Browse Items (35 total)

Photograph of Gladys (Thomas) Anderson

In addition to uniforms, new recruits were issued everything from nylons to pajamas to eyeglasses. Gladys (Thomas) Anderson, who enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps in June 1944, used red nail polish to make hers look a little less government issue.

Autograph book with Mary McLeod Bethune signature, 1945 (facsimile)
Mamie (Echols) Williams Collection

Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) recruiter 3rd Officer Fern McGee with unidentified WAAC enrollees, Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico.

Women’s Army Corps Lieutenant Dorothea Johnson gives oath of enlistment to Esther Aguilar and Virginia Herrera as WAF (Women in the Air Force) Sergeant Ruth Fikes looks on, Biggs Air Force Base, El Paso, Texas, 1951.
Ruth (Fikes) Fiorillo…

Lieutenant General Nadja West became the first African American appointed Army Surgeon General and the first African American woman to attain three-star general officer rank.

Photo of Marcella Hayes, originally printed in Ebony Magazine in 1980.

Kelly with fellow command sergeants major during her promotion to Women's Army Corps command sergeant major.

Major Margaret E. Bailey became the first African American nurse promoted to lieutenant colonel in the Army Nurse Corps.

Auxiliaries Ruth Wade and Lucille Mayo (left to right) further demonstrate their ability to service trucks as taught them during the processing period at Fort Des Moines and put into practice at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.