Cokie Roberts Fellowship for Women’s History, National Archives Foundation

National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend

John K. Hulston Scholarship, Harry S. Truman Library and Museum

Schlesinger Library Research Grant, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University

Roosevelt Institute Research Grant, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library

Ridgeway Research Grant, Military History Institute, Army Heritage and Education Center

Research Travel Grant, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library Foundation

Loewenstein-Wiener Fellowship, American Jewish Archives

Grant-in-Aid, Rockefeller Archive Center

Minigrant, New Jersey Historical Commission

Organization of American Historians

American Historical Association

Society for Military History

Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations

Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society

The story of the intrepid young women who volunteered to help and entertain American servicemen fighting overseas, from World War I through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.The emotional toll of war can be as debilitating to soldiers as hunger, disease, and injury. Beginning in World War I, in an effort to boost soldiers’ morale and remind them of the stakes of victory, the American military formalized a recreation program that sent respectable young women and famous entertainers overseas.Kara Dixon Vuic builds her narrative around the young women from across the United States, many of whom had never traveled far from home, who volunteered to serve in one of the nation’s most brutal work environments. From the “Lassies” in France and mini-skirted coeds in Vietnam to Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe, Vuic provides a fascinating glimpse into wartime gender roles and the tensions that continue to complicate American women’s involvement in the military arena. The recreation-program volunteers heightened the passions of troops but also domesticated everyday life on the bases. Their presence mobilized support for the war back home, while exporting American culture abroad. Carefully recruited and selected as symbols of conventional femininity, these adventurous young women saw in the theater of war a bridge between public service and private ambition.This story of the women who talked and listened, danced and sang, adds an intimate chapter to the history of war and its ties to life in peacetime.

The Girls Next Door: Bringing the Home Front to the Front Lines

The Routledge History of Gender, War, and the U.S. Military is the first examination of the interdisciplinary, intersecting fields of gender studies and the history of the United States military. In twenty-one original essays, the contributors tackle themes including gendering the "other," gender and war disability, gender and sexual violence, gender and American foreign relations, and veterans and soldiers in the public imagination, and lay out a chronological examination of gender and America’s wars from the American Revolution to Iraq. This important collection is essential reading for all those interested in how the military has influenced America's views and experiences of gender.  

The Routledge History of Gender, War, and the U.S. Military (Routledge Histories)

Winner, 2010 Lavinia L. Dock Award, American Association for the History of NursingAn American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year in History and Public Policy"‘I never got a chance to be a girl,’ Kate O’Hare Palmer lamented, thirty-four years after her tour as an army nurse in Vietnam. Although proud of having served, she felt that the war she never understood had robbed her of her innocence and forced her to grow up too quickly. As depicted in a photograph taken late in her tour, long hours in the operating room exhausted her both physically and mentally. Her tired eyes and gaunt face reflected th e weariness she felt after treating countless patients, some dying, some maimed, all, like her, forever changed. Still, she learned to work harder and faster than she thought she could, to trust her nursing skills, and to live independently. She developed a way to balance the dangers and benefits of being a woman in the army and in the war. Only fourteen months long, her tour in Vietnam profoundly affected her life and her beliefs."Such vivid personal accounts abound in historian Kara Dixon Vuic’s compelling look at the experiences of army nurses in the Vietnam War. Drawing on more than 100 interviews, Vuic allows the nurses to tell their own captivating stories, from their reasons for joining the military to the physical and emotional demands of a horrific war and postwar debates about how to commemorate their service. Vuic also explores the gender issues that arose when a male-dominated army actively recruited and employed the services of 5,000 nurses in the midst of a growing feminist movement and a changing nursing profession. Women drawn to the army’s patriotic promise faced disturbing realities in the virtually all-male hospitals of South Vietnam. Men who joined the nurse corps ran headlong into the army's belief that women should nurse and men should fight.Officer, Nurse, Woman brings to light the nearly forgotten contributions of brave nurses who risked their lives to bring medical care to soldiers during a terrible―and divisive―war.

Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War (War/Society/Culture)

Managing Sex in the U.S. Military: Gender, Identity, and Behavior (Studies in War, Society, and the Military)

TCU's Mission: To educate individuals to think and act as ethical leaders and responsible citizens in the global community. 

This is a place where students learn how to adapt to whatever the future might bring, develop critical thinking skills and expand their creativity. With a choice of rigorous academic programs in 131 undergraduate areas of study, 49 master's level programs and 20 areas of doctoral study, Horned Frogs have opportunities to search for meaning and examine values, yet graduate well-prepared for professional accomplishment.

Texas Christian University

Kara Dixon Vuic is the LCpl. Benjamin W. Schmidt Professor of War, Conflict, and Society in Twentieth-Century America at Texas Christian University and the author of The Girls Next Door: Bringing the Home Front to the Front Lines (Harvard University Press, 2019), which won the Tonous and Warda Johns Family Book Award from the American Historical Association-Pacific Coast Branch and the Captain Richard Lukaszewicz Memorial Book Award from the U.S. Military History Group.  

Her first book, Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), won the Lavinia L. Dock Book Award from the American Association for the History of Nursing, was named a Book of the Year in History and Public Policy by the American Journal of Nursing, and was a finalist for the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award.    

She also edited The Routledge Handbook on Gender, War, and the U.S. Military (2017) and is co-editor (with Richard Fogarty) of the University of Nebraska Press’s book series “Studies in War, Society, and the Military.”  She co-edited the collection Managing Sex in the U.S. Military (University of Nebraska Press, 2022) and is writing a new book called “Drafting Women.”

