(H)our History Lesson: Home Front Experiences and Contributions by Women in Service in Waterloo, Iowa, World War II Heritage City

Image 1: A newspaper image shows Lieut. Janet Jones, WAAC recruiter, and Mrs. David Lennox, president of the Iowa Federation of Women’s Clubs, planning for recruitment in Waterloo. December 9, 1942.

The University of Iowa Libraries

About this Lesson

This lesson is part of a series teaching about the World War II home front, with Waterloo, Iowa designated as an American World War II Heritage City. The lesson contains readings and photos to contribute to learners’ understandings about women in service on the home front, in and from Waterloo. The examples in the lesson include the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), WAVES (an acronym for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), and the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps. The final reading connects to other home front topics, such as war manufacturing and morale.

Objectives:

1. Identify examples of service opportunities for women on the World War II home front.
2. Describe how women in Waterloo served on the home front and contributed to war efforts.
3. Consider how women's service and wartime work might have influenced postwar society.
4. Compare local and historical perspectives on service to synthesize and connect to larger wartime perspectives and themes.

Materials for Students:

1. Readings 1, 2, 3 (and optional extension)
2. Recommended: Map of Iowa with Waterloo and Cedar Falls marked
3. Images -- All images from this lesson are available in the Waterloo, Iowa Gallery:

Teacher Tip: The images in the Waterloo Gallery are labeled with the name of this lesson ("Women in Service") and the image number in the title. The high quality images in the gallery can be used for your classroom slides or for students to do close analysis.

Getting Started: Essential Question

What service opportunities were available for women to participate in the war effort in Waterloo, and what impact did their contributions have?

Read to Connect

Reading 1: Women's War Effort

We the Women

By Ruth Millett, The Wichita Beacon (Kansas), October 23, 1943

There are two ways in which a woman whose family has been her No. 1 interest in life can meet the situation when the war scatters the family and leaves her alone. 

She can sit around and feel sorry for herself and figure that since she has given her family to the war effort she has done her share.

Or, she can show the fighting spirit and get-up-and-go of Mrs. Bessie Heers of Waterloo, Iowa, who followed her husband, daughter and two sons into the service on the very day the last remaining member of her family joined the navy. 

A woman left alone wouldn’t have to join the WACs as did Mrs. Heers, or any of the other uniformed services in order to show the same fighting spirit. She could fill her time with such undisputable  worthwhile volunteer work as being a nurses’ aide or helping out in a day nursery.

She’d Be Happier

Or, she could get a war job, or go into some kind of work necessary to the welfare of civilians. 
It wouldn’t matter how she decided to help in the war effort – if only she would decide to devote all of her time and strength to working for the same cause the other members of her family had left home to work for.

Women like Mrs. Heers aren’t only playing a real part in winning the war. They are going to be far happier women during the war years than the women who decide to sit the war out.

And, they will have more in common with their daughters, sons, and husbands when the war is over and they are again homemakers.

Reading 2: Cadet Nurse's Training Program

Cadet nurses to be trained here; First class forming

Courier (Waterloo Iowa), Jan. 17, 1944

Those gray and red uniforms of the Cadet Nurse’s corps are coming to Waterloo.

Such was the prospect Monday as 13 young women enrolled in the first government-financed Cadet Nurse’s training program at Allen Memorial hospital, where the Lutheran school of nursing has its headquarters here.
Formal approval of the hospital as a training center for the Cadet Nurse’s corps was announced to Miss Sadie W. Holm, superintendent of nurses, in a telegram from the surgeon general’s office of the United States Public Health Service, Washington, D.C.

Application for membership in the United States cadet nurse corps was filed with the Public Health Service on September 29, 1943.

Indian is Member

In the first 13 students enrolling Monday was Miss Emily Water, of Pine Ridge, S.D., a full-blooded Sioux Indian. Others reporting for duty were: Lillian Bruhn, 135 Whitney road, Waterloo; Annabelle Lund, Route 2, Waterloo . . .  Students enrolled in the present two classes of nursing at Allen Memorial are also eligible for enlistment in the U.S cadet corps and many of the 42 students have expressed their desire to become members, Miss Holm said.

