In 1918, the U.S. Army Signal Corps sent 223 women to France at General Pershing’s explicit request. They were masters of the latest technology: the telephone switchboard. While suffragettes picketed the White House and President Wilson struggled to persuade a segregationist Congress to give women of all races the vote, these courageous young women swore the army oath and settled into their new roles. Elizabeth Cobbs reveals the challenges they faced in a war zone where male soldiers wooed, mocked, and ultimately celebrated them.
The army discharged the last Hello Girls in 1920, the year Congress ratified the Nineteenth Amendment. When they sailed home, they were unexpectedly dismissed without veterans’ benefits and began a sixty-year battle that a handful of survivors carried to triumph in 1979.
“What an eye-opener! Cobbs unearths the original letters and diaries of these forgotten heroines and weaves them into a fascinating narrative with energy and zest.”
—Cokie Roberts, author of Capital Dames
“This engaging history crackles with admiration for the women who served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during the First World War, becoming the country’s first female soldiers.”
—New Yorker
“Utterly delightful… Cobbs very adroitly weaves the story of the Signal Corps into that larger story of American women fighting for the right to vote, but it’s the warm, fascinating job she does bringing her cast…to life that gives this book its memorable charisma… This terrific book pays them a long-warranted tribute.”
—Christian Science Monitor
“Cobbs is particularly good at spotlighting how closely the service of military women like the Hello Girls was tied to the success of the suffrage movement.”
—NPR
An innovative approach to the relationship between filmmaking and society during Hollywood’s golden age
The 1910s and 1920s witnessed the inception of a particular brand of negotiation between filmdom and its public in the United States. Hollywood, its proponents, and its critics sought to establish new connections between audience and industry, suggesting means by which Hollywood outsiders could become insiders. Hollywood Outsiders looks at how four disparate entities—the Palmer Photoplay correspondence school of screenwriting, juvenile series fiction about youngsters involved in the film industry, film appreciation and character education programs for high school students, and Catholic and Protestant efforts to use and influence filmmaking—conceived of these connections, and thus of the relationship of Hollywood to the individual and society. Anne Morey’s exploration of the diverse discourses generated by these different conjunctions leads to a fresh and compelling interpretation of Hollywood’s place in American cultural history.
In its analysis of how four distinct groups, each addressing constituencies of various ages and degrees of social authority, defined their interest in the film industry, Hollywood Outsiders combines concrete discussions of cultural politics with a broader argument about how outsiders viewed the film industry as a vehicle of self-validation and of democratic ideals.READERS
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