DOCSLIB.ORG

Constance I. Slaughter-Harvey

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Constance I. Slaughter-Harvey Constance I. Slaughter-Harvey April 9, 2010; April 16, 2010; June 4, 2010; June 25, 2010; June 26, 2010; August 12, 2010 Recommended Transcript of Interview with Constance I. Slaughter-Harvey (Apr. 9, 2010; Citation Apr. 16, 2010; June 4, 2010; June 25, 2010; June 26, 2010; Aug. 12, 2010), https://abawtp.law.stanford.edu/exhibits/show/constance-i- slaughter-harvey. Attribution The American Bar Association is the copyright owner or licensee for this collection. Citations, quotations, and use of materials in this collection made under fair use must acknowledge their source as the American Bar Association. Terms of Use This oral history is part of the American Bar Association Women Trailblazers in the Law Project, a project initiated by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession and sponsored by the ABA Senior Lawyers Division. This is a collaborative research project between the American Bar Association and the American Bar Foundation. Reprinted with permission from the American Bar Association. All rights reserved. Contact Please contact the Robert Crown Law Library at Information [email protected] with questions about the ABA Women Trailblazers Project. Questions regarding copyright use and permissions should be directed to the American Bar Association Office of General Counsel, 321 N Clark St., Chicago, IL 60654-7598; 312-988-5214. ABA Senior Lawyers Division Women Trailblazers in the Law ORAL HISTORY of CONSTANCE SLAUGHTER HARVEY Interviewer: Verna Myers Dates of Interviews: April 9, 2010 April 16, 2010 June 4, 2010 June 25, 2010 June 26, 2010 August12,2010 Oral History of Constance S. Harvey Interview 1 (April 9, 2010) Ms. Myers Good Evening and this is my first interview with Constance Iona Slaughter­ Harvey and we're doing this for the Oral History Project. It was amazing when I read the definition of the words oral history. Do you agree with that, Constance, that oral history definition is amazing. What do you think it is? Ms. Harvey I think it's a short version of a reading about history. It's a systematic collection of living testimony from people who tell you their own experiences. Oral history opens up Chapters _ of the past and it preserves one's experiences through recordings. Ms. Myers Very good. Now, with that in mind, it just seems like we have oral history for you to present to us. Ms. Harvey Yes ma'am. Ms. Myers The very first thing that we are interested in is you giving me your full name. Ms. Harvey Okay. It's Constance Iona, I-o-n-a, Slaughter and my married name, last name, is Harvey. Ms. Myers Attorney Harvey. Where were you born and what date? Ms. Harvey I was born in Jackson, Mississippi on Farish Street, F-a-r-i-s-h, and I was born at a black hospital, Jeffrey Memorial Hospital, J-e-f-f-r-e-y. I was born June 18, 1946. Ms. Myers: At that time, was that the only hospital in Jackson? 51 I04950vl Ms. Harvey No, there were other hospitals, but this was the only hospital where a black baby could be born in conditions that were not horrible. Ms. Myers Did your parents tell you about how you made your grand entrance into the world? Ms. Harvey My mother said, on many occasions, that I was a painful delivery because I weighed ten pounds. My daddy would also say that I was crying when I came into the world and I've been crying ever since. I assumed he meant that I was complaining. Ms. Myers That sounds good to me. Okay, did your parents grow up together or did they meet later on? Ms. Harvey Mommy and daddy met at Tougaloo, Tougaloo College. She was going to school there and daddy was going to school there also. Now momma had graduated from Tougaloo High School, because Tougaloo had, that's T-o-u-g­ a-1-o-o, had a high school and a college and it was like a boarding school. Daddy graduated from Lanier, L-a-n-i-e-r, Lanier High School in Jackson and when he finished Lanier, he came to Toµgaloo and that's where he met momma. Ms. Myers And what year are we talking about, them graduating? Ms. Harvey Daddy graduated in 1942. Ms. Myers Okay. Ms. Harvey He started school in 1942 and graduated the year after I was born. 2 51104950vl Ms. Myers Okay. With your parents being that age during that time, how did they both end up in college? Ms. Harvey My mother came from a family that was fairly well-educated. Her father George Kelley "Papa", however, was not an educated man. He taught himself to write and read. They lived in Tougaloo and the college was less than two blocks from where they lived. It was Papa's desire that all of his children go to school and get an education. My father's grandmother graduated from Daniel Hand School, D-a-n-i-e-1, which was like an elementary school to Tougaloo College. Her name was Anna, A-n-n-a, Hayden, H-a-y-d-e-n. Her daughter, who was my grandmother, and daddy's mother, was Fannie, F-a-n­ n-i-e, Jane, J-a-n-e, Hayden, H-a-y-d-e-n and we called her "Hun," H-u-n. She graduated from Tougaloo High School, which at that time was like a college education. So daddy had no choice but to go to Tougaloo. When he graduated from Lanier, he went to Tougaloo. Well, momma lived two or three blocks from Tougaloo on what is now Kelly Street. They met each other there. Ms. Myers So you guys came from a long