For Many, A Forgotten History

After I began researching the WAVES in the course of completing my master’s in history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, I realized that many of my fellow alumnae were unaware of this legacy—even those of us who lived in houses once inhabited by the WAVES.

Read more about that legacy in Learning to ‘Be Navy’

My research began with the WAVES collection in the Smith College Archives. Although the bulk of WAVES documents are kept at the National Archives, the type of material at Smith was instrumental in shaping my approach to this topic; it consists largely of newspapers, speeches, informal letters and ephemera produced by rank and file WAVES. I found similar material at Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library, the Wellesley College Archives and the Naval War College.

I also read memoirs by Winifred Quick Collins and Helen Clifford Gunter and oral histories collected by the U.S. Naval Institute and the Women Veterans Historical Project. They often provided a close perspective on daily life for women in the service.

Using these sources, along with the official memos and statistics collected by the National Archives, I developed a fuller picture of the experiences and significance of the WAVES during this time, as well as their work in the overall war effort.

Summer 2019 Smith Alumni Quarterly