26. 1900-1930 Women's Lives in Collision
Between 1900 and 1930 the world was at war. Between the Russo-Japanese War and World War I, every part of the world was effected. Women at home or on the front played a vital role in fighting for peace, sustaining the war effort, and rebuilding. For women in Russia, the wars resulted in a revolution that promised much and gave them little. In Turkey, the war brought reforms that forced modernization of women's lives at a surface level. World War I opened a box that women were not going back into.
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Draw your own conclusions
Learn how to teach with inquiry.
Many of these lesson plans were sponsored in part by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Eastern Region Program, coordinated by Waynesburg University, the History and Social Studies Education Faculty at Plymouth State University, and the Patrons of the Remedial Herstory Project. |
Why did women join the WWI war effort?
In this inquiry, students explore women's motivations to participate in the WWI effort, looking closely at recruitment posters as well as the words of women service members themselves. ![]()
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Was Nazism anti-women?
Students will examine sources from historians and primary sources who discuss women in Nazi Germany before and during the war. How do they describe Nazi policies? How did Hitler and the Nazi's treat women? Helen Stephens, one of the sources included gave an oral history. You can listen or read the interview of her experience as an Olympian and witness to Nazi Germany here. ![]()
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Lesson Plans from Other Organizations
- This website, Women in World History has primary source based lesson plans on women's history in a whole range of topics. Some are free while others have a cost.
- The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media has produced recommendations for teaching women's history with primary sources and provided a collection of sources for world history. Check them out!
- The Stanford History Education Group has a number of lesson plans about women in World History.
nina macdonald: sing a song of wartime
Sing a song of War-Time,
Soldiers marching by,
Crowds of people standing,
Waving them 'Good-bye'.
When the crowds are over,
Home we go to tea,
Bread and margarine to eat,
War economy!
... Mummie does the house-work,
Can't get any maid,
Gone to make munitions,
'Cause they're better paid,
Nurse is always busy,
Never time to play,
Sewing shirts for soldiers,
Nearly ev'ry day.
Ev'ry body's doing Something for the War,
Girls are doing things They've never done before,
Go as 'bus conductors,
Drive a car or van,
All the world is topsy-turvy
Since the War began.
Nina MacDonald, “Sing a Song of War-Time,” https://allpoetry.com/poem/8620641-Sing-ASong-of-War-Time-by-Nina-Macdonald.
Questions:
Soldiers marching by,
Crowds of people standing,
Waving them 'Good-bye'.
When the crowds are over,
Home we go to tea,
Bread and margarine to eat,
War economy!
... Mummie does the house-work,
Can't get any maid,
Gone to make munitions,
'Cause they're better paid,
Nurse is always busy,
Never time to play,
Sewing shirts for soldiers,
Nearly ev'ry day.
Ev'ry body's doing Something for the War,
Girls are doing things They've never done before,
Go as 'bus conductors,
Drive a car or van,
All the world is topsy-turvy
Since the War began.
Nina MacDonald, “Sing a Song of War-Time,” https://allpoetry.com/poem/8620641-Sing-ASong-of-War-Time-by-Nina-Macdonald.
Questions:
- What were some of the things women were doing to support World War I?
- According to this poem, why were women supporting the WWI effort?
FRANCES PERKINS: SPEECH
Frances Perkins was the first woman ever appointed to the President’s cabinet in US history. She was appointed Secretary of Labor, which was especially shocking considering the employment crisis that came along with the Great Depression. Perkins was one of the main reasons that the Social Security Administration was sustained through economic hardship and below is a speech regarding its success.
I must say I feel very much at home even though I just arrived. I feel at home because the Social Security Administration has, ever since it was established, been a sort of special concern of mine, although by the chicanery of politics it was not placed in the Department of Labor. I, of course, thought it should be.
As a matter of fact, one of the reasons I feel so deeply involved with the Social Security Administration is that even though it was not in the Department of Labor when it was first established, the Department of Labor had to carry it the way you carry a dependent child. It didn't have any money. That was so unfortunate. And we didn't have very much either. but we did, however, was to provide the Social Security Administration with offices in the Department of Labor Building. I even gave to the Chairman of the Social Security Board (as it was called in those days) the large, handsome, red-upholstered, high-back chair out of my own office so that he could look like a king. I didn't have to keep on looking like a queen. I found the chair somewhat uncomfortable so I made the sacrifice.