line of educators. Ms. Harvey Right. Ms. Myers Was that unusual for people during that time? Ms. Harvey Of course. Very much so. Ms. Myers So how would your family act? Were you snobbish or uppity? Ms. Harvey I don't think you would say snobbish or uppity- 3 5 l l04950vl Ms. Myers Okay. Ms. Harvey I came from good, black individuals and some of my fore-parents, like my great grandmother were half-white. My grandfather, my great grandfather on my mother' side was half-white and Indian. And he was from Bond, B-o-n-d, Mississippi. It was named after my great grandfather's daddy. He had a white family and he had a black family. My great grandfather Jack Edwards, and he lived in Bond which is about 50 miles from the Gulf coast. Daddy's grandmother was a mulatto. Ms. Myers How did you get all this history out of this? Ms. Harvey Well, right now, at my age, I'm not doing as well as I should because I'm forgetting certain things however, the history it was sort of passed along. I'm one who has utmost respect for my elders, and the older I get the more I realize that that's the only way you can really know what you're capable of doing. I always preferred being around the elderly, because I can always travel with them. You didn't have to watch TV, you would sit down and listen to them and they would tell you how things used to be and it just, it's always infatuated me ... and I love history. So, when we would spend the summers with my grandparents, (we lived in the Meridian for awhile and we would come to Jackson and Tougaloo in the summers) and there would be no TV, so you could either play outdoors until it was dark and then go to bed, or you could play awhile, then come in, eat and then listen to how things used to be. I always enjoyed listening to how things used to be. Ms. Myers These half-white relatives that you spoke of-did you ever see them? 4 51104950vl Ms. Harvey My great grandmother, Anna Hayden, on my daddy's side, the one who attended Daniel Hand School, we called her Dandy, D-a-n-d-y, she was, I thought, a pretty woman. You just could see her whiteblood. And she was permitted to go into the white community downtown, which was called the Belhaven Fondren, F-o-n-d-r-e-n, Fondren area. She was permitted to go in because Blacks were not permitted to go there. She was half-white, and could pass for white. She would go in riding in her buggy and buy eggs for black people; and then she would go back on North State Street, go back to Tougaloo, what we called White Oaks Community, where you now have the North Park Mall and County Line Road and Pear Orchard Road. My grandmother, Dandy, is buried there on Avery Boulevard in a family cemetery called J ohrison Cemetery. Ms. Myers Did you ever, or any of you ever go with her to buy these eggs? Ms. Harvey No, no, this is long before we were born. Ms. Myers Okay. Ms. Harvey So that's what I have been told. She was very old and she stayed with my grandmother, Fannie Jane Hayden (Hun) and Papa Percy. She stayed with her and so my grandmother, on my daddy's side, would tell us about these experiences and Dandy, sometimes would tell us, but age had gotten the best of her. At times she would confirm that that happened, and then again, she would look as if she didn't know what was going on.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Complex Relationship Between Jews and African Americans in the Context of the Civil Rights Movement
    The Gettysburg Historical Journal Volume 20 Article 8 May 2021 The Complex Relationship between Jews and African Americans in the Context of the Civil Rights Movement Hannah Labovitz Gettysburg College Follow this and additional works at: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/ghj Part of the History Commons Share feedback about the accessibility of this item. Recommended Citation Labovitz, Hannah (2021) "The Complex Relationship between Jews and African Americans in the Context of the Civil Rights Movement," The Gettysburg Historical Journal: Vol. 20 , Article 8. Available at: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/ghj/vol20/iss1/8 This open access article is brought to you by The Cupola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of The Cupola. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Complex Relationship between Jews and African Americans in the Context of the Civil Rights Movement Abstract The Civil Rights Movement occurred throughout a substantial portion of the twentieth century, dedicated to fighting for equal rights for African Americans through various forms of activism. The movement had a profound impact on a number of different communities in the United States and around the world as demonstrated by the continued international attention marked by recent iterations of the Black Lives Matter and ‘Never Again’ movements. One community that had a complex reaction to the movement, played a major role within it, and was impacted by it was the American Jewish community. The African American community and the Jewish community were bonded by a similar exclusion from mainstream American society and a historic empathetic connection that would carry on into the mid-20th century; however, beginning in the late 1960s, the partnership between the groups eventually faced challenges and began to dissolve, only to resurface again in the twenty-first century.
