{"id":25167,"date":"2024-02-02T23:16:27","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T23:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/?p=25167"},"modified":"2025-01-09T21:25:44","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T21:25:44","slug":"image-versus-reality-women-in-the-camp-adair-sentry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/2024\/02\/02\/image-versus-reality-women-in-the-camp-adair-sentry\/","title":{"rendered":"Image versus Reality: Women in the Camp Adair Sentry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Students in Dr. Marisa Chappell’s fall 2023 History 363 “Women in U.S. History” class spent the final three weeks of Fall Quarter 2023 in OSU\u2019s Special Collections and Archives Research Center exploring women in Camp Adair\u2019s history. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Anish Alam, Annabel McMillan, and Gwyn Scalet<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we explored the Camp Adair Sentry<\/em>, the official newspaper of Camp Adair during its years as a World War II training cantonment, we were struck by its superficial portrayal of women. We knew from our course readings and discussions that women played significant roles during World War II, so we set out to explore this seeming contradiction by analyzing the differences between the portrayal of women in the Sentry and the actual roles women played at Camp Adair. Our findings suggest that at Camp Adair, as in the rest of the United States, the war offered various opportunities for women and that, at the same time, there were distinct attempts to contain the transformative possibilities of women\u2019s expansive contributions to the war effort.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cElect Your PX Dream Girl! \u2013 The Rules,\u201d Camp Adair Sentry, February 11, 1943, describes a competition in which male soldiers voted for their favorite among the women who staffed the camp\u2019s post exchanges.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

An article on the front page of the Camp Adair Sentry<\/em> on February 11, 1942 announced a contest to \u201cElect Your PX Dream Girl!\u201d The article discusses a contest being run on the base in which men at Camp Adair voted to choose the \u201cbest\u201d female worker in the camp\u2019s retail outlets, called Post Exchanges. The contest highlights the sexualization and objectification of women at the camp and in American society. The article describes competitors solely in terms of their appearances and framing their beauty in terms of male fantasy: \u201cWherever she is, she rings her bell. She\u2019s the reason you stand in a surging line for an hour.\u201d The article does not discuss the actual labor women performed as retail workers at all. It notes that the top four contestants would be \u201cphotographed \u2013 with sweaters (although bathing suits would be alright too),\u201d further illustrating the women\u2019s position as objects.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cSocial Swirl\u201d from the Camp Adair Sentry, March 11, 1943, details social events happening on and around the camp.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This article was not unique. A review of issues of the newspaper revealed that women were generally dismissed or objectified. The Sentry repeatedly focused on women\u2019s social role and the perception of women by male service members. When women\u2019s labor is discussed, it is confined to their role as entertainment. The article \u201cSocial Swirl\u201d from March 11, 1942, for example, documents women\u2019s role overseeing social events for the enjoyment of servicemen.[2]<\/a> Women-organized dances at Camp Adair and in nearby communities provided recreation and entertainment for men.<\/p>\n\n\n

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From the \u201cHelp Wanted \u2013 Female\u201d section of the Oregon Statesman, November 23, 1943, this advertisement recruited \u201cgirls\u201d as retail workers at Camp Adair. The advertisement just below, in contrast, seeks \u201cwomen\u201d to work as a cook in a boarding house.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Despite the newspaper\u2019s emphasis on appearance, other sources illustrate that women\u2019s labor, both paid employment and volunteer labor, was essential to Camp Adair\u2019s functioning. A November 23, 1943 advertisement in the Oregon Statesmen<\/em> for \u201cgirls to clerk in Camp Adair exchange stores,\u201d for example, promised a \u201cgood salary\u201d for a six-day work week. The use of the world \u201cgirls\u201d indicates that the employers were looking specifically for young women.[3]<\/a> Retail jobs thus offered new opportunities for local women to earn wages. Another Oregon Statesman<\/em> article discussed local women volunteering to create recreational spaces for service members at Camp Adair. Women had long performed this kind of volunteer labor, and its coverage in the newspaper suggested that it was recognized as valuable; at the same time, the article noted that the work was done \u201cwithout additional help,\u201d suggesting that readers might assume women were not fully competent.[4]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n

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This excerpt from \u201cMonmouth Women Furnish Second Recreation Room\u201d in the Oregon Statesman on March 9, 1943, describes women\u2019s volunteer work furnishing recreation spaces for servicemen at Camp Adair.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Women also served as clerks and nurses at Camp Adair. An article in the Oregon State Barometer on April 21, 1943 reports that Miss Virginia Landquist, who was \u201cdirector of the division of biochemistry at the Camp Adair field hospital,\u201d and Miss Winifred de Witt, member of the camp\u2019s nurse corp, would visit Oregon State College to talk to students about \u201cthe opportunities open to women with home economics background and who wish to  make their efforts count for victory.\u201d Many of those opportunities, as the speakers suggest, were highly skilled, salaried positions. Of course, salaried and professional roles and social and recreational ones were not mutually exclusive. The article notes that \u201cMiss Lundquist supplements her work at the camp with duties as director of dancing instruction at the Corvallis USO [United Service Organization].\u201d [5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not surprising to find women workers and volunteers at Camp Adair. Historians have documented the varied positions women played during World War II. According to historians Judy Barrett Litoff and David C. Smith, some 6.5 million women in the United States were employed, bringing the proportion of American women in the labor force from 25% before the war to 36% by its end. Historians argue that the labor women performed during the war affected their identities. Litoff argues that \u201cone of the most significant themes expressed\u201d in women\u2019s wartime letters \u201cis the new sense of self experience,\u201d demonstrating that these roles held significant meaning and opened a new sense of purpose in women\u2019s lives.[6]<\/a> The historian Karen Anderson, too, argued that the fact that a majority of women \u201cwanted to keep their jobs after the war signified that women\u2019s aspirations for themselves and their sense of their own competence had been dramatically altered\u201d by their war work.[7]<\/a> When set against scholarship about expanding roles for women and research in other local newspapers, it is clear that The Sentry<\/em> underrepresented the labor of women on camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[1]<\/a> \u201cElect Your PX Dream Girl \u2013 The Rules,\u201d Camp Adair Sentry<\/em>, February 11, 1943, 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> \u201cSocial Swirl,\u201d Camp Adair Sentry<\/em>, March 11, 1943, 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> \u201cHelp Wanted \u2013 Female,\u201d The Oregon Statesman<\/em>, November 23, 1943, 11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> \u201cMonmouth Women Furnish Second Recreation Room,\u201d The Oregon Statesman<\/em>, March 9, 1943, 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> \u201cHome Economics Club Sponsors Convo Today,\u201d Oregon State Barometer<\/em>, April 21, 1942, 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> Judy Barrett Litoff and David C. Smith, \u201cU.S. women on the Home Front in World War II,\u201d The Historian 57, no. 2 (1995), 354. For discussion of women\u2019s home front work in Oregon specifically, see Amy E. Platt, \u201c\u2018Go into the yard as a worker, not as a woman\u2019\u201d Oregon Women During World War II, a