This is just going to roll, theres nothing specific. Enjoy this as we discussed, this is a wonderful new book that is come out, april 21st, something good to read in this time and just to do a quick introduction, doctor is an associate professor of history at texas will Womans University which home of the national archive. And its very special to talk about her journey to getting the pup under book to publication. And its something im fascinated by, how did you get started on this topic, when did you learn about it and what hooked to win. Thats a great question, thank you so much for having me in talking with me today. I would like to show this picture but this is the moment in time where i met carol and with all the aviation people to know that he was on the coolest either. And from oklahoma in june of 1993, i went by myself and could not get any friends to go with and somebody pointed out the fact that curtis was in the shade of the hanger over there and like i will go say hello, he introduced me too carol as a champion of the 1951 championship in his claim and i found out that she was in world war ii, i never heard of her, i never heard of any of them and i thought if i have never heard of them, who else hasnt and one of my friends had and i decided that was wrong, they were incredible woman, she did a lot of great during world war ii so i set myself on a mission that is taken 27 years to get here and ive been studying them and telling their story ever since. That is fantastic, its definitely part of the war that our audiences interested in and theres been good material out there, your book is in addition to the resources on us, these incredible women had an impact on your career when you spent 27 years working on a story, has the passion and put your career in other ways, has it driven you to do new things . I think a number of things, i had the great advantage of spending a lot of time with them and a lot of their sources were lost after the war, i had a chance to do oral history which takes me down a whole another path of training, i went to graduate school so i could learn how to do history the right way at the university of tennessee and learn how to do oral history and those types of things, the more i learned about the women, i wanted everybody to know about them and i wanted to do good academic history and good Academic Work which is why went to graduate school and why work so hard to get the sources right, i also wanted the public to know about them and i wanted my friends to know about them and everybody to know about them, it really did shape my trajectory in my scholarship towards public history, working with dms such as yours or documentary films in that type of thing, giving airshows, not just academic conferences, so people of the world can know who these women were, not just knowing these women and their story has helped me try to find the balance between academic history and public history and try to find a marriage between the two of them. I think you have really managed to be in this book, one of the things i know the challenges, the personal story and how difficult it can be to put those together with the historical record. In that vein, was there ever something, a story that you got that you had to collaborate which became very difficult, is there anyone that stands out that became a fun challenge for you . I think that is a great question, thank you for your kind words about the balance. I think there were so many stories that i really tried to get the accuracy and when you do oral history, this is a challenge because people are remembering something they did 50 years ago, one story in particular that i think is caught into the mainstream that has been sensationalized and i worked hard to prove whether his right or wrong, the death of one of the she died in kim davis, one of the first of the 38 women who died during the war, i started hearing stories of the 1990s and i started my research, she was doing targets and she was shot down and it was so awful, they covered it up, its just not accurate, that is not true at all, i sensed a lot of time trying to get who is telling the story and where they were coming from and several wives were telling me about the neighbor that was shut down in talking about the people who were actually there, his brother who is in the book and i talked to laura who is in the air that day, i got their story about a Training Mission and we were all there, no guns in the plane had problems and you find the initial accident reports but its a Conspiracy Theory and it gets tattered a lot of people talk about it a lot and are they able to do a lot a Good Research and i was trying to find three good sources to prove that something was accurate. Maybe a new source will come and prove me wrong but i tried hard to get the accuracy because there are so many rumors tied to these women and their stories. One of the rumors was misunderstood by a lot of people is the back story, the u. S. Army air forces in the women that let it as an experiment although i understand a lot of them would not want to call them so that but what were the early years like, how did they get to the point as they know and love them today. I think thats a great question, the wasp is extended for two years, september 42 to september 1944, those are the dates that they accept such and the whole program started with the women in september 42 started working for the divisi division. At the same time the Army Air Force was realized, 28 women was not enough to do this and they wanted to do more, they started as a track that would lead into the raft, they called it the womans training attachment and its come out in the last couple of years that the wass started in 43 and these were separate and they absolutely were not in the training attachment would train and get a little more experience and there was no right. In these women who do the training graduated and joined the basis in the previous women in the uniform of the wrath and the name of this group was jackie and nancy who Work Together to make the project work, the name changes in the summer of 1943 to the Women Air Force service, the jobs that they had expanded were initially they were just going to be fairy pilots by the summer of 43, they realized they had an opportunity to see what else women