WAC Servicewomen in WWII Archive, 1940

WAC Woman Army Corp

Photograph

Women's wartime military mobilization photo archive documenting female military service across Allied wartime culture in the United States and southern France during the 1940s. Official press photographers, commercial postcard publishers, and private snapshot makers record women in uniform within military structures, wartime publicity systems, and informal social settings, while the comic material makes clear that women's enlistment was also processed through satire about masculinization, labor reversal, and altered domestic authority. The August 22, 1944 Army Radiotelephoto press photograph captioned "FRENCH WACS COME HOME" includes helmeted French women carrying rifles and duffel bags as they debark from landing craft "US 38" on the Riviera to join the liberation of their homeland, placing women's military service directly within Allied invasion reporting and wartime news transmission.

Photo archive of 13 silver gelatin and colored real photo postcards, ranging from 10 x 8 inch press photos to smaller 3 x 2.5 inches vernacular photos, United States and southern France, circa 1940s. The grouping joins official press photography, commercially printed comic postcards, and private snapshots: women serving in uniform within military structures, news agencies translating that service into public wartime narrative, and vernacular photographs framing servicewomen through friendship, memory, and off-duty self-presentation. One large press photograph includes a WAC marching unit in tight alignment behind a guidon for a unit attached to a Naval Operating Air Station, the elevated viewpoint emphasizing drill, uniformity, and command structure rather than individual identity. The Radiotelephoto print retains its typed verso caption identifying French WACs coming ashore in southern France. Four color comic postcards published by Beals in Des Moines turn women's enlistment into wartime humor through slogans including "WE'RE GIVING 'EM A BIG WAAC . . . ," "I'M BRINGING HOME THE BACON!," "I'M GETTING A BIG BANG OUT OF THIS ARMY LIFE," and "MY HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED." The most pointed of these, "I'M BRINGING HOME THE BACON!," has a uniformed woman dragging a defeated male figure on a rope, recasting military service as a comic transfer of masculine power and economic authority to women. "MY HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED" extends that logic by imagining a man in an apron cooking and sweeping at home, making domestic reversal itself the joke. The remaining cards similarly convert women's service into exaggerated spectacle through a rolling-pin attack on a caricatured Axis figure and a smiling servicewoman posed between oversized cannons. Seven small vernacular snapshots shift to individualized presence: one is signed "Love Sherry," two versos identify "Hazel," one verso reads "Golden Gate Park," and the images include women in uniform seated on an urban balustrade, standing along city streets, posed in landscaped parks, visiting a pagoda-like garden site, and appearing together outdoors in a paired portrait.

Women's military service during World War II expanded through the WAAC, WAC, and related Allied formations, while press agencies, commercial print culture, and snapshot photography assigned that service different public meanings; this archive preserves those overlapping channels in a single grouping. The postcards register wartime unease and fascination around women entering socially masculine roles, turning military participation into jokes about strength, breadwinning, authority, and domestic displacement. Minor corner and edge wear to the larger photographs, one crease and caption wear to the Radiotelephoto print, light rubbing and handling wear to the postcards, and general wear, curling, and minor soiling to the vernacular snapshots; overall very good condition. The grouping preserves women's wartime military presence as it moved between official documentation, commercial gender satire, and private snapshot culture.

Item #23195

Price: $885.00