Women’s Army Corps Egypt Service Album, 130 Photographs with Identified Individuals and Captions, 1946 to 1947

WAC Photo Album

Photograph

Large Women’s Army Corps photo album depicting the overseas enlistment of an American servicewoman stationed in Egypt during the transition from wartime operations to postwar occupation, 1946 to 1947. Pictured in combat training with rifles, at leisure, among identified companions, and both wartime facilities and tourist institutions, the album records the WAC servicewoman "Alma" serving abroad with uncommon continuity. The photographs document troop transport, military facilities, friendships, archaeological excursions, and encounters with Egyptian civilian life. The album also documents the conditions in Giza, Egypt and abroad, one photograph captioned “Prisoners working in chains. Nile Valley. Egypt. Feb. 1946” preserves a stark record of Egyptian penal labor within an album otherwise centered on 'Women's military service, travel, and postwar life.

Photo album of approximately 130 silver gelatin photographs, ranging from approximately 3 x 5 to 6 x 8 inches, many in Egypt with additional views of the Atlantic crossing, Persia, and the United States, 1946 to 1947. Most photographs have captions, identifying or partially identifying 12 individuals and 17 distinct locations with dates scattered throughout. The album begins with pre-departure images in Long Beach, California, followed by the inscription "Myself aboard U.S.A.T. Thomas H. Barry. April '46" and "One cold day in the Atlantic. April 1946," documenting the voyage overseas. The album follows the creator through Heliopolis, Cairo, Payne Field, Camp Huckstep, the American Red Cross Club AMET, N.A.A.F.I., Giza, Memphis, Alexandria, the Nile Barrage, Wadi Saloum, and Abadan, Persia. Informal portraits identify companions including Joyce, Sheila Wollaston, Johnnie Wollaston, Peggy, Cynthia, Wendy, Alma, Tommy, Mrs. Wollaston, and "our N.I. friend with Woolly." Military life appears alongside moments of leisure, rooftop gatherings, athletic poses, weddings, camel riding, and portraits of fellow American servicemen and WAC personnel. The photographs include training scenes of WAC personnel handling rifles during military instruction, a reminder that women serving overseas were expected to maintain basic weapons proficiency despite their primarily noncombat assignments. The creator photographed Queen Farida's residence in Heliopolis, street scenes labeled "Market Place," Sharia Ibrahim, Egyptian children, local families, a native boy in Heliopolis, village architecture at Giza, archaeological remains at Memphis, the Step Pyramid, the supposed Tomb of Queen Nefertiti, excavations captioned "Part of city excavated 6,000 years old," and a striking image captioned "Prisoners working in chains. Nile Valley. Egypt. Feb. 1946."

The album is distinguished by its female perspective on an overseas theater typically documented through the experiences of male soldiers. Rather than combat operations, it records the work and daily lives of American servicewomen, showing rifle instruction, military compounds, troop transport, friendships, organized recreation, and independent travel through Egypt and Persia as experienced by a WAC member. That combination places gender at the center of the archive, documenting how women occupied and navigated the American military presence abroad during the immediate postwar period. Light surface wear consistent with use; photographs well preserved and firmly mounted in the original red cord-bound album. Overall in very good condition. A sustained photographic record of an American Women's Army Corps member experiencing military service, overseas travel, and everyday life across the eastern Mediterranean during the closing chapter of the Second World War, with most photographs retaining contemporary manuscript captions identifying locations, dates, and individuals throughout.

Item #23631

Price: $985.00