can do, so they expanded the selling targets initially at camp davis in North Carolina and doing all sorts of jobs, they realized that the was no longer accurate so they expanded it to Women Service pilots which they were men who were Service Pilots in the Army Air Force and they acted on their wings for the Service Pilots, they were taking something that already existed calling them Women Service pilots and then the added air force and their to make it an acronym, he was all about the acronym sounding right, he did not want them to be wack and he wanted something that sounded nice, im pretty sure he added that and i have not found the document to prove it but thats where the name change came, it was all the same group and the cooperation and collaboration was there from the beginning. If youre going to see the dates, you have to say septembe, think for the enemy clear that up. Those are the things that are really important to clear up and understand the story better, you mentioned wings, thats what the book is titled the woman was silver wings, can you give us the back story, what is the significance of the silver wings. Thank you for asking that, so many of the moms that i talked to talk about the significance of the wings for them personally, this is an incredible achievement, many of them equated the day that they receive their wings to getting married or having a baby, this is a moment in their lives when it was so significant. Women almost did not have wings when those first group, the class 43w1 was going to graduate in houston, there were no wings for them. In some of the people on the ground decided that was wrong, women had gone to the same training and they deserved wings, so they called jackie who was at home and her husband answered, one of the richest men in america, they said he was one of the ones who called him and said girls dont have wings and he said give them some wings we will pay for it. So jackie and her husband paid the wings for the first several classes until he got figured out. And you can look there is sources online where the wings are different until you get to the 1944 classes in the 1943 classes, they are little bit different because they went to different vendors and put their classes on them in Different Things and they solidified in 1944 but the wings went so much to these women and like they were pilots, thats what the pilots were for. It just meant a lot, is separated them. That is wonderful in the situation is indicative of so many things during the war and you mentioned several times even though uniforms and the uniforms you can see in the photos clearly too large for the ladi ladies, it was part of what they had to work there at the time, speaking of that was the mens gear and you see them in the jacket, over 350,000 american women in the wass never got military status, what was the reasoning behind that, what transpired to prevent that. I think thats a great question. We are technically civilians, brought in a civilians, part of that was the urgency with which they were brought into the program in the fall 1942, they wanted the wasp, they wouldn we women pilots but they were not sure how to do it, civilian men were brought into the Army Air Forces and they can be brought in a civilians and be on probation for 90 days and brought in a second lieutenant, that was the idea that they would see what women can do, nobody thought could women actually do this, could they fly these planes and thats why they called it an experiment to see if the girls could do it, what was the attitude. So they were brought in a civilians with the intention that they would be brought into the military probably and then it became a political challenge of how you do the paperwork, do we bring them in under the womens army corps, do we bring them in as a Service Pilot like they did the men, how did we do this differently and it ends up in the spring and summer of 1944 where theyre going to bring them in as a separate group and they bring it before congress in june of 1944 right after he going to normandy so the timing was horrible. But you had all throughout the spring of 1944 the growing campaign against women, there was a group of male Flight Instructors who had been let go who had been doing the luminary flight instructing for men who had done military parade that been let go and we hadnt had as many losses in the japanese we do not need as many pilots, we did not need Flight Instructors, all the sudden they are and they get as pilots and they see all these women flying airplanes pray they want to fly them instead. So these men talked to the congressman and their senators and say why are they flying the plane when we should be. It gets wrapped up in the women bill to become part of the military, it gets wrapped up in a gender challenge of do we let women take mens jobs, are we taking those jobs, you add to that mix the fact that the bill comes up in june of 44 when weve invaded normandy, the debate goes on throughout the month and throughout the end of the session and people were hopeful in the summer and fall of 1944, people thought we would be done by christmas so the decision is a vote is to not make them part of the military, its a technical vote to set the bill aside. Theres another one that could come up in the senate but by september 44 we invaded paris, we were moving forward and the question is do we need these many more. It all goes back to proper skills, not their abilities of pilots but whether women can have jobs when men wanted them. The idea behind the program was that women were releasing men for other duties and by the fall of 1944, there were some who thought they had replaced men and that was not socially acceptable. Just as we see after the war and towards the end of the war where they get sic kicked out of the factories because men are coming home from overseas, the first two will lose their jobs because her in the way. Its a big part of it. That was a long answer. It is a sad ending for a group of women who did incredible things and you talk about people did not know they wanted to do this and its almost hard to believe when you read the book in the early parts when one of the women did before the were in the 30s with all the stones flying in a quran member her name who did ten days. I had never heard about. Its hard