

The Hello Girls
America’s First Women Soldiers
Author: Elizabeth Cobbs
Narrator: Susan Ericksen
Unabridged: 12 hr 3 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 06/27/2017
Categories: Nonfiction, History, Women, Wars, World War I
Synopsis
While suffragettes picketed the White House and President Woodrow Wilson struggled to persuade a segregationist Congress to give women of all races the vote, these competent and courageous young women swore the Army oath. Elizabeth Cobbs reveals the challenges they faced in a war zone where male soldiers welcomed, resented, wooed, mocked, saluted, and ultimately celebrated them.
The army discharged the last Hello Girls in 1920. When the operators sailed home, the army unexpectedly dismissed them without veterans' benefits. They began a sixty-year battle that a handful of survivors carried to triumph in 1979. With the help of the National Organization for Women, Senator Barry Goldwater, and a crusading Seattle attorney, they triumphed over the U.S. Army.