Catherine Forslund is the Isabelle Ross Abbott Professor of History and Women's Studies, the dean of first-year studies, and the chair of the history department at Rockford University. She teaches U. S., Latin American, and Asian history and has worked extensively with local, federally funded Teaching American History programs. Her publications include works in diplomatic and women's history such as We Are a College at War: Women Working for Victory in World War II (2010), Anna Chennault: Informal Diplomacy and Asian Relations (2002), and "Worth a Thousand Words: Editorial Cartoons of the Korean War" in the Journal of Conflict Studies (vol. 22, 2002). She contributed a chapter on Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt to A Companion to First Ladies (2016), part of the Wiley Blackwell Companions to American History series. Her research interests include Vietnam War–era and other editorial cartoons.
This lecture explores the variety of activities of female college students and other women in the war-time United States drawn largely from sources based in the women’s college experience. Before and during the war, college women—like so many others—were concerned about conscription, the nation entering the war, and helping to bring about victory through activism, factory work, and military service. Looking at experiences both on the home front and abroad, a picture emerges that illustrates women’s vital commitment and contribution made in civilian and military life as well as their difficulties faced during the war.