to know that the women did these things but there skilled as aviators to be put into question. And capable flying a bomber. In steam for over ten days. That is unfortunately part of the culture at the time. Speaking of what the women were capable of doing or allowed to do, did any of the women if they desire to going to combat, or were they grateful to prove themselves at all, was it so farfetched at the time or your interview. I think thats a great question, thats one of those places then i looked at what they talk about in their oil history 50 years after the war and theres letters and diaries that they wrote about at the time and where they stay consistent there. A number of the women wouldve done whatever the country needed they were very patriotic and for the war effort in the husbands and brothers wanted to do their part to replace the men who were lost were to bring the men home. And they wouldve done whatever was asked of them, im quite certain of that and that tonys in the letters and diaries that the writing and they dont know whats one to be required theyre willing to do whatever is necessary. And i interview them later, it was a mixed bag, some said i never couldve done combat or the things that needed to be done, they physically couldve done about emotionally did not think they could were others were as bright on the right and in the picture she said she would have done it, she could fly the airplane and wouldve done whatever needed to be done and whatever the country was asking of her she wouldve done. None of them expected to be taken into combat. I think most of them were ready to do it. They were definitely brave and a unique group of women that comes through in the book when you write about them and their stories, you mentioned they did dangerous things, the towing target and that scares me senseless to think im going to go off and someone shoot at me and you mentioned the controversy of whether or not one was shot down, were many lives lost in their years of service . 38 women were killed during the war and none were shot down. I want to say that definitively, none were shot down. But there were a few when they were doing the toe targeting then explained that they got shot. And they could not leave enough and things like that but none of them were shot down. But the 38 who died was a variety of accidents, some are made allowances, the plane was worn out and especially in 1943, we dont have as many planes in the new planes are going where they need to go to the men in combat. It was on a different training bases and sometimes a lot of wornout planes. And they are cannibalizing other planes to prepare them. You do have a lot of malfunctions that took some of the women, some were in training accidents and had instructors on board or something went wrong, they stalled and could not get out and its a wide variety of accidents, some had accidents domestically as well, i wanted to ask you was comparable to men doing the same job, thats one of the statistics in the early studies and were they any good, everybody knew they were cool, i knew they were cool but were they any good as pilots and it was comparable or better of men doing the same jobs. Sadly 38 were lost, they did their jobs. You talk about the talents and you recently published an article about teresa james enter saga, youll be right back in your audience is watching and maybe you havent read it and maybe you should read it in one of the things are shes given a piece she managed to do it and you are in all of the capabilities of how they can adapt and they wanted to prove themselves and willing to try so hard and work so hard to do that, speaking of teresa, you talk about when she delivers 47 it was a 10001 and i thought it was interesting how she left a note to the pilot who received the plane and her address and a lot of them did that and they would actually get letters back to receive their planes and did any of the correspondence become significant or is it something that they talked about much after the years or did you stop and find the letters. I think a number of them down here were going to be flying the planes in new they were going to, overseas and they would write little notes once in a while and i dont know that any that turned into romance or anything like that but if anybody is out there knows the story, please let them know because i would love to hear about it. I think it meant a lot to both the men and the ferry pilots to have the communication antenna the story of what happened next. It is definitely a neat inside story. Im just going to ask, obviously weve covered these with a lot of challenges, was there a particular challenge that the women face that became above all challenges that they have been that during the war. Or maybe postwar. During the war they face the challenge of knowing if they were doing right and some of them had family and they all at least had one Family Member who supported them, a mother or father or husband in some cases, the idea that society did not respect women who served in the military very well, that was a challenge of being respected and people knowing youre doing your part for the war effort. The fact that they were in the pseudo military situation and in training they got their merits and confined base, the eight at the Officers Club when they got out, they did all of these things, they were saluted but they had no military rank when the 38 women were killed they got to a new 5000 50000 h benefit rather than a 10000 benefit. The balance between the two was a part of it. Postwar in the summer of 44 it was still ongoing in the middle of the battle of the bulge when they were cut free. This was very difficult for a lot of them, they were embarrassed, ashamed, confused and when the war ended, everybody comes home is a big party, halfway through you are released and what you were doing was not important and that was really difficult for them to figure out what to do next, a lot of the still guilty, they had all the trainings and the government has spent a lot of money to get them qualified to fly the planes and they had nothing to do with it now. So they tried to fly for china, they tried to go to china to fly and they tried to go to brazil, they were open to them coming to fly for them if they brought their own plane preferably a