About this item
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.
About the Author
An award-winning historian, novelist, and documentary filmmaker, Elizabeth Cobbs provides fresh perspectives on the past. She writes fiction and non-fiction that is both witty and scholarly. Her path-breaking books reveal a world that is as intriguing and surprising as it is real. Elizabeth began writing at age 15 as the Publications Coordinator for a women's center in Southern California, where she organized a variety of innovative projects. At age 22, she won the John D. Rockefeller International Youth Award, given annually to one individual worldwide. She earned her Ph.D. at Stanford University, and now holds an endowed chair in history at Texas A&M University. Her books have won four literary prizes, two for American history and two for fiction. Some are published under the name Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman.
