American women in World War I

This article is about the role of American women in World War I.

Military

During the course of the war, 21,498 U.S. Army nurses (military nurses were all women then) served in military hospitals in the United States and overseas. Eighteen African-American Army nurses served stateside caring for German prisoners of war (POWs) and African-American soldiers; after the Armistice, Nov. 11, 1918, they entered the Army Nurse Corps and cared for people. They were assigned to Camp Grant, IL, and Camp Sherman, OH, and lived in segregated quarters while caring for German POWs and black soldiers. African-American women also served in World War I as U.S. Yeomen (F). Of the 11,274 U.S. Yeomen (F) who served from 1917-1921, 14 were black. The first American women enlisted into the regular armed forces were 13,000 women admitted into active duty in the Navy and Marines during World War I, and a much smaller number admitted into the Coast Guard. The Yeoman (F) recruits and women Marines primarily served in clerical positions. They received the same benefits and responsibilities as men, including identical pay (US$28.75 per month), and were treated as veterans after the war. These women were quickly demobilized when hostilities ceased, and aside from the Nurse Corps the soldiery became once again exclusively male.

The U.S. Army recruited and trained 233 female bilingual telephone operators to work at switchboards near the front in France and sent 50 skilled female stenographers to France to work with the Quartermaster Corps. The U.S. Navy enlisted 11,880 women as Yeomen (F) to serve stateside in shore billets and release sailors for sea duty. More than 1,476 U.S. Navy nurses served in military hospitals stateside and overseas. The U.S. Marine Corps enlisted 305 female Marine Reservists (F) to "free men to fight" by filling positions such as clerks and telephone operators on the home front. More than 400 U.S. military nurses died in the line of duty during World War I. The vast majority of these women died from a highly contagious form of influenza known as the "Spanish Flu," which swept through crowded military camps and hospitals and ports of embarkation.

On 19 March 1917, the U.S. Navy authorizes the enlistment of women. Designated as "Yeoman (F)," they unofficially become known as "Yeomanettes.” The U.S. Navy enlists 11,880 women as Yeomen (F), to serve in shore billets and release sailors for sea duty. On 21 March 1917, YNC Loretta Perfectus Walsh becomes the first female Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy. More than 1,476 U.S. Navy nurses serve in military hospitals. The U.S. Marine Corps enlists 305 female Marine Reservists (F) to "free men to fight" by filling positions (such as clerks and telephone operators) on the home front. In 1918, Pvt. Opha May Johnson becomes the first woman to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. More than 400 U.S. military nurses die in the line of duty during World War I, the vast majority from the pandemic Spanish Flu. In 1918, twin sisters Genevieve and Lucille Baker of the Naval Coastal Defense Reserve become the first uniformed women to serve in the U.S. Coast Guard. At the time of the armistice on November 11, 1918 there are 11,275 Yeomanettes in naval service, with some 300 female Marines in the Marine Corps. The women, "no longer needed", are asked to resign. The final pass in review down Pennsylvania Avenue is in July. The U.S. Naval Reserve Act of 1916 permits the enlistment of qualified "persons" for service. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels asks, "Is there any law that says a Yeoman must be a man?" and is told there is not.

Prominent women

• 1917: Loretta Perfectus Walsh became the first active-duty U.S. Navy woman, and the first woman to serve in any of the U.S. armed forces in a non-nurse occupation on enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve on March 17, 1917. Walsh subsequently became the first woman U.S. Navy petty officer when she was sworn in as Chief Yeoman on March 21, 1917.
• 1917: In 1917 World War I Army nurses Edith Ayres and Helen Wood (nurses held no rank during World War I)became the first female members of the U.S. military killed in the line of duty. They were killed on May 20, 1917, while with Base Hospital #12 aboard the USS Mongolia en route to France. The ship’s crew fired the deck guns during a practice drill, and one of the guns exploded, spewing shell fragments across the deck and killing Nurse Ayres and her friend Nurse Helen Wood.
• May 30, 1918: Frances Gulick was an US Y.M.C.A. welfare worker who was awarded a United States Army citation for valor and courage on the field during the aerial bombardment of Varmaise, Oise, France.
• August 13, 1918: Opha May Johnson became the first woman to enlist in the United States Marine Corps as part of the United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve.
• 1918: Twin sisters Genevieve and Lucille Baker of the Naval Coastal Defense Reserve became the first uniformed women to serve in the U.S. Coast Guard.
• 2007: The last U.S. female veteran of World War I died, a former yeoman (F) named Charlotte Winters.

See also

• United States home front during World War I

Further reading

• Greenwald, Maurine W. Women, War, and Work: The Impact of World War I on Women Workers in the United States (1990) ISBN 0313213550
• Jensen, Kimberly. Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008. ISBN 9780252032370