‘The cadet nursing corps has been made possible by congress as a means of giving professional nursing training,’ she explained. ‘Acceptance for training in the corps is considered a privilege as well as an opportunity, as you not only serve your country, but secure your future by joining the nursing profession.

Is for Duration

‘If you are accepted in the U.S. cadet nurse corps, you promise to engage in essential nursing throughout the war.’ Miss Holm said. ‘A student may choose either civilian or military service and receive full training which meets the requirements of graduation in an accredited school of nursing under the Bolton act.’ 

Under the arrangement, Miss Holm pointed out, complete tuition and fees will be paid and school uniforms, room, board and laundry will be provided. Students will receive a monthly stipend of $15 for the first nine months, $20 for the next 21 months and $30 for the remaining months until graduation. Those graduating are then eligible to become registered nurses. 

Women and girls 18 to 35 years old, in good health, may enroll.

Reading 3: WAVE Support of Victory Exposition

Background: The WAVES in the text were stationed in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and had high participation in events, service, and recruitment in Waterloo, Iowa. The WAVES social headquarters was at the YWCA in Waterloo. Assisted by the USO council, they held dances and entertainment every Saturday (shared in the Des Moines Morning Register, Dec. 26, 1942). WAVES also participated in Waterloo victory events and war efforts support, such as the example in this reading, and helping at local farms.

Teacher Tip: This text shares examples of war industry and manufacturing that can be connected to the first lesson in the Waterloo series. The reading can be used to illustrate overlapping categories on the home front: women in service, war manufacturing, and morale/education efforts.

WAVE Chorus Helps to Open Victory Show

Some Products of Waterloo Plants Included; Will Last Thru Monday

Courier (Waterloo, Iowa), July 18, 1943

Some idea of what it takes to equip the men behind our guns was shown to Waterloo citizens Saturday night at the opening of the three-day Victory Exposition of smaller war materiel in the Masonic temple. 

They saw more than 1,000 items of war goods, ranging from jeeps and 37 millimeter anti-tank guns to 300-pound demolition bombs and the 131 parts that go into a gas mask—including gas masks for horses and dogs. 

Several Waterloo manufacturing firms exhibited some of the battle goods they are producing for Uncle Sam and the United Nations. 

Jungle Pack

The Hinson Manufacturing company displayed a camouflaged jungle pack, collapsible canvas water bucket, flier's clothing bag, and ski trooper's rucksack. 

A collapsible field stretcher cart was shown by the Jerald Sulky company, while 11 links of a steel anchor chain cast by the Harmon foundry, and a tank tread grouser made by the Litchfield Manufacturing company also were on exhibit.

A number of Waterloo’s larger war goods factories were not represented. 

Boosts Stamp Sales

The Victory Exposition is brought to Waterloo by city retailers as part of national ‘Retailers for Victory’ month war stamp sale efforts. The show is sponsored by Victory Expositions, Inc., Indianapolis, Ind., a nonprofit corporation set up by the U.S. war department. Traveling manager of the exposition is Silas A. Smith, superintendent of schools at East Glenn, suburb of Terre Haute, Indiana.

Proceeds above operating costs will go to army emergency relief.

Entertainment at the opening night exhibition included vocal selections by a WAVE choir of 15 voices, directed by Seaman Caroline Brown.

A simulated box shelter, complete with recorded sound effects of an actual London air raid, attracted considerable attention, especially when the shelter attendant announced at the end of the recording: All clear-- no casualties. . . .

Other heavily thronged exhibits were the portable field kitchen with “K” rations, a complete issue of uniform equipment such as is given each man who enters the army, para ski troopers’ uniforms and equipment, steps showing the manufacture of shells, and armor plate showing the effects of high explosive shells on quarter inch and three-eighths inch thicknesses. 

