other than those designated by the first law, then there must be very serious consideration given to the legislation for it. I think the women had a great deal to do. They had a great responsibility to uphold the dignity of women.

This photograph comes the National Archives.

The Creative Spirit

Elizabeth Reynard initially struggled in the Navy. It wasn’t that she wasn’t qualified – it was more that her creative impulses clashed often with the regimentation of military life. She was also unhappy living away from her family and friends in New York.

When the Navy decided to open a training school for women in New York in late 1942, Reynard was appointed to help develop the education program. By all accounts, her work was a huge success. She came up with the idea of bringing models of ships, sample guns and Link trainers and other equipment the women might encounter on the job for their boot camp training at Hunter College.

This newspaper clipping comes from the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies. It is about a commendation Reynard received for her service with the Navy.

W.A.V.E.S

Elizabeth Reynard is credited for being the woman who came up with the name for the WAVES. According to Virginia Gildersleeve, in her book Many a Good Crusade, the Navy wanted something that was “nautical, suitable, fool-proof, and attractive.” Reynard took up the challenge, as she wrote to Gildersleeve:

I played with those two letters [w and v] and the idea of the sea and finally came up with ‘Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service’ — W.A.V.E.S. I figure the word ‘Emergency’ will comfort the older admirals, because it implies that we’re only a temporary crisis and won’t be around for keeps.

This photograph of Reynard comes from the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies.

Elizabeth Reynard

Virginia Gildersleeve, Dean of Barnard College in New York, also asked one of her close personal friends to go to Washington and help work within the Navy develop a woman’s program. That woman was Elizabeth Reynard.

Reynard was a an English professor and graduate of Barnard College. She was a strange choice to lobby for a woman’s service because Reynard was by all accounts highly artistic and an unconventional thinker – not perhaps the best civilian woman to lobby for women’s military service. She moved to Washington in early 1942 and would eventually become one of the first women to join the WAVES.

This photograph comes from the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies.

The Advisory Council

Virginia Gildersleeve, Dean of Barnard College in New York, began working outside the Navy to lobby for women’s participation. She set up the Women’s Advisory Council, a group of fellow women who were leaders in education. They would continue their work during the war even after the WAVES were established, acting as a public relations outreach tool for the Navy.

This is a photograph of the Advisory Council c. 1944. It shows, l-r:  Miss Alice Baldwin, Dean of undergraduate college for women, Duke University; Emma Barton Brewser Gates, University of Pennsylvania Women’s Club (and wife of Penn’s President Thomas S. Gates); Miss Meta Glass, president of Sweet Briar College; Mrs. Wallace Notestein (Notestein was a professor at Yale); Miss Virginia Gildersleeve, Ethel Gladys Graham, wife of UCLA political science professor Malbone Graham, Congresswoman Margaret Chase Smith; Miss Alice Lloyd, dean of women at the University of Michigan; Mildred McAfee; and Lt. Cmdr. Philip A. Tague Jr.  It comes from the National Archives.

“Yes They Are”

Virginia Gildersleeve, Dean of the all-women’s Barnard College in New York, believed that it was a duty for women to participate in helping the war effort. After the Pearl Harbor attack, she spoke to students at Barnard College about the opportunities women might have:

Are they really going to use women for ‘trained personnel’?  Yes, they are.  They have begun to realize that the ‘man power’ of the country includes also the woman power, and that the government and industry will be forced to use women for nearly every kind of work except the front-line military and naval fighting.

This photograph comes from the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies.

Virginia Gildersleeve

As the rumblings of World War II began in Europe, women in the U.S. began laying the groundwork for women to serve in the military here. Joy Bright Hancock began doing some of that work within the Navy, in her role as a civilian for the Naval Bureau of Aeronautics.

But other women also lobbied for for women’s military service. Virginia Gildersleeve was the Dean of Barnard College in New York. She wrote at the time:

It seemed as if Hitler were about to plunge Europe into war and I, having just returned from abroad, was profoundly distressed.  I felt that we ought to do something about it.  I was intensely interested in this problem … and the enormous contribution that women might make.

This photograph comes from the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies.

The Luck of the Irish

We’re taking another break today from our series of military firsts. This time, we want to talk about St. Patrick’s Day.

Spunky World War II WAVE Josette Dermody was a gunner’s mate based in San Francisco during World War II. And one St. Patrick’s Day she decided to celebrate her heritage by personalizing her uniform.

Everybody was talking about how they could wear green, a green slip or something. I put on – I didn’t have a hat. I had a little tiny green hair bow.  And I was down looking for my pay and went across a quarter deck. The master at arms, who didn’t like WAVES, was chasing me and I got on the stairway and he couldn’t touch me. There were all kinds of ways of learning about rules.  (laughs) Because it was out of his domain. And I was just toodling up the stairs and some lieutenant, some middle aged, it looked like a middle aged dentist who had been drafted to to dental work or something. A perfectly innocent looking man.  But he said, “Young lady, you’re out of uniform!”  They made fusses about things like that. And I said, I just looked at him, “No sir.  It’s St. Patrick’s Day. The skipper is Irish and this is the uniform of the day” (laughs). And then I scooted upstairs.

This photograph comes from the collection of Josette Dermody Wingo.

Mary Marovich Ryan

We’re taking a break today from the Navy historical firsts for women to honor an important women to the Homefront Heroines crew.

March 8th is the birthday of the woman who inspired the Homefront Heroines project. Mary Marovich was born in Chicago on March 8th 1921. She enlisted in the WAVES in 1943 and after boot camp at Hunter College she became a Pharmacist’s Mate based at Treasure Island in San Francisco.

Mary worked as a telephone operator in Chicago before enlisting in the Navy. She followed six of her brothers into the service – four were with the Army, and two were first class petty officers in the Coast Guard (her younger brother would serve in the military in the Korean War).

Mary said before enlisting:

I’d really like to wear a six star pin (to honor her brothers), but I can’t find a story that sell them!

Mary married James Warren Ryan, an Army Air Corps pilot, while she was in the service. She left in 1945 after V-J Day and died in 1992.

Happy birthday, Mother!

The Leader Resigns

Mildred McAfee would lead the WAVES until August of 1945. During that time, she amassed some pretty impressive military firsts:

  • First female line officer in the Navy (1942)
  • First WAVES Director (1942-1945)
  • First female Navy Captain (1944)
  • Recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal

After she resigned as Director of the WAVES, McAfee would remain active duty until February of 1946.

McAfee met and married the Reverend Dr. Douglas Horton while in the Navy and changed her name to Mildred McAfee Horton. After she left the WAVES, she would first return to the Presidency of Wellesley College, where she would remain until 1948. After she left Wellesely, she became involved with the General Council of Congregational Christian Churches. McAfee also served as a UNESCO delegate, was on the board of directors of the New York Life Insurance Company, the National Broadcasting Company, Radio Corporation of America, and the Ford Foundation’s Fund for the Advancement of Education. She later co-chaired the National Women’s Conference on Civil Rights.

This photograph comes from the Naval Historical Center.