The whole Department did the same kind of thing. We gave them our best statisticians. We gave them the best of everything including Arthur Altmeyer, who was the Assistant Secretary of Labor and my real right hand, and without whom I felt very lost. It showed that we put our best people in there on loan, and we carried it for the first year and made it look like a going concern. In fact, it became a going concern in an extraordinarily short time.
When I asked what I was to speak about today, the suggestion was made I talk about the roots, or beginnings, of the Social Security Act. So I have thought about the roots. I suppose the roots--the idea that we ought to have a systematic method of taking care of the material needs of the aged--really springs from that deep well of charitableness which resides in the American people, and the efforts and the struggles of charity workers and social workers to handle the problems of people who were growing old and had no adequate means of support. Out of this impulse to be kind to the poor sprang, I suppose, a mulling of ideas about social insurance for the aged. But those people who were doing it didn't know that it was social insurance. They just kept thinking that something definite, something that people could look forward to, would be a great asset and a great assistance to them in their work. De Tocqueville, in his memoirs of his visit to America, mentioned what he thought was a unique state of mind of the American people: That they were so honestly concerned about their poor and did so much for them personally. It was not an organization; it was not a national action; it was not a State action; it was not Government. It was a personal action that De Tocqueville mentioned as being characteristic of the American people. They were so generous, so kind, so charitably disposed.
Well, I don't know anything about the times in which De Tocqueville visited America. That was long ago, and I know little about the psychological state of mind of the people of this country at that time. But I do know that at the time I came into the field of social work, these feelings were real. It was surprising what we were able to do through volunteer work--by the volunteer support of organizations who help the poor; and particularly the aged poor. Just look over the country At the old ladies' homes and the old couples' homes and the old members' homes that sprang up because aged people had necessities that had to be met. In each case, somebody got money together and established these homes. And life went on for the aged, after a fashion, as recipients of a kind of charity. These things have been going on for years.
Perkins, Frances. Speech. The Roots of Social Security. October 1963. https://www.ssa.gov/history/perkins5.html.
Questions:
I must say I feel very much at home even though I just arrived. I feel at home because the Social Security Administration has, ever since it was established, been a sort of special concern of mine, although by the chicanery of politics it was not placed in the Department of Labor. I, of course, thought it should be.
As a matter of fact, one of the reasons I feel so deeply involved with the Social Security Administration is that even though it was not in the Department of Labor when it was first established, the Department of Labor had to carry it the way you carry a dependent child. It didn't have any money. That was so unfortunate. And we didn't have very much either. but we did, however, was to provide the Social Security Administration with offices in the Department of Labor Building. I even gave to the Chairman of the Social Security Board (as it was called in those days) the large, handsome, red-upholstered, high-back chair out of my own office so that he could look like a king. I didn't have to keep on looking like a queen. I found the chair somewhat uncomfortable so I made the sacrifice.
The whole Department did the same kind of thing. We gave them our best statisticians. We gave them the best of everything including Arthur Altmeyer, who was the Assistant Secretary of Labor and my real right hand, and without whom I felt very lost. It showed that we put our best people in there on loan, and we carried it for the first year and made it look like a going concern. In fact, it became a going concern in an extraordinarily short time.
When I asked what I was to speak about today, the suggestion was made I talk about the roots, or beginnings, of the Social Security Act. So I have thought about the roots. I suppose the roots--the idea that we ought to have a systematic method of taking care of the material needs of the aged--really springs from that deep well of charitableness which resides in the American people, and the efforts and the struggles of charity workers and social workers to handle the problems of people who were growing old and had no adequate means of support. Out of this impulse to be kind to the poor sprang, I suppose, a mulling of ideas about social insurance for the aged. But those people who were doing it didn't know that it was social insurance. They just kept thinking that something definite, something that people could look forward to, would be a great asset and a great assistance to them in their work. De Tocqueville, in his memoirs of his visit to America, mentioned what he thought was a unique state of mind of the American people: That they were so honestly concerned about their poor and did so much for them personally. It was not an organization; it was not a national action; it was not a State action; it was not Government. It was a personal action that De Tocqueville mentioned as being characteristic of the American people. They were so generous, so kind, so charitably disposed.
Well, I don't know anything about the times in which De Tocqueville visited America. That was long ago, and I know little about the psychological state of mind of the people of this country at that time. But I do know that at the time I came into the field of social work, these feelings were real. It was surprising what we were able to do through volunteer work--by the volunteer support of organizations who help the poor; and particularly the aged poor. Just look over the country At the old ladies' homes and the old couples' homes and the old members' homes that sprang up because aged people had necessities that had to be met. In each case, somebody got money together and established these homes. And life went on for the aged, after a fashion, as recipients of a kind of charity. These things have been going on for years.