c47, that did not work out for many of them, it was a lot of good challenges. The image that we see right now brings us to a good point for us to lead into the end of our discussion, the fight for these women to get recognition, the veteran status and the challenges having ongoing to recent years. Can you tell us about what spurred the drive and how they were successful about that. They were civilians but in the 1970s you have the Womens Movement, the Civil Rights Movement and you also starting in the early 1970s have the armed forces save they will let for the First Time Ever american women fly military planes and they realized they had been forgotten. It was not a conspiracy, their stuff was not closed or hidden away, they were just forgotten which is worse than anything else. They determined to fix that and as veterans it was a huge grassroots efforts. Teresa started in the 1960s with the site but the rest got on board and then the mid1970s and it was several work years of fighting and getting petition signed and that petition and the image, they had women who were sitting outside of a fancy new movie called star wars and getting people signatures and things like that and they were finally recognized as veterans in 1977. In the way the bill was written it goes into the strange veterans for the purposes of the Veterans Administration and the women did not get the g. I. Bill and they did not get any of those things and not allowed to go to veterans hospitals and get a flag on the coffin. That was really important to them and their families to be able to do that and they got the gold matter under metal and 2010 which was a great deal of fun. They had a fun time. I know one of the later bottles was something that i was reading in the news is to be able to be buried in Arlington National cemetery and i believe you had involvement in that or supporting them . She was just over president obama shoulder Elaine Harmon has expected to go to her arlington and and when she died her family was told they are no longer allowed because the way the bill was written they were veterans for the purpose of the Veterans Administration than the Arlington National cemetery. And of course arlington is getting crowded and people are worried about overflowing and they said no and elaine who is a dear friend, my first oral history and was very smart and kind and has discovered in smart family who is fabulous and they decided that is not going to work for us and they worked very hard and worked with others to get that changed. So i worked with mcnallys office in writing the bill in working through the different language that they needed to use to make accurate and so that was a great privilege and elaine was finally put to rest. It was a great privilege to be part of the story and play a little part to help them get the final recognition. It is much deserved. We are getting audience questions, our first one, cassie wants to know can you speak to the personal traits of the women. That is great, these women, i feel very fortunate that i got to know so many over the years and several years ago one of the kids, Nancy Parrish put together a video where she interviewed each of the kids and said tell me about your mother and she sliced it altogether one of the reunions and they all said it was funny because they said she was nice and this and that but shes independent. She is independent and stubborn, independent and stubborn were the two most common words and i would argue star stubborn in a good way for once they decided to do something theyre going to do it. They are very independent, they dont care so much, they care what other people think but if you tell them no they think they can do something in there going to do it. That is definitely the most common trait independent. There also very intelligent and have the very athletic and every fit group of women as well but smart and intelligent, stubborn women. Speaking with you, the word stubborn has come up. Stubborn in a good way. In a way that brings about success. Megan wants to know if your research has focused on the similarities and differences between the night which is. Thats a great question the night which is where the soviet women pilots, the soviets were in a different place than the americans were during world war ii, we were being invaded inner cities were under siege. So are women did not need to do the same work, it is Great Respect for the russian women pilots, several of the women in the early 1990s when the soviet union opened up went to russia and met with a number of the pilots, it was a great book and i cant remember the name of it off the top of my head where she interviewed the russian women and put it together in a book, the respect is there for sure the soviet women of course who were in combat and did very serious work, they did not know about them during the were obviously but in the years since they lifted them and said that couldve been asked if we had to do it. But they were grateful that they werent. So i do look at the soviets a lot, its not in the book but its a really Fascinating Group of women for sure who did a lot of serious times. Lets see john wants to know where their navy wives or equivalent . Thats a great question that is something that was talked about and having the navy, one of the women, her husband worked and some of her friends did testifying of the planes but there is no official women doing that, there were women who flew on navy planes but they were not pilots in that sense. The navy leads the way later in the 1970s with women pilots, that is an interesting next story but during the war there were women pilots in the navy. Tom from chicago said realizing the u. S. Had 1100 women 80 years in world war ii, any idea how many the United Kingdom already had. In england you the air transfer exhilarating and you have several hundred women who flew with the air transport auxiliary and yet several american women who fly with the air transfer exhilarating and well over 200 women who were part of that and it was a support for the air force rather than flying, or things like that, the ata was very important in supporting the war effort, they buried their claims were different repairs that needed to be done, the into the flying across the channel to france with some of the claims, the women in