Resources for Researching Women Veterans

Library of Congress

Have a female ancestor that served in the military? These resources are just a few that document the lives of female soldiers during the Civil War, World War I and World War II. 

Happy Veterans Day!

Civil War

Books
Blanton, DeAnne, and Lauren M. Cook. They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War. Stroud: Sutton, 2005.

Halloran, Richard. Women on the Civil War Battlefront. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006

Harriel, Shelby. Behind the Rifle: Women Soldiers in Civil War Mississippi. Jackson: University of Mississippi , 2019. 



Websites
American Battlfield Trust - Female Soldiers in the Civil War 
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/female-soldiers-civil-war

National Archives - Women Soldiers of the Civil War
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1993/spring/women-in-the-civil-war-1.html

World War I

Books

Cobbs, Elizabeth. The Hello Girls: America's First Women Soldiers. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017.

Ebbert, Jean, and Marie-Beth Hall. The First, the Few, the Forgotten: Navy and Marine Corps Women in World War I. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 

Gavin, Lettie. American Women in World War I. Sebastopol: University Press of Colorado, 2011.

Schneider, Dorothy, and Carl J. Schneider. Into the Breach: American Women Overseas in World War I. New York: Viking, 1991.

Research Guides

Simmons College - Women's War Work During World War I 

https://simmonslis.libguides.com/c.php?g=893724

Schlesinger Library - World War I, 1914 -1918

https://guides.library.harvard.edu/c.php?g=310586

Museums

The National World War I Museum - Women in World War I 

https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/women

World War II

Books
Bonnell, Françoise B, Ronald K. Bullis, and Charlotte T. McGraw. Capturing the Women's Army Corps: The World War II Photographs of Captain Charlotte T. Mcgraw.  2013.

Carl, Ann. A Wasp Among Eagles: A Woman Military Test Pilot in World War II. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999.

Gruhzit-Hoyt, Olga. They Also Served: American Women in World War II. New York: Birch Lane Press, 1995.

Lambright, Jeanie S. They Also Served: Women's Stories from the World War II Era. Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2003.

Merryman, Molly. Clipped Wings: The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II. New York: New York Univ Press, 1998.

Monahan, Evelyn, and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee. And If I Perish: Frontline U.S. Army Nurses in World War II. New York: Knopf, 2007. 

Moore, Brenda L. Serving Our Country: Japanese American Women in the Military During World War II. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 2003. 

Purcell, Martha S. World War II Women in Uniform. Logan, Iowa: Perfection Learning, 2003.

Soderbergh, Peter A. Women Marines: The World War II Era. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992. 

Stremlow, Mary V. Free a Marine to Fight: Women Marines in World War II. Washington, D.C: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1994.

Tomblin, Barbara B. G.I. Nightingales: the Army Nurse Corps in World War II. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1996.

Special Collections/Museums

Texas Women's University - Women Airforce Service Pilots 
https://twu.edu/library/womans-collection/collections/women-airforce-service-pilots-official-archive/

National World War II Museum - Women in World War II 
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/women-wwii

National WASP WWII Museum                           https://waspmuseum.org/