Perkins, Frances. Speech. The Roots of Social Security. October 1963. https://www.ssa.gov/history/perkins5.html.
Questions:
- What role does Frances Perkins take credit for in the founding and continuation of the administration?
- What does Perkins view the role of the Administration to be?
HELEN STEPHENS: INTERVIEW
I had read everything I could about Adolf Hitler and I had read his book. And I felt sure I was going to meet him. The Ouija Board said I would. [W]hen we were in Germany, why we had English speaking, they called them guides, assigned to each Olympic Team. For instance, the track team had several girls assigned to them through the duration of our stay. They were sort of “hostesses” for us. They would show us about. They could speak excellent English and through several of these girls who let their hair down, they were about our age, 18, 19, 20, and they began to tell us some of the terrible things that were happening over there. I had a friend from Poland who was going to school at the University of Berlin at that time too, and I went out there and met her. And she introduced me to an awful lot of people out there of course, teachers, professors, students, and I got the distinct impression that it was not only the Jews who were being discriminated against in Germany at that time, but women in general, in the sense that Hitler did not see any reason for women to receive any higher education and that their greatest service to the fatherland was to have babies and more babies.
…He didn’t care where they were, except to produce babies. And as I understood it from these girls, any German officer, I don’t know whether that included soldiers or not, but any German officer had the right and the privilege upon seeing any German girl that he took a fancy to – to invite her to his quarters and to get her pregnant – and that was a high honor for the girl and she would receive a medal and 500 dollars. Well, these girls… They were terrified.
… Well, after I had won my 100 meter race, I guess it was maybe 10 minutes after, I was still perspiring heavily. A German messenger came up, and I was standing there with Dee Boeckmann and he asked if, in English, if I would accompany him up to Hitler’s box that the Fuhrer wanted to meet me. And I had previously made plans to up and speak over CBS radio back to America and Dee and I were in the process of going up there. We were just getting ready to leave and she spoke up and told him that, you know, we couldn’t do it at this time, but after the broadcast we’d be available. He said, “I can’t go back and tell the Fuhrer that you won’t come. He’ll shoot me.” And we said, “Ah, he won’t shoot you, there are too many people around.” So he went back, reluctantly looking over his shoulder. But when we came out of that broadcast up at the top of the stadium, he was there to take us down, and Dee went with me. We were ushered into a room behind Hitler’s box and it was a long room and we hadn’t been there but a few seconds and the door swung open at the other end and about 20 Black Shirt guards came in and arrayed themselves around this room and pulled their German Lugers, loosened their holster, to see if their gun would come out easily, and they all stood stiff at attention and we looked at each other and wondered, “What is going on here?” Then Hitler came in… He was accompanied by his interpreter and strode forward and gave me a sloppy Nazi salute and I didn’t return it and I gave him my ‘ole “Missouri” handshake I always say. And he immediately came up and began to pinch me and squeeze me and pinch my fanny and all that stuff. I was kind of shocked, you know, the leader doing that.
…And he was asking me what I thought of Germany and what I thought of the Olympics and so forth. I was giving him affirmative answers and, I asked him if he would give me his autograph. He started to write it, then a flash bulb went off and he jumped about three feet up, straight up in the air and began to spout German and it was a little photographer, a fellow about five feet tall, a little guy and he began to kick him and he had these gloves draped over, his kid gloves draped over his arm, and he took those off and hit him across the face (MAKES SLAPPING NOISES ABOUT FIVE TIMES) and he motioned to those guards to come and get him – you know sick him and three or four of them came forward and one of them grabbed the guy’s camera and he picked it up and bashed it on the floor and glass flew, you know the lens I guess breaking.
… And then they began to kick that around in there like soccer, (MAKES FAST SLAPPING SOUNDS FIVE TIMES) you know, in that room, kicking that thing all over the place. And these four guys grabbed this little guy and carried him – his arms and legs stretched out – to the door and then they went, “One, two, three,” and threw him out against the hall and he scooted right down the hall and then they kicked his camera out after him. Then Hitler just returned and said, “How would you like to spend a weekend with me in Berchtesgaden?” Dee spoke up right away and said, “She’s in training. She’s got a track meet here.”… and after a few more squeezes and he said, “I was a pure Aryan type and I should have been running for Germany. I should be a German.” Then he shook hands and he left.
