navy – Page 37 – Hinges of History

11/11/11

Seventy years ago today, America wasn’t officially involved in World War II. In less than a month, the country would be. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would thrust the United States into the war and transform the country.

This is a photograph of my (Homefront Heroines Director Kathleen Ryan) mother, Mary Marovich Ryan. It was taken after she enlisted in the WAVES. She came from a large family and grew up on the south side of Chicago. They didn’t have much – it was the Depression and there were a lot of mouths to feed.

But as the war enlisted all of her brothers – except for her younger brother who was too young to join up – enlisted in the military. They joined the Army and the Coast Guard. Two of her brothers joined together. By the time my mother enlisted, every member of her family was in the service, except for that younger brother and a sister who was married with a young child (her younger brother would serve during the Korean War). I love her quote in the article below about wanting a six star pin so she can honor her brothers.

Those of you who have been following the Homefront Heroines project know that my mother didn’t talk much about her military service. I knew that enlisted in mid-1943. She went to New York for boot camp, and then traveled across country on a train to head to her specialty training at a Naval Hospital in California as a pharmacist’s mate. A pharmacist’s mate helped out in various medical capacities; my mother actually worked in the pharmacy. She was stationed at Treasure Island in San Francisco where she met my father, a pilot in the Army Air Forces. She was decommissioned shortly after V-J Day, and she and my father eventually settled about an hour north of New York City in a town along the Hudson River.

But she kept things. Like these photographs (including the one above of a celebration at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco with a group of friends) and the articles about her service. Or a book discussing the properties of various prescription drugs. Or gloves. Dozens of pairs of white cotton gloves, which were part of the formal WAVES uniform. And before she died, she asked that she be buried with military honors, commemorated by a headstone listing her dates of service.

On this Veteran’s Day, we salute all of those who offered their service to our country, including those Homefront Heroines who blazed a trail for women in the future – in the military, of course, but also in the civilian workplace.

Boot Camp and Beyond

In the spring of 1943 Hunter College in the Bronx, N.Y. (now Lehman College), opened a WAVES training school. Women were sent here for boot camp where they learned things like Naval history and marching. They also took placement tests to find out which Navy jobs best suited their skills.

Homefront Heroines is experimenting with a new model of storytelling. We’re creating exhibits geotagged with the location of various locations important to the WAVES, like Hunter College, its buildings and surrounding apartments, with TagWhat – as discussed in this previous post. The posts will include video footage, interviews and interesting stories about the WAVES.

Irene Bendnekoff is one of the women we’re featuring:

So what does this mean? Check out the full exhibit here, or download the TagWhat app on your smartphone, head to the Bronx. The exhibit will pop up on your phone – you can see the WAVES’ story while your at a location important to the WAVES! We love this method of storytelling and would love to know what you think.

Learn about the placement process, training facilities, and hear the stories of many of these WAVES in this Specialty Training exhibit.

Vogue’s Best Dressed Women

If you talk to one of World War II’s Navy WAVES, you are going to hear about her designer uniform. The Navy was already known for having “sharp”-looking uniforms for men and with the creation of the WAVES, a lot of thought went into making an appealing uniform for women. The women took great pride in the comfort, quality make and fashion of their Mainbocher-designed dress.

Fashion designer Main Bocher opened his own shop as an American in Paris in 1929. He became a sensation in Europe and the United States, with many wealthy clients in both places including the Dutchess of Windsor. His clothing was beyond what many WAVES could have afforded which is another reason they became prized possessions.

(Main Bocher)
(One of Mainbocher’s most famous designs made famous by Horst’s photo – “Mainbocher Corset”)

The WAVES uniforms were so trendy that in 1943 the WAVES and other women in uniform were named as Vogue’s “Best Dressed Women in the World Today.”

Check out this Exhibit on the uniform identity of the WAVES to learn more.

Creating the WAVES

Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Regardless of some of the theological debates about Darwin’s theory of evolotion, it seems this particular statement has proved true, particularly in the last century. Yet people can still be resistant to change.

