“There Was Little Time To Think, And No Time To Cry”: Grit, Professionalism, Femininity, And Female American Military Nurses Of World War II

Covers the wartime experiences of the female American military nurses who served in World War II, including the challenges they faced, how they were seen by and represented to other Americans during their service, and how society has remembered their stories. Scholars have written entire books focused completely on American women’s experiences in World War II, but fail to give significant attention to nurses’ experiences. This project counteracts this by adding more scholarship to the historiographical record on these nurses, using firsthand accounts, arguing that these women, despite working in a traditionally gendered field, defied societal expectations for women and proved themselves to be knowledgeable medical professionals. Their contributions impacted American military medicine, the field of nursing, and women’s roles in the United States for centuries. This analysis includes wartime propaganda and popular media about military nurses and women, along with a variety of popular memory sources from the 1950s to 2020 concerning World War II nurses and their legacy in America.