    [Show full text]
  • Politics, Power and Protest in the Vietnam War Era
    Chapter 6 POLITICS, POWER AND PROTEST IN THE VIETNAM WAR ERA In 1962 the Australian government, led by Sir Robert Menzies, sent a group of 30 military advisers to Vietnam. The decision to become Photograph showing an anti-war rally during the 1960s. involved in a con¯ict in Vietnam began one of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War led to the largest the most controversial eras in Australia's protest movement we had ever experienced. history. It came at a time when the world was divided between nations that were INQUIRY communist and those that were not; when · How did the Australian government respond to the communism was believed to be a real threat to threat of communism after World War II? capitalist societies such as the United States · Why did Australia become involved in the Vietnam War? and Australia. · How did various groups respond to Australia's The Menzies government put great effort into involvement in the Vietnam War? linking Australia to United States foreign · What was the impact of the war on Australia and/ policy in the Asia-Paci®c region. With the or neighbouring countries? communist revolution in China in 1949, the invasion of South Korea by communist North A student: Korea in 1950, and the con¯ict in Vietnam, 5.1 explains social, political and cultural Australia looked increasingly to the United developments and events and evaluates their States to contain communism in this part of the impact on Australian life world. The war in Vietnam engulfed the 5.2 assesses the impact of international events and relationships on Australia's history Indochinese region and mobilised hundreds of 5.3 explains the changing rights and freedoms of thousands of people in a global protest against Aboriginal peoples and other groups in Australia the horror of war.
    [Show full text]
  • War, Women, Vietnam: the Mobilization of Female Images, 1954-1978
    War, Women, Vietnam: The Mobilization of Female Images, 1954-1978 Julie Annette Riggs Osborn A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2013 Reading Committee: William J. Rorabaugh, Chair Susan Glenn Christoph Giebel Program Authorized to Offer Degree: History ©Copyright 2013 Julie Annette Riggs Osborn University of Washington Abstract War, Women, Vietnam: The Mobilization of Female Images, 1954-1978 Julie Annette Riggs Osborn Chair of the Supervisory Committee: William J. Rorabaugh, History This dissertation proceeds with two profoundly interwoven goals in mind: mapping the experience of women in the Vietnam War and evaluating the ways that ideas about women and gender influenced the course of American involvement in Vietnam. I argue that between 1954 and 1978, ideas about women and femininity did crucial work in impelling, sustaining, and later restraining the American mission in Vietnam. This project evaluates literal images such as photographs, film and television footage as well as images evoked by texts in the form of news reports, magazine articles, and fiction, focusing specifically on images that reveal deeply gendered ways of seeing and representing the conflict for Americans. Some of the images I consider include a French nurse known as the Angel of Dien Bien Phu, refugees fleeing for southern Vietnam in 1954, the first lady of the Republic of Vietnam Madame Nhu, and female members of the National Liberation Front. Juxtaposing images of American women, I also focus on the figure of the housewife protesting American atrocities in Vietnam and the use of napalm, and images wrought by American women intellectuals that shifted focus away from the military and toward the larger social and psychological impact of the war.