england were astoundi astounding. Can you discuss the major role. Its back, the first female pilot later on, she actually came to the 2008 class reunion and got to know, she met some of the wasps in our banquet speaker, this is the last official and i was honored to be the chair of the reunion and she came and gave a talk in a couple of the kids talking with her, i think they need a gold medal. Dont you . And she was stricken by the idea and i believe was a white house fellow at the time and worked her magic and worked very hard and was a huge player in making the congressional gold medal happen for the women and you can still find the gold medal ceremonies on cspan and they are big part of the ceremonies as well. She is terrific. No doubt they were an inspiration. Marjorie is asking, what kinds do you have. The wasps are archives are really never ending. I started using those archives in the 96, 1996 when he had just started and there was one collection of boxes and today it goes on for thousands of boxes worth of materials and they have everything in resources that i need whether its history that theyve done over the years or the letters or official documents, pictures that they have donated, people who have donated, they have uniforms and banners and shoes and bags and trunks and anything that you need, one of the things that they do because theyre archiv archived, they loan materials onto libraries or to museums, if you want to have an exhibit about the wasp, contact them and they will loan you the materials, when youre done with the exhibit you send it back, they take great care of the materials of the story as well as the modern women in the aviators archives, they have so much, if you are interested in doing more research, that is the place to go, they have everything they couldve ever wanted. I think thats fantastic that so much has been gathered and were things end up, thats wonderful im sure it made you very happy over the years. One historian live seven minutes from the archive. Nobody. Is really incredible. We have a question here and im sure its one a lot of us want to know are any of them still with us . They are, we have about 32 left. When 25000, 1830 went through training and 1102 were the silver wings and were down to 32, of course over 95 no and they are pretty amazing. Pretty amazing woman. Wave more question coming in that we dont want to admit, he wants to know in your research if you came across loretta floyd, shortly after returned home to vietnam i started a helicopter, cfi using a much smaller helicopter. I was introduced to the old lady about 60 years old who would not be able to teach a 22yearold combat anything and come to find out a person asked him a question, come to find out this is a lot. He wants to know if youre familiar with loretta. I know of her, i did not have a chance to meet her in person and going to an airfield, who is this old lady going to teach me something and then they learned, a lot of the wasps started wanted to keep flying in some did right after the war and some came back in the 1970s after the kids were grown and the Flight Instructors were different, and toys went to meet the Flight Instructor kids down the road, they taught them in a special way. I can only imagine getting to learn from one of the ladies. My final question from the day from joyce, why do you think it took so long for others to gain veteran status and benefits. I think thats a great question. The wasp tried immediately after the war ended and there was a lot of pushback because the economy was not great in 1945 in 1946 and they are worrying about the cold war and all of those things, one of the wasp, there is a picture claim to do a takeoff on the plane but he talked to me about this a lot and they never wouldve got their benefits without the Civil Rights Movement without the changes that that brought in the example that that movement showed in the Womens Movement was part of that as well, part of it to for the wasps themselves, one of the things that i thought i understood but as i got older i understand more, by the time they are fighting for the recognition in the 1970s, there in their late 40s in their 50s and the kids are grown and they have more time. And they have perspective because they can see that they have been forgotten and they want to have the 38 women who died be remembered, that is the biggest call what about the 38. They knew they were not going to get anything or the g. I. Bill, it is too late for all of that but they wanted to get the flag on their coffin. And they wanted to not be forgotten and i think the timing in their personal life and their personal ages is partly why it took that long, they were busy, you are busy. And then they were at that nostalgic age of their 50s and all those things come together and make it happen when happen. I think that your wonderful book is going to add to that, i want to remind all of her audience watching go to the Museum Online store, order the book and i want to thank you so much for being here today and talking with us, were hoping to have you on campus later today, this is a wonderful experience and we hope to have you back into everyone who is been watching thank you for your questions and joining us today, i want to remind everyone this will be live on youtube later if you miss something check it out and everyone have a great day. Booktv has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend, coming up this weekend sunday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on after words, author, former president and political commentator examines what he calls the new face of socialism in the United States and whether its becoming part of the political culture and United States of socialism. He is interviewed by independent Institute Benjamin powell. At 10 00 p. M. Eastern doctor Ezekiel Emanuel former special advisor on Health Policy to the director of office i during the Obama Administration discusses his book which country has the worlds best healthcare. Watch booktv on cspan2, this weekend. If you enjoyed watching first ladies, pick up a copy of the book first ladies influence an image featuring profiles of the nations first ladies, with top historians now available in paperback, hardcover or as an ebook. A conversation with a Pulitzer Prize historian on the 13, 14