Stephens, Helen. “Helen Stephens Oral History.” Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum. Last modified September 29, 1984. https://stlholocaustmuseum.org/oral-history/helen-stephens/
Questions:
…He didn’t care where they were, except to produce babies. And as I understood it from these girls, any German officer, I don’t know whether that included soldiers or not, but any German officer had the right and the privilege upon seeing any German girl that he took a fancy to – to invite her to his quarters and to get her pregnant – and that was a high honor for the girl and she would receive a medal and 500 dollars. Well, these girls… They were terrified.
… Well, after I had won my 100 meter race, I guess it was maybe 10 minutes after, I was still perspiring heavily. A German messenger came up, and I was standing there with Dee Boeckmann and he asked if, in English, if I would accompany him up to Hitler’s box that the Fuhrer wanted to meet me. And I had previously made plans to up and speak over CBS radio back to America and Dee and I were in the process of going up there. We were just getting ready to leave and she spoke up and told him that, you know, we couldn’t do it at this time, but after the broadcast we’d be available. He said, “I can’t go back and tell the Fuhrer that you won’t come. He’ll shoot me.” And we said, “Ah, he won’t shoot you, there are too many people around.” So he went back, reluctantly looking over his shoulder. But when we came out of that broadcast up at the top of the stadium, he was there to take us down, and Dee went with me. We were ushered into a room behind Hitler’s box and it was a long room and we hadn’t been there but a few seconds and the door swung open at the other end and about 20 Black Shirt guards came in and arrayed themselves around this room and pulled their German Lugers, loosened their holster, to see if their gun would come out easily, and they all stood stiff at attention and we looked at each other and wondered, “What is going on here?” Then Hitler came in… He was accompanied by his interpreter and strode forward and gave me a sloppy Nazi salute and I didn’t return it and I gave him my ‘ole “Missouri” handshake I always say. And he immediately came up and began to pinch me and squeeze me and pinch my fanny and all that stuff. I was kind of shocked, you know, the leader doing that.
…And he was asking me what I thought of Germany and what I thought of the Olympics and so forth. I was giving him affirmative answers and, I asked him if he would give me his autograph. He started to write it, then a flash bulb went off and he jumped about three feet up, straight up in the air and began to spout German and it was a little photographer, a fellow about five feet tall, a little guy and he began to kick him and he had these gloves draped over, his kid gloves draped over his arm, and he took those off and hit him across the face (MAKES SLAPPING NOISES ABOUT FIVE TIMES) and he motioned to those guards to come and get him – you know sick him and three or four of them came forward and one of them grabbed the guy’s camera and he picked it up and bashed it on the floor and glass flew, you know the lens I guess breaking.
… And then they began to kick that around in there like soccer, (MAKES FAST SLAPPING SOUNDS FIVE TIMES) you know, in that room, kicking that thing all over the place. And these four guys grabbed this little guy and carried him – his arms and legs stretched out – to the door and then they went, “One, two, three,” and threw him out against the hall and he scooted right down the hall and then they kicked his camera out after him. Then Hitler just returned and said, “How would you like to spend a weekend with me in Berchtesgaden?” Dee spoke up right away and said, “She’s in training. She’s got a track meet here.”… and after a few more squeezes and he said, “I was a pure Aryan type and I should have been running for Germany. I should be a German.” Then he shook hands and he left.
Stephens, Helen. “Helen Stephens Oral History.” Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum. Last modified September 29, 1984. https://stlholocaustmuseum.org/oral-history/helen-stephens/
Questions:
- Summarize this source?
- How did Hitler treat women as described by this excerpt?
Remedial Herstory Editors. "26. 1900-1930 WOMEN'S LIVES IN COLLISION." The Remedial Herstory Project. July 12, 2023. www.remedialherstory.com.