. . . Radio fans crowded around the “handie-talkie" world's smallest two-way radio developed by the Signal Corps of the US Army. That is used by guards and sentries who are not within voice range but are stationed within two miles from their unit. 

Near 5-Meter Band. 

“Handie-talkies” operate on frequencies assigned from Washington DC, varying from 52 to 65 megacycles, with operation near the 5 meter band. They are powered by special type dry cell batteries. Messages can be intercepted by the enemy but they frequently are in code, and when code is not employed, it is under circumstances where the operations being reported are in progress, so that there is no opportunity for the enemy to take immediate advantage. 

Enlarged photographs by the US Army Signal Corps, depicting war materials in combat use, are featured at the exposition, prominently displayed as a message from Lieutenant General Brehon B Somervell, Chief of Supply, U.S. Army. 

“In this total war there is no room in America for any bloc. There's no room for a farm bloc, or a labor bloc, or an industrial block or any other kind of bloc except an American bloc.”

Quotation to consider:

“Should not women receive the same pay as men if they perform similar jobs? The WAACs are recruited and trained to perform tasks now done by men. Their expenses are the same. They have as much need for recreation. . . . Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers, original sponsor of the WAACs, has announced that she will seek an adjustment of this inequality. Such an adjustment is a reasonable request.”

- "Raise WAACs Pay,” The Courier, July 26, 1942, Iowa Digital Library

By the numbers:

• About 150,000 American women served as a WAAC or WAC in the war
• At Fort Des Moines, Iowa, 72,141 women were trained by the Army between 1942 to 1945
• Approximately 100,000 women served in the Navy WAVES
• 250 WAVES, state guard and civil air patrol members featured a Navy Recruiting Day and parade in Waterloo on August 23, 1943

Image 2: A newspaper image shows three members of the Women’s Army Auxiliary corps pictured in the Waterloo post office building, who were assigned to Waterloo from Fort Des Moines. They are quoted saying, “We’re here to stay, for Waterloo girls look good to us—lots of potentialities.”

The University of Iowa Libraries

Student Activities

Questions for Reading 1 and Photos

1. What did Mrs. Bessie Heers do when her family joined the service?
2. How did the author describe women who participate in the war effort versus those who did not?
3. What is the author's purpose in sharing the choices available to women during the war, and how does this shape the portrayal of women like Mrs. Bessie Heers?
4. How does the author describe postwar employment for women? Do you think this was a common belief at the time? Why or why not?
   

Image 3: “Waves Help Rescue Crop here.” A newspaper image shows WAVES working at Prosperity Farms, east of Waterloo. 75 WAVES worked there that day; the previous week over 200 WAVES assisted at the farm, sent from Cedar Falls. May 21, 1944.

The University of Iowa Libraries

Questions for Reading 2 and Photos

1. Why may the author highlight diverse and local nursing students?
2. How were women eligible for the Cadet Nurse’s Corps? What benefits did they receive?
3. How do you think the Cadet Nurse’s Corps program impacted the nursing profession in the long term, considering both wartime needs and future careers?

Questions for Reading 3 and Photos

1. How did WAVES support local agriculture? (Photo)
2. How did the WAVE chorus participate in the victory exposition?
3. What are examples of local war manufacturing? What demonstrations may have enhanced public awareness of the war efforts?
4. How might the Victory Exposition’s mix of war goods displays, entertainment, and exhibits have affected public support? How may it have impacted how people viewed the contributions of local industries?

Lesson Closing

Using details from across the readings and lesson:

List and describe opportunities for women to engage in the war effort in and around Waterloo and their impact.

How might women's involvement in the war effort have shaped their roles in postwar society? How may it have shaped women’s futures in the Armed Services?

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This lesson was written by Sarah Nestor Lane, an educator and consultant with the Cultural Resources Office of Interpretation and Education, funded by the National Council on Public History's cooperative agreement with the National Park Service.