Trading Silk for Khaki: the Women's Army Corps and the Contest Over Soldier Womanhood, 1963-1978

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dc.contributorGrout, Holly
dc.contributorFrederickson, Kari
dc.contributorGiggie, John
dc.contributorDixon Vuic, Kara
dc.contributor.advisorHuebner, Andrew J.
dc.contributor.authorMontgomery, Margaret
dc.contributor.otherUniversity of Alabama Tuscaloosa
dc.date.accessioned2021-11-23T14:34:04Z
dc.date.available2021-11-23T14:34:04Z
dc.date.issued2021
dc.descriptionElectronic Thesis or Dissertationen_US
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation examines how the Women’s Army Corps in its last two decades of existence mobilized postwar American gender norms to protect its existence and garner the approval of the American public. The WAC accomplished this by employing what I call the “WAC ideal.” The WAC ideal was a standard that recruits had to meet in order to enlist, but it was also a culture perpetuated by the Women’s Army Corps. According to the WAC ideal, the typical women within its ranks were white, heterosexual, and feminine. They behaved according to middle class social norms. They were the “girls next door” in the American postwar imagination. The Women’s Army Corps promoted this ideal to the American culture through pageants and recruitment literature. It indoctrinated its ideal through the curriculum design of its basic training. And yet, not all women who served in the Corps met the WAC ideal. African American women and queer women also served along their white counterparts. African American women utilized methods of protest, including mutiny, to have their voices heard about discriminatory practices in the WAC. Women who did not cleanly fit into the normative view of heterosexuality argued they deserved a place in the WAC, and when thwarted and dismissed, sued the Army. These two groups exposed the oppressiveness of the WAC ideal as well as took advantage of its vulnerabilities. The WAC ideal protected some of its soldiers while marginalizing others all in the efforts to hold onto its legitimacy in the American postwar military.en_US
dc.format.mediumelectronic
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.otherhttp://purl.lib.ua.edu/181479
dc.identifier.otheru0015_0000001_0003918
dc.identifier.otherMontgomery_alatus_0004D_14499
dc.identifier.urihttp://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/8150
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Alabama Libraries
dc.relation.hasversionborn digital
dc.relation.ispartofThe University of Alabama Electronic Theses and Dissertations
dc.relation.ispartofThe University of Alabama Libraries Digital Collections
dc.rightsAll rights reserved by the author unless otherwise indicated.en_US
dc.subjectGender
dc.subjectMilitary
dc.subjectWomen's Army Corps
dc.titleTrading Silk for Khaki: the Women's Army Corps and the Contest Over Soldier Womanhood, 1963-1978en_US
dc.typethesis
dc.typetext
etdms.degree.departmentUniversity of Alabama. Department of History
etdms.degree.disciplineAmerican history
etdms.degree.grantorThe University of Alabama
etdms.degree.leveldoctoral
etdms.degree.namePh.D.

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