    [Show full text]
  • The Vietnam Plays 1St Edition Pdf, Epub, Ebook
    THE VIETNAM PLAYS 1ST EDITION PDF, EPUB, EBOOK David Rabe | 9780802196910 | | | | | The Vietnam Plays 1st edition PDF Book First up was the never released on record "If Nobody Loved" for the camp political comedy Flap. At Rogers' shows the song was often clapped along to, or joked around with, but it was meant seriously at the time. Vincent The King's Henchman. See all. In and , there were hundreds of protest marches and gatherings throughout the country. CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list link. For other Americans, opposing the government was considered unpatriotic and treasonous. Add to Watchlist. Payment details. Sort: Best Match. Free shipping. In January , the United States and North Vietnam concluded a final peace agreement, ending open hostilities between the two nations. Learn More - opens in a new window or tab Any international shipping is paid in part to Pitney Bowes Inc. Franklin Library. In March , Johnson made the decision—with solid support from the American public—to send U. Authorized Seller. Completed Items. As he would continue to do in his solo career, Rogers cloaked some mature subject matter with a gentle delivery. Completed Items. Kenny admitted in his book Making It with Music, that he perhaps should not have complained about MGM's poor distribution on a radio show, but despite their mounting problems, New Zealand continued to consider the First Edition as superstars. In an attempt to limit the volume of American casualties, he announced a program called Vietnamization : withdrawing U. Returns Accepted. By the mids, frontman Kenny Rogers had embarked on a solo music career, becoming one of the top-selling country artists of all time.
    [Show full text]
  • Tougaloo During the Presidency of Dr. Adam Daniel Beittel (1960-1964)
    The University of Southern Mississippi The Aquila Digital Community Dissertations Spring 5-2014 A Beacon of Light: Tougaloo During the Presidency of Dr. Adam Daniel Beittel (1960-1964) John Gregory Speed University of Southern Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations Part of the Cultural History Commons, Higher Education Commons, Other History Commons, Political History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Speed, John Gregory, "A Beacon of Light: Tougaloo During the Presidency of Dr. Adam Daniel Beittel (1960-1964)" (2014). Dissertations. 244. https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/244 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by The Aquila Digital Community. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of The Aquila Digital Community. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The University of Southern Mississippi A BEACON OF LIGHT: TOUGALOO DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF DR. ADAM DANIEL BEITTEL (1960-1964) by John Gregory Speed Abstract of a Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2014 ABSTRACT A BEACON OF LIGHT: TOUGALOO DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF DR. ADAM DANIEL BEITTEL (1960-1964) by John Gregory Speed May 2014 This study examines leadership efforts that supported the civil rights movements that came from administrators and professors, students and staff at Tougaloo College between 1960 and 1964. A review of literature reveals that little has been written about the college‘s role in the Civil Rights Movement during this time.
    [Show full text]
  • Air Force Women in the Vietnam War by Jeanne M
    Air Force Women in the Vietnam War By Jeanne M. Holm, Maj. Gen., USAF (Ret) and Sarah P. Wells, Brig. Gen. USAF NC (Ret) At the time of the Vietnam War military women Because women had no military obligation, in the United States Air Force fell into three either legal or implied, all who joined the Air categories:female members of the Air Force Nurse Force during the war were true volunteers in Corps (AFNC) and Bio-medical Science Corps every sense. Most were willing to serve (BSC), all of whom were offlcers. All others, wherever they were needed. But when the first offlcers and en-listed women, were identified as American troops began to deploy to the war in WAF, an acronym (since discarded) that stood for Vietnam, the Air Force had no plans to send its Women in the Air Force. In recognition of the fact military women. It was contemplated that all that all of these women were first and foremost USAF military requirements in SEA would be integral members of the U.S. Air Force, the filled by men, even positions traditionally authors determined that a combined presentation considered “women’s” jobs. This was a curious of their participation in the Vietnam War is decision indeed considering the Army Air appropriate. Corps’ highly successful deployment of thousands of its military women to the Pacific When one recalls the air war in Vietnam, and Southeast Asia Theaters of war during visions of combat pilots and returning World War II. prisoners of war come easily to mind. Rarely do images emerge of the thousands of other When the U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • USHMM Finding
    https://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection SUMMARY: Ben Bagdikian, a well-known journalist who in the 1960s “spent a lot of time in the Deep South” reporting stories on the civil rights movement, talks about his experiences there with two German Jewish refugees who were among the 50 or so teaching at black colleges after the war. Recalling discussions with Ernst Borinski (1901-1983), a sociology professor at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi, Bagdikian describes him as bringing both intellectual discipline and personal experience to black students in the segregated South: “No question he saw what the basic issues were in integration but he also had a sensitive human perception of all things,” and did not demonize those who confronted civil rights activists but saw the possibility for positive changes in behavior and opinion. Brown University later adopted Tougaloo as a sister institution, and recognized Borinski as “a great asset” to the college, Bagdikian said. He also tells a story about another German Jewish refugee professor at Talladega, a black college in Alabama. After a high school student named Brenda was arrested and put in prison, the professor “found a sympathetic official,” told him his own experience under the Nazis, and secured Brenda’s release. He drove to the prison with Bagdikian and Student Non- Violent Coordinating Committee activists James Forman, Bob Moses and Chuck McDew, retrieved Brenda and took her to a SNCC safehouse. Bagdikian, who could not recall the professor’s name, said it “took great guts on this man’s part to help engineer this thing.” Of the broader story of these refugees and their impact, Bagdikian concludes: “At the very least, maybe fundamentally, it’s a compelling human story; these people who had gone through the perils of being anti-Nazi, or being the targets of Nazis, coming here to their country of salvation and imperiling themselves again.
