Capturing the Women's Army Corps: The World War II Photographs of Captain Charlotte T. McGraw

By Francoise Barnes Bonnell, Ronald Kevin Bullis and Gwen Bingham

The photographs taken by Charlotte T. McGraw, the official Women’s Army Corps photographer during World War II, offer the single most comprehensive visual record of the approximately 140,000 women who served in the U.S. Army during the war. This collection of 150 of McGraw’s photos includes pictures made in Africa, in England at the headquarters of the European Theater of Operations, in Asia and the Pacific, and in military hospitals in the United States.

Serving from July 1942 to August 1946, Captain McGraw provided more than 73,000 photographs to the War Department Bureau of Public Affairs. Her photographs were published in the New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, and used by the Associated Press and the United Press, as well as in recruiting posters, handouts and informational pamphlets, and in the most popular magazines of the era such as Time, Colliers, Women’s Home Companion, Parade, Saturday Evening Post, and Mademoiselle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Release date: Oct 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780826353412

Francoise Barnes Bonnell

Françoise Barnes Bonnell is the director of the United States Army Women’s Museum, Fort Lee, Virginia. Recently retired from the United States Army Reserve as a lieutenant colonel, she has taught history in numerous colleges and universities.

Book preview

   Preface

This book is the product of two great things: professional historical inquiry and gratitude. The U.S. Army Women’s Museum, located at Fort Lee, Virginia, is the repository of over 1.5 million documents pertaining to the contributions of women to the U.S. Army from 1775 to the present. When the museum was established in 1955 at Fort McClellan, Alabama, its curators set out to collect as much material as possible in order to ensure the archives and artifacts were preserved. A large majority of the museum’s holdings are from the World War II period. Sitting in several dozen boxes is the collection of Capt. Charlotte T. McGraw, a World War II photographer for the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and the Women’s Army Corps. Her collection consists of over five thousand photographs, many of her official army papers, her uniform, and her army-issued maps and cultural books, orders, citations, insignia, letters, and other documents. These are her memorabilia, preserved with professional care and accessible to the public. This project was designed to comprehensively bring to light the phenomenal work of Captain McGraw.

The primary and secondary documents in Captain McGraw’s collection do not tell her whole story; however, from what is available we were able to weave together enough information to produce this book. We are grateful to Captain McGraw’s close friend, who donated this wonderful collection to the museum in 1972. We are grateful to the staff of the U.S. Army Women’s Museum for maintaining the collection and giving the public the opportunity to view Captain McGraw’s work. Our thanks in particular to Robynne Dexter, the museum archivist during the first part of the project, who helped us sort through the materials and give the project direction. We are also grateful to Amanda Strickland, the museum archivist who scanned hundreds of images and helped us to organize the material, and Tracy Bradford, who edited the manuscript. Finally, we would like to thank the tens of thousands of women who served in World War II whose work and adventures are captured in Captain McGraw’s photographs.

FRANÇOISE B. BONNELL AND RONALD K. BULLIS

   Introduction

The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), created in 1942 and subsequently replaced the following year with the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), was to last for the duration of World War II plus six months. Very few women could have imagined at the time the profound impact their military service would have on generations of women to come. Much of the success of the Women’s Army Corps in its ability to recruit young, skilled women into its ranks can be attributed to Capt. Charlotte T. McGraw, whose work is the focus of this book. Captain McGraw was the only official war photographer of the WAAC and WAC, and her images would be seen in publications all over the globe. Many of her photos would also be used as hometown releases to local newspapers, which would give the community an update on one of their own in uniform. As the official WAAC and WAC photographer, she had specific assignments—where she was to go and what she was to accomplish. Despite the strict orders, Captain McGraw was given the creative license to accomplish the mission as she saw fit. As a result of this, her body of work now provides us with the single most comprehensive visual record of the approximately 140,000 women who served in the U.S. Army in World War II.

The selection of the photos for this publication was very difficult. Captain McGraw produced over 70,000 images, approximately 5,000 of which are located in the archives of the U.S. Army Women’s Museum at Fort Lee, Virginia. The locations of the rest are not completely known: some are in the U.S. Army Signal Corps’ archives, and others are perhaps in private hands. Nonetheless, the process of selecting the photographs was challenging. How does one select a mere hundred or so photos out of thousands? We began this arduous task by determining the categories of photos we thought most interesting: architectural and street scenes, varying geographical locations, women’s occupations in the army, and the effects of war on cities and