War, Gender and the U.S. Military

20th Century United States Social, Cultural, and Gender History

World Wars

Women and the Military

War and Society

Texas Christian University Profile

Personal Website

'The cost of being female': Women in the military pay more to keep their uniforms up to date

Hallowed Changing of the Guard Gets an All-Female Cast at Arlington

Registering women for the draft wouldn’t be a big departure from the past

From Doughnut Girls to Den Mothers and Cheerleaders

This Delaware 'farmette' helped feed America while the men fought in WWII

Makeup & War Are More Intricately Connected Than You Realized

Fighting for Women’s Rights, Roy Hollander is His Own Worst Enemy

LCpl. Benjamin W. Schmidt Professor of War, Conflict, and Society in 20th-Century America

In April 1918, a young woman from Montclair, N.J., sailed to France to begin work as a canteen worker for the YMCA. From the early days of American involvement in the Great War, she had wanted to do her part and even confessed that she wished that she “had been a man to have a small part in this great conflict.” This presentation considers the experiences of the 3,500 women like her who served coffee and donuts to doughboys across France, and in the process, began a long history of American women going to war to bring a bit of home to the front lines.

Dr. Kara Dixon Vuic, LCpl Benjamin W. Schmidt Professor of War, Conflict, and Society in Twentieth-Century America at Texas Christian University

Lecture given as part of the National WWI Museum and Memorial's 2018 Symposium, 1918: Crucible of War.  

Symposium presenting sponsor: Pritzker Military Museum & Library - http://www.pritzkermilitary.org

For more information visit http://theworldwar.org

A New Kind of Woman is Following the Army: American Women in the Great War - Kara Dixon Vuic

Dr. Kara Dixon Vuic, the LCpl. Benjamin W. Schmidt Professor of War, Conflict, and Society in Twentieth-Century America at Texas Christian University, discusses women’s evolving roles before and during WWI, and how they were rationalized and explained through the language of motherhood. Learn about the expansion of women’s political and public roles and discover how these changes were connected to the suffrage movement.
 
Looking to learn more about women’s roles during wartime? Purchase The Girls Next Door: Bringing the Home Front to the Front Lines available through our online store: https://shop.theworldwar.org/products/the-girls-next-door-bringing-the-home-front-to-the-front-lines-vuic?_pos=1&_sid=fa43c48dd&_ss=r

For more information about the National WWI Museum and Memorial visit http://theworldwar.org

Mrs. Wilson’s Knitting Circle – Women and War

In her latest book, The Girls Next Door, professor Kara Dixon Vuic tells the story of the intrepid young women who volunteered to help and entertain American servicemen fighting overseas, from World War I through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their presence mobilized support for the war back home, while exporting American culture abroad. This story of the women who talked and listened, danced and sang, unknown and famous, adds an intimate chapter to the history of war and its ties to life in peacetime. A book signing follows the program.

Dr. Kara Dixon Vuic, Professor of War, Conflict, and Society at Texas Christian University, reflects on her undergraduate years in the History Department at Marshall University and how it formed the basis for her career. Special thanks to the Organization of American Historians and the Maine Community Foundation for making this interview possible.  www.TheClio.com

History Matters at Marshall University

In this episode, our moderator, Anotida Chikumbu sits with Kara Dixon Vuic, the LCpl. Benjamin W. Schmidt Professor of War, Conflict, and Society in Twentieth-Century America at Texas Christian University and the author of The Girls Next Door: Bringing the Home Front to the Front Lines (Harvard University Press, 2019)https://www.amazon.com/Girls-Next-Door-Bringing-Front/dp/0674986385. She is also the author of Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), editor of The Routledge Handbook on Gender, War, and the U.S. Military (2017), and co-editor (with Beth Bailey, Alesha Doan, and Shannon Portillo) of Managing Sex in the U.S. Military (University of Nebraska Press, 2022). She is co-editor (with Richard Fogarty) of the University of Nebraska Press’s book series “Studies in War, Society, and the Military.” She is writing a new book called “Drafting Women.”

Overview 

The National World War II Museum and The Society for Military History is currently co-hosting “The Summer Seminar in Military History” from June 12 – July 2, 2022. The purpose of this three-week, in-residence experience is to grow and strengthen the study of military history by introducing fellows to the profession’s fundamental concepts and questions, its contemporary concerns and approaches, and its leading scholars. 

Summer Seminar in Military History Goals

-Fellows master the pedagogical techniques required to develop and teach survey courses and more focused course offerings in military history.
-Fellows gain the methodological and historiographical knowledge that will prepare them to make scholarly contributions to the field.
-Fellows are exposed to the historiography that has shaped the development and directions of military history.
-Fellows are introduced to the wealth of resources available in the field and offered advice on how to use them in their teaching and scholarship.     
Leading military historians share their knowledge with fellows and a broader audience through public presentations at the Institute.
-Fellows become familiar with the expectations of Army and Navy ROTC courses fulfilling curricular requirements for pre-commissioning military and maritime history.
-Fellows grow personally and professionally by developing networks among and across chronological and topical fields of study.

N.B. THIS SEMINAR IS A PARTNERED PROGRAM BETWEEN THE NATIONAL WWII MUSEUM'S JENNY CRAIG INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF WAR AND DEMOCRACY AND THE SOCIETY FOR MILITARY HISTORY WITH SUPPORT FROM THE DIANA DAVIS SPENCER FOUNDATION.

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