    [Show full text]
  • The United States and the Vietnam War: a Guide to Materials at the British Library
    THE BRITISH LIBRARY THE UNITED STATES AND THE VIETNAM WAR: A GUIDE TO MATERIALS AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY by Jean Kemble THE ECCLES CENTRE FOR AMERICAN STUDIES THE UNITED STATES AND THE VIETNAM WAR Introduction Bibliographies, Indexes, and other Reference Aids Background and the Decision to Intervene The Congressional Role The Executive Role General Roosevelt Truman Eisenhower Kennedy Johnson Nixon Ford Carter Constitutional and International Law The Media Public Opinion Anti-war Protests/Peace Activists Contemporary Analysis Retrospective Analysis Legacy: Domestic Legacy: Foreign Policy Legacy: Cultural Art Film and Television Novels, Short Stories and Drama Poetry Literary Criticism Legacy: Human Vietnamese Refugees and Immigrants POW/MIAs Oral Histories, Memoirs, Diaries, Letters Veterans after the War Introduction It would be difficult to overstate the impact on the United States of the war in Vietnam. Not only did it expose the limits of U.S. military power and destroy the consensus over post-World War II foreign policy, but it acted as a catalyst for enormous social, cultural and political upheavals that still resonate in American society today. This guide is intended as a bibliograhical tool for all those seeking an introduction to the vast literature that has been written on this subject. It covers the reasons behind American intervention in Vietnam, the role of Congress, the Executive and the media, the response of the American public, particularly students, to the escalation of the war, and the war’s legacy upon American politics, culture and foreign policy. It also addresses the experiences of those individuals affected directly by the war: Vietnam veterans and the Indochinese refugees.
    [Show full text]
  • Black Institutions and the Rise of Student Activism In
    SHELTER IN A TIME OF STORM: BLACK COLLEGES AND THE RISE OF STUDENT ACTIVISM IN JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Jelani Manu-Gowon Favors, B.A., M.A. The Ohio State University 2006 Dissertation Committee: Warren Van Tine, Adviser Hasan Kwame Jeffries, Co-Adviser Leslie Alexander William Nelson Jr. Approved by Adviser Graduate Program in History Co-Adviser Graduate Program in History Copyright by Jelani M. Favors ABSTRACT The most underdeveloped area of study concerning the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s is the effect of Black student activism during the explosive decade. The field is currently dominated by two-dimensional studies that define student activism under the banner of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), or the Black Studies campaigns on white college campuses in the latter half of the decade. Assessing student protests merely through this lens yields a narrow view of this generation of activists. One cause of our failure to identify these students is that scholars of the Civil Rights Movement have ignored the very environment in which the majority of student activists lived, learned, socialized, and ultimately revolted. Analyses of Black colleges invariably conclude that they were paternalistic and their curriculums were conformist, if not geared toward assimilation. Students from these all-Black institutions in the South succeeded in their public and private assault against the policies of Jim Crow and at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement they vaulted the struggle for human rights to unprecedented levels.