Not everyone was supportive of the Navy, and other branches of government, giving women active duty positions during the war. In a previous post Janette Alpaugh shared a story about a cold encounter with a woman who was not a fan of the WAVES.

The establishment of the WAVES did not happen overnight. The process was pioneered by several influential women. Read more about them and the creation of the WAVES in this exhibit.

Va-va-va-Vargas

The World War II-era pin-up art is quite amazing. It’s no surprise that scholars like Walt Reed have dubbed the era “the golden age” of the pin-up. Think about it: pin-ups were everywhere, from magazines like Esquire to the noses of planes to even personal snapshots (check out our friend Maria Elena Buzek’s fascinating book Pin-Up Grrls for a discussion of that phenomena). The director’s mother – the WAVE who inspired this project – had a collection of drawings she did during the war era of women in pin-up guise. They were everywhere.

This is a recruitment poster for the WAVES and SPARs done by pin-up artist George Petty. Petty was the “establishment” when it came to pin-ups – he pretty much created the famous Esquire pin-up centerfolds. But when he left the magazine in 1940, his role was taken over by an young upstart, Antonio Vargas. His pin-ups (dubbed “Varga Girls”) made the Petty pin-ups look tame by comparison: buxom, long legs, tiny waists – to contemporary eyes a combination of Barbie doll and Playboy centerfold.

This image came from a calendar Esquire ran during the war – which featured a WAVE-to-be. The poem alongside her reads:

I’m going to join the Navy WAVES and help the war to halt, and also show my Navy beau that I am worth my “Salt!”

Vargas also did the SPARs recruitment poster, below.

Public Domain, Copyright and Other Issues

So we’re chugging along on the film and various ancillary projects and this discussion came up with our Production Assistant today (Laura, who’s temporarily stepped aside from the wonderful work she’s been doing on the blog to work on the Homefront Heroines TagWhat project): when does something move into the public domain?

We’re considering works originally published during World War II, films and newsreels for the most part. According to copyright law, the works might be in the public domain. Then again, they might not. It all depends upon if the copyright was renewed or not. If it wasn’t, the work is in the public domain. If not, a film produced in 1944 would remain copyright protected until 2039.

We understand (and fully support) copyright protections. It keeps the creator of the work in control of how the work is distributed. That’s a good thing. However, where it gets muddy is when a corporation uses film produced by a public entity, such as the U.S. government, and then masks its production of the film in copyright. We’re running into that issue with newsreels right now. Much of the footage is government produced – yet the copyright in some cases is held by a film studio. Or, a film produced by a studio has fallen out of copyright, but the production company who repackages the material claims they have “copyright” on the production. Not exactly. On the DVD packaging, yes. On the film itself, not so much.

Muddy areas. Frustrating areas. And all of it is complicated by the web and the publishing that occurs therein.

That being said, this photo is produced by the U.S. Navy. We’re sharing it with you because it is “owned,” as it were, by the U.S. public.

Navy WAVE Airbrushes Photo

at Navy Art & Animation Division

The Post-a-Day Challenge

WordPress, the web platform we’re using to create our blog, has issued a “post-a-day” challenge. It’s a way for those who have a blog to flex their writing muscles for National Novel Writing Month in November, where writers around the globe each attempt to write their 50,000 word novel in a one month time period. FYI, that would mean writ between 1600 and 1700 words a day. A lot.

We’re not sure that this project will become a 50,000 word novel. After all, that would be in addition to the film, website and smartphone elements we’ve already created (or are creating). So we’re using this challenge as an incentive to keep up short daily posts while we’re working on the more complex elements of the film.

We’re thinking our “post-a-day” will initially include artifacts from archives which we really enjoy.

Today’s artifacts are two about the WAVES recruits. Both images came from the National Archives in College Park, Maryland and was part of a larger collection they have of Navy photographs. There are (conservatively) tens of thousands of World War II-era Navy photographs in the archive, and in May of 2010 the Homefront Heroines producer and director spent several days there digitizing images for the documentary.

