|
Article Excerpt
New York: Arcade Publishing, 1999. 480 pp. Photographs, notes, bibliography, and index. $27.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-76286-249-1; $15.00 (paper), 0-060-95839-1.
Women's War Storying: Chronicling U.S. Correspondents in World War II
Through meticulous research from materials published by women who served as U.S. war correspondents during World War II, as well as from personal interviews conducted over almost a decade, Nancy Caldwell Sorel illuminates and preserves the contributions of these wartime journalists and photographers. Sorel briefly sketches the paths by which numerous women came to the profession, then focuses attention on about two dozen women and follows them through the course of the war. Those featured include: Dorothy Thompson, Sigrid Schultz, Janet Flanner, Helen Kirkpatrick, Josephine Herbst, Martha Gellhorn, Eleanor Packard, Frances Davis, Virgina Cowles, Margaret BourkeWhite, Sonia Tomara, Betty Wason, Mary Welsh, Tania Long, Lael Tucker, Shelley Smith Mydans, Annalee Whitmore Jacoby, Ruth Cowan, Lee Miller, Virginia Irwin, Lee Carson, Dickey Chappelle, Iris Carpenter, Majorie "Dot" Avery, and Catherine Coyne. These women reported for major dailies and periodicals like The New York Herald Tribune, The London Times, Life, and the wire services as well as for specialized women's publications. The threads of their lives and careers are interwoven with the major events of the war in fascinating detail. This rich tapestry can be appreciated by general interest readers as well as academic researchers focused on social conditions during the war, since Sorel provides original ethnographic data for such analysis. An engaging series of black and white photographs bring their stories to life.
Sorel presents a...
|