    [Show full text]
  • Island Blood the Stories of Samoan Vietnam War Veterans
    ISLAND BROTHERS/ ISLAND BLOOD THE STORIES OF SAMOAN VIETNAM WAR VETERANS A portfolio project submitted to the Graduate Division of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in PACIFIC ISLANDS STUDIES April 2012 By Peter L. Akuna Sr. Committee Members Tarcisius T. Kabutaulaka (Chairperson) Julie Walsh Lola Quan Bautista This Project is dedicated to: Cpl. Lane Fatutoa Levi of Fagatogo, American Samoa SP4 Fiatele Taulago Teo of Pago Pago, American Samoa LCPL. Fagatoele, Lokeni of Mapusaga, American Samoa PFC. Benjamin Galu Willis of Leone, American Samoa Whose names are engraved on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall at Arlington, Virginia And to my Pacific Islands brothers and sisters of American Samoa who had served in the Vietnam War 2 Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to the Vietnam Veterans of Samoa who shared their stories with me. It took a lot of courage for them to open their heart and souls and reveal their personal stories and relive horrifying memories of a war that they would rather leave behind in the abyss of their memories. By telling their stories, they have assisted in my endeavor to make known to the world the sacrifices of Pacific Islanders in the United States military. Here, the stories are about Pacific Islanders, more specifically Samoans in the Vietnam War. I thank each and every one of them. Their heartfelt cooperation exceeded my expectations. I also am grateful to Dr. Terence Wesley-Smith, the Director of the Center for Pacific Islands Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, and chair of the Center’s graduate program and members of the graduate committee for accepting me into their program.
    [Show full text]
  • “Serve Yourself and Your Country”: the Wartime and Homecoming Experiences of American Female Military Nurses Who Served in the Vietnam War
    “SERVE YOURSELF AND YOUR COUNTRY”: THE WARTIME AND HOMECOMING EXPERIENCES OF AMERICAN FEMALE MILITARY NURSES WHO SERVED IN THE VIETNAM WAR “SERVE YOURSELF AND YOUR COUNTRY”: THE WARTIME AND HOMECOMING EXPERIENCES OF AMERICAN FEMALE MILITARY NURSES WHO SERVED IN THE VIETNAM WAR By NATASHA MOULTON, B.A., M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University © Copyright by Natasha Moulton, September 2012 McMaster University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (2012) Hamilton, Ontario (History) TITLE: “Serve Yourself and Your Country”: The Wartime and Homecoming Experiences of American Female Military Nurses Who Served in the Vietnam War AUTHOR: Natasha Moulton, B.A. (University of Waterloo), M.A. (University of Waterloo) SUPERVISOR: Professor S. Streeter NUMBER OF PAGES: ix, 298. ii Abstract Between 1964 and 1975, approximately 7,500 to 11,000 American military women served in the Vietnam War. They served in many roles – they worked as air traffic controllers, dieticians, physiotherapists, clerks, and cryptographers – but the bulk of American women who went to Vietnam served as military nurses with the Army, Navy, and Air Force Nurse Corps. This dissertation explores the wartime and homecoming experiences of female nurse veterans whose Vietnam experiences have been largely ignored or minimized by historical accounts of the war. By refashioning the narrative of the war to include women, this study challenges cultural constructions of war as an exclusively male sphere, and in doing so offers a more sophisticated understanding of both men’s and women’s Vietnam service. In Vietnam, American women risked their lives for their country.
    [Show full text]
  • A Re-Examination of Women's Lives in the Vietnam
    Escapism, normality and domesticity in Vietnam: A re-examination of women’s lives in the Vietnam War A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in History, University of Canterbury By Amy Louise Duff Supervised by Peter Field and Katie Pickles University of Canterbury 2018 Contents Introduction 4 Chapter One: Nursing in a warzone 16 Chapter Two: Helmets and Hair Curlers 35 Chapter Three: Cheerleaders in Foxholes 53 Chapter Four: Life finds a Way 71 Conclusion 91 Bibliography 95 Acknowledgements I’d like to thank my supervisors Peter Field and Katie Pickles for their patience and assistance throughout this thesis. Thank you to all my fellow master’s students who suffered along with me. A final thanks to a special friend who stuck through all my challenges and always made sure to make me laugh and supported me when I needed it most. 1 Abstract This thesis explores the experiences of military nurses and Red Cross Supplemental Recreational Activities Overseas (SRAO) volunteers, also known as “Donut Dollies,” who served in Vietnam. By examining both their working and personal lives demonstrate the many ways in which these women distracted themselves from the war. Escapism and the need for normality was a common feeling between these women and has gone unexplored. Historian Heather Marie Stur provides important insight into the roles of nurses and Donut Dollies through the lens of gender studies. The recently created Donut Dollie Detail website holds several fascinating interviews with Donut Dollies. Key memoirs from nurses are written by Lynda Van Devanter, Barbara Hesselman Kautz, and Lou Eisenbrandt.
    [Show full text]