In the image above, WAVES recruits are taking the oath of office with Lt. Stewart (at left in the image). in April of 1944.

In this photo from February of 1943, women who have volunteered to be WAVES and SPARs (the WAVES’ Coast Guard counterparts) are getting ready to board a special subway train in New York which will take them to commissioning ceremonies at the WAVES boot camp, Hunter College. They’re part of a group of 418 women who first took part in a mass swearing in at City Hall in lower Manhattan, and then headed up to Hunter as the first class of boots at the new training center.

Woman in a Man’s World

Janette experienced the good and bad of America’s reaction to women in military service. The concept of women in uniform was completely new to many Americans. They were used to seeing women participate in the military as nurses, but not taking the same jobs as men.

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After more than a year and a half in the service, Janette went home to Indiana to visit friends and family. She shares one negative encounter she had with the sister of a childhood friend:

” I go in the house, I guess. Her sister was in there. I didn’t know her sister. I had never met her sister. I was in uniform because you had to wear them all the time. And her sister said …

‘I want you to leave!’ Just as soon as I stepped in the door.

She wanted me to leave; I couldn’t imagine what was going on. And Teresa, this friend of mine, said to her … ‘What do you mean?’

She [the sister] said, ‘It’s because of her that my husband has to go out on a ship and any woman in uniform should not be in.’ She said, ‘It’s the worst thing that ever happened to our country.’

You see, from her point of view, that was how she thought. But I, I was astounded. I just said, ‘Oh, no, they need everybody.’ … Then I turned around and left. There was no point in arguing or anything. But I’ll never forget that because that was a shocker.”

Janette also had positive experiences where she was honored for her service in touching ways. She shares about an experience she had in the bus station while returning to the base from her visit home:

“I was walking through the station and a very elderly man said, ‘Ma’am?’ And I looked at him. He said, ‘Here’s 50 cents I would like to give you.’

And I said, ‘Oh, no. I don’t need that. I’m going back to the base.’

He said, ‘No, I just want to give it to some service person.’

I kept saying, no, but finally I saw he was so patriotic he just wanted to give it — see, it almost makes me cry to think about it. And I so I took it and thanked him and went on. That was his contribution. I’ll never forget that.”

Tomboy

Janette finished a bachelor’s degree at Purdue University. She minored in physical education, which was her passion and got her major in home economics. Through her four years in school she spent most of her free time in the gymnasium as a member of the athletic association.

When she graduated she got a job teaching home economics and coordinating 4H in an high school in northern Indiana, but she didn’t stay there for long. Pearl Harbor was struck and the very next day Janette signed up for the WAVES.

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(‘Coach Janette’ pictured above on the bottom row, left.)

Her love for sports started when she was a child. Her father was an avid sports fan and would play catch with Janette and her sister after he came in from working in the fields at night.

After officer training, Janette was sent back to Pensacola as an athletic officer. She and another WAVE set up an athletic program so that the women could pick and choose athletic activities each day in order to fulfill their physical fitness requirements. She even arranged for the WAVES to have athletic clothes that they could use, since their uniform set didn’t include anything suitable for playing sports.
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“If a man could check out shorts or get shorts, see, for the activity, so could the women. See that was the first time I’d come up with equality.” – Janette Alpaugh

Janette Shaffer Alpaugh

Janette Alpaugh (Shaffer at the time), originally from Indiana, joined the WAVES in January 1943. She was part of the second class of WAVES to attend boot camp in Cedar Falls, Iowa. After boot camp she applied to become a Link trainer, where she learned how to instruct men who were training as pilots in flight simulation. Janette was stationed in Pensacola, Fla., as a link trainer before she went on to become a WAVES officer.

She grew up on a big farm, north of Indianapolis, where she says she was raised like a boy. While Janette’s girlfriends were helping their mothers in the kitchen, Janette and her sister were helping her father with the farm. The family only had one boy, Janette’s younger brother, and everyone’s help was needed. Her time working on the farm, however, gave her a passion for hard work and athletics. Photobucket
“[My Father] treated us just like boys. We did farm work that any boy our age would have done.”