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Our Navy” : Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service at Iowa State Teacher's College, 1942-1945

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Our Navy” : Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service at Iowa State Teacher's College, 1942-1945 University of Northern Iowa UNI ScholarWorks Dissertations and Theses @ UNI Student Work 2015 “Our Navy” : women accepted for voluntary emergency service at Iowa State Teacher's College, 1942-1945 Marissa Krein University of Northern Iowa Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy Copyright ©2015 Marissa Krein Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd Part of the United States History Commons, and the Women's History Commons Recommended Citation Krein, Marissa, "“Our Navy” : women accepted for voluntary emergency service at Iowa State Teacher's College, 1942-1945" (2015). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 163. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/163 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at UNI ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses @ UNI by an authorized administrator of UNI ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Copyright by MARISSA KREIN 2015 All Rights Reserved “OUR NAVY”: WOMEN ACCEPTED FOR VOLUNTARY EMERGENCY SERVICE AT IOWA STATE TEACHER’S COLLEGE, 1942-1945 An Abstract of a Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Marissa Krein University of Northern Iowa July 2015 ABSTRACT During World War II, Iowa State Teacher’s College (now known as University of Northern Iowa) was host to the first indoctrination school and later yeomen school (naval secretaries) of the United States Naval Women’s Reserve or the Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service (WAVES). The first class of 1,500 WAVES arrived at Iowa State Teacher’s College (ISTC) in December 1942. The women endured five to six weeks of an intensive introductory training. In April 1943, the indoctrination school was replaced by a yeomen school. The yeomen school remained in operation until it was closed in April 1945. During its twenty-nine months of operation the school trained 14,000 WAVES. This study serves as a first-time analysis of the WAVES’ experience at ISTC and Cedar Falls, IA through the use of primary sources, oral histories, local press coverage, and photographs. The experiences of these women are best assessed through the study of primary sources, oral histories, local press coverage, and photographs found at the Cedar Falls Historical Society, University of Northern Iowa Special Collections, and Rod Library. These sources illustrate the experience of individual women who trained and served as WAVES at ISTC. This study also complicates the current scholarship on the experience of women in quasi-military organizations in World War II. Scholars have noted that such women had to deal with gender stereotypes of other servicemen, senators, journalists, and their own family. The evidence found in this study suggests that there was at least some public support for women in quasi-military organizations during World War II. “OUR NAVY”: WOMEN ACCEPTED FOR VOLUNTARY EMERGENCY SERVICE AT IOWA STATE TEACHER’S COLLEGE, 1942-1945 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Marissa Krein University of Northern Iowa July 2015 ii This Study by: Marissa Krein Entitled: “Our Navy”: Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service at Iowa State Teacher’s College, 1942-1945. has been approved as meeting the thesis requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts ___________ _____________________________________________________ Date Dr. Barbara Cutter, Chair, Thesis Committee ___________ _____________________________________________________ Date Dr. Leisl Carr Childers, Thesis Committee Member ___________ _____________________________________________________ Date Dr. Donald Shepardson, Thesis Committee Member ___________ _____________________________________________________ Date Dr. April Chatham-Carpenter, Interim Dean, Graduate College iii This thesis is dedicated to my dad, Michael Krein, who unfortunately passed away before I was able to complete it. His never ending love and support pushed me to pursue my dreams. I would not be where I am today without his support. This one is for you, Dad. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my committee chair, Dr. Barbara Cutter. Without her understanding, help, and faith this thesis would have not been possible. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Lesil Carr Childers and Dr. Donald Shepardson, whose assistance and support pushed me through the times when I was struggling to even write a sentence. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Brian Roberts, for his writing of great recommendation letters and his initial push to write my thesis. In addition, I would to thank my family. My mother, Susan Krein, for her bottomless faith in me and dealing with all the ups and downs of the writing process. My grandma, Clarice Brown, and brother, Jonathan Krein, for allowing me to vent all my frustrations to them. My aunt and uncle, Ken and Lisa Bass, whose belief in me was never ending. My aunt and uncle, Kevin and Joanie Claxton, for supporting my family and I after my dad’s death and helping celebrate my successes. Furthermore, I would like to thank my dad’s family. Their support during this last year has helped me finish my thesis and pursue another master degree. I would also like to thank my friend, Chris Kelley, who tirelessly edited my entire thesis. Lastly, I would like to thank my friends, Amanda Wright, Ashley McCusker, Anna Rithiphong, Heidi Demmer, and Jessica Rowan for their encouragement and belief in me. v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1. WHO ARE THE WAVES? ........................................................................15 CHAPTER 2. THE WAVES AT ISTC .............................................................................42 CHAPTER 3. LIFE AS A WAVE AT ISTC .....................................................................66 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................94 REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................96 1 INTRODUCTION In the winter of 1942 and 1943, 3500 women came to small city of Cedar Falls, Iowa. These women were enlisted members of the Women’s Reserve of the United States Navy better known as Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Services (WAVES). Upon arrival at the Cedar Falls Indoctrination School, the women gave up their civilian luxuries and were billeted four to a sparsely furnished room with women from all forty- eight states and two territories. At the school they learned the basics about naval life and were drilled into sleek marching machines. Adjusting to life in the Navy was hard, many of the women experienced sore muscles and bouts of homesickness. Josephine Turner arrived at the indoctrination school in December 1942. She remembered the people of Cedar Falls welcoming the WAVES with open arms and hearts. Over fifty years later she recalled “…. The interest and friendliness extended to me that [Christmas] day and during my time in Cedar Falls was truly heartwarming and I’ll never forget them.”1 The Women’s Reserve Training Station at Iowa State’s Teacher’s College (ISTC) trained women first at the indoctrination school and later at yeomen (naval secretaries) school until April 1945. During its operation, the station and the WAVES were a novelty and attracted local and national publicity.2 However, after the closing of the training station it faded into obscurity, as did the contribution of the WAVES to war effort during World War II. Few monographs focus on the WAVES and their contribution to war effort during World War II, and none tell the story of the WAVES training stations at ISTC. It 1 Josephine Turner, Memoirs of Josephine Turner, Cedar Falls Historical Society, Cedar Falls, IA. 2 Kevin M. Born, WAVES at ISTC: 50th Anniversary Publicity Guide (Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa: Department of Military Science, 1992), 1. 2 is these gaps about the WAVES and Cedar Falls Training Stations in the historiography of women’s participation in quasi-military organizations that started the research for this thesis. This thesis will look at military reports, newspaper articles from local papers, photographs, oral histories, and memoirs of WAVES stationed at the Cedar Falls Training Station to understand the importance of the WAVES during World War II and to tell the story of the Women’s Reserve training station at ISTC. In addition this thesis will complicate the scholarship on the experience of women in quasi-military organizations in World War II. Scholars have noted that such women frequently had to deal with the gender stereotypes of other servicemen, senators, journalists, and their own families. The nation was worried that women in the military would upset the prevailing societal hierarchy. According to Lesia Meyer, many felt that allowing “women into [the] Army [and other military services], even as noncombatants, was to threaten the gender hierarchy that guaranteed only men that status and the power associated with the military service.”3 Despite this well-documented evidence of public disapproval of women in women in the military, my evidence suggests that there was at least some public support for women in quasi-military organizations during World War II. The faculty and students of Iowa
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