Browse Items (35 total)

Navy nurse Joan Bynum became the first African American woman promoted to captain.

Lieutenant (junior grade) Harriet Ida Pickens, left, and Ensign Frances Wills, the first African-American WAVE officers to be commissioned. They were members of the final graduating class at the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School (WR), Northampton,…

Lt. Florie E. Gant...tends a patient at a prisoner-of war hospital somewhere in England.

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.

Born into a military family, Michelle Howard graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1982, where she was one of only seven African American women. During Operation Desert Storm (1990-1991), she served aboard the USS "Mount Hood" as chief…

Lillian Smith (right) congratulating Mrs. Mabel Keaton Staupers (left), winner of the 36th Springarn medal for outstanding work in the integration of African American nurses into the American nursing profession, in Atlanta.

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…

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

Extract of Headquarters 6th Army Special Orders 185, dated 22 September 1952, with roster of women officers described by race, (Cau) for Caucasian or White and (Neg) for Negro or Black/African American.

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.