Primary AUTHOR: |
Jacqui Nelson and Kelsie Brook Eckert
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Primary Reviewer |
Dr. Alicia Gutierrez-Romine
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Consulting Team |
Editors |
Kelsie Brook Eckert, Project Director
Coordinator of Social Studies Education at Plymouth State University Dr. Nancy Locklin-Sofer, Consultant Professor of History at Maryville College. Chloe Gardner, Consultant PhD Candidate in Religious Studies at Edinburgh University Dr. Whitney Howarth, Consultant Former Professor of History at Plymouth State University Jacqui Nelson, Consultant Teaching Lecturer of Military History at Plymouth State University Maria Concepcion Marquez Sandoval PhD Candidate in History at Arizona University |
Amy Flanders
Humanities Teacher, Moultonborough Academy ReviewersAncient:
Dr. Kristin Heineman Professor of History at Colorado State University Dr. Bonnie Rock-McCutcheon Professor of History at Wilson College Sarah Stone PhD Candidate in Religious Studies at Edinburgh University Medieval: Dr. Katherine Koh Professor of History at La Sierra University Dr. Jonathan Couser Professor of History at Plymouth State University Dr. Shahla Haeri Professor of History at Boston University Lauren Cole PhD Candidate in History at Northwestern University |
Women Heroes of World War I brings to life the brave exploits of 16 women from around the world who served their countries at a time when most women didn’t even have the right to vote. These and other suspense-filled stories of daring girls and women from around the world are told through fast-paced narrative, dialogue, direct quotes, and document and diary excerpts.
Telling the stories of a diverse group of women, including African Americans, dissidents, pacifists, reformers, and industrial workers, Dumenil analyzes both the roadblocks and opportunities they faced. She richly explores the ways in which women helped the United States mobilize for the largest military endeavor in the nation's history. Dumenil shows how women activists staked their claim to loyal citizenship by framing their war work as home-front volunteers, overseas nurses, factory laborers, and support personnel as "the second line of defense". But in assessing the impact of these contributions on traditional gender roles, Dumenil finds that portrayals of these new modern women did not always match with real and enduring change.
In 1914 the world changed forever. When World War One broke out and a generation of men went off to fight, best-selling author and From Our Own Correspondent presenter Kate Adie shows how women emerged from the shadows of their domestic lives.
Now a visible force in public life, they began to take up essential roles - from transport to policing, munitions to sport, entertainment, even politics. They had finally become citizens, a recognised part of the war machine, acquiring their own rights and often independent incomes. Crossed Currents is the first history of women in the U.S. Navy. Since the World War I service of Yeoman (F) Loretta Perfectus Walsh - the first U.S. servicewoman not a nurse - through the Gulf War and the recent Tailhook scandal, women have struggled for acceptance within the U.S. Navy. This book tells a fascinating story of two currents crossing and recrossing, sometimes conflicting, sometimes converging.
Women have participated in war throughout history, but their experience in Russia during the First World War was truly exceptional. Between the war's beginning and the October Revolution of 1917, approximately 6,000 women answered their country's call as the army was faced with insubordination and desertion in the ranks while the provisional government prepared for a new offensive. These courageous women became media stars throughout Europe and America, but were brushed aside by Soviet chroniclers and until now have been largely neglected by history.
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Approximately 150,000 African-American soldiers, officers and men went to France to serve in WWI. Alongside them were thousands of African-American women who served in the various volunteer relief organizations like the Red Cross and the Y.M.C.A.
Addie Hunton and Kathryn Johnson were two of the women who served. With keen observation and intelligence, they tell the story of what it was like to be overseas "fighting for democracy" with only a glimmer of hope of achieving it back home after the war. They relate the soldiers' stories as well as their own excitement at their new experiences in Europe. On August 1, 1914, as the Great War erupted in Europe and financial and physical resources were realigned toward the war effort, some 120,000 American travelers scattered across the Continent suddenly found themselves in the midst of a vast warzone without means of escape. Among the stranded Americans was twenty-five-year-old Nancy Johnson, the daughter of influential U.S. Congressman Ben Johnson of Kentucky. Using Nancy Johnson's letters and photographs, her granddaughter Mary W. Schaller recounts the harrowing chronicle of Johnson's flight from war-torn Europe.
After President Woodrow Wilson suffered a paralyzing stroke in the fall of 1919, his wife, First Lady Edith Wilson, began to handle the day-to-day responsibilities of the chief executive. Mrs. Wilson had had little formal education and had only been married to President Wilson for four years, yet in the tenuous peace following the end of World War I, she dedicated herself to managing the office of the president, reading all correspondence intended for her bedridden husband. Though her Oval Office authority was acknowledged in Washington circles at the time - one senator called her "the presidentress who had fulfilled the dream of suffragettes by changing her title from First Lady to Acting First Man" - her legacy as the first woman president is now largely forgotten.
Yashka is the autobiography of Maria Botchkareva, a young Russian woman who bravely took up arms first against the Germans in World War One, and then opposed the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution of 1917. When war broke out in 1914, she applied to join as a soldier - facing verbal abuse and sexual harassment from the outset, she nevertheless took to military life with eagerness and courage. The soldiers nicknamed her 'Yashka', and a measure of respect was slowly gained as she demonstrated great bravery.
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In No Man's Land, Wendy Moore illuminates this turbulent moment of global war and pandemic when women were, for the first time, allowed to operate on men. Their fortitude and brilliance serve as powerful reminders of what women can achieve against all odds.
How did women contribute to the French Army in the World Wars? Drawing on myriad sources, historian Andrew Orr examines the roles and value of the many French women who have been overlooked by historians—those who worked as civilians supporting the military.
In 1916, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the U.S. government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code-breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the "Adam and Eve" of the NSA, Elizebeth’s story, incredibly, has never been told.
Accompany Scottish novelist Sarah Macnaughtan as she volunteers alongside British humanitarian groups to alleviate the suffering in war-torn lands. A daring and spirited woman, Sarah encounters many people caught up in the mayhem – thrillseekers, aristocrats, refugees, diplomats, royalty and ordinary citizens.
The centenary of the First World War in 2014-18 offers an opportunity to reflect upon the role of gender history in shaping our understanding of this pivotal international event. From the moment of its outbreak, the gendered experiences of the war have been seen by contemporary observers and postwar commentators and scholars as being especially significant for shaping how the war can and must be understood. The negotiating of ideas about gender by women and men across vast reaches of the globe characterizes this modern, instrumental conflict.
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May, 1917. Ginger Whitman left a life of wealth and privilege in England to train as a battlefield nurse and serve in the Great War. Working on the brutal frontlines in Palestine, she finds a wounded soldier hiding in her camp. The soldier claims to carry intelligence unmasking a secret plot against the British - and that traitors within British intelligence are searching for him. Desperate and dying, the soldier entrusts a coded message to her care.
December 1917. As World War I rages in Europe, twenty-four-year-old Ruby Wagner, the jewel in a prominent Philadelphia family, prepares for her upcoming wedding to a society scion. Like her life so far, it’s all been carefully arranged. But when her beloved older brother is killed in combat, Ruby follows her heart and answers the Army Signal Corps’ call for women operators to help overseas.
Egypt, 1917: British nurse Ginger Whitman thought she escaped the intrigue that devastated her family and threatened her life on the desert sands of WWI Palestine. But when she’s drafted into an investigation for the Cairo Intelligence Department, she uncovers forces at work to destroy the man she loves: intelligence officer Noah Benson.
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Following the outbreak of World War I, Sarah learned that her brother Aaron had formed Nili, an anti-Turkish spy ring, to aid the British in their war against the Ottomans. Sarah, who had witnessed the atrocities of the Armenian genocide by the Turks, believed that only the defeat of the Ottoman Empire could save the Palestinian Jews from a similar fate. Sarah joined Nili, eventually rising to become the organization's leader. Operating behind enemy lines, she and her spies furnished vital information to British intelligence in Cairo about the Turkish military forces until she was caught and tortured by the Turks in the fall of 1917. The Woman Who Fought an Empire, set at the birth of the modern Middle East, rebukes the Hollywood stereotype of women spies as femme fatales and is both an espionage thriller and a Joan of Arc tale.
In 1917, after Arlene Favier’s home burns to the ground, taking her father with it, she must find a way to support her mother and younger brother. If she doesn’t succeed, they will all be impoverished. Job opportunities are scarce, but then a daring possibility arises: the American Women’s Hospital needs ambulance drivers to join a trailblazing, all-female team of doctors and nurses bound for war-torn France.
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The Steward family eagerly prepares for the wedding of their daughter Hettie to Geoffrey Bartlette. The event forever binds them to the Bartlettes who have been their friends for decades. When the Great War explodes, Hettie and her brother, Freddie, join the Canadian Army Medical Corps. This decision is met with resistance and disapproval, causing a rift in the siblings’ relationship with their parents. As the war rages on, a once stable friendship is tested, two daughters’ marriages are in tatters, and the scourge of influenza sweeps through the civilian population. Will the Stewards bend under pressure?
In 1909, Clementine steps off a train with her new husband, Winston. An angry woman emerges from the crowd to attack, shoving him in the direction of an oncoming train. Just before he stumbles, Clementine grabs him by his suit jacket. This will not be the last time Clementine Churchill will save her husband. Lady Clementine is the ferocious story of the ambitious woman beside Winston Churchill, the story of a partner who did not flinch through the sweeping darkness of war, and who would not surrender to expectations or to enemies.
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bibliography
Strayer, R. and Nelson, E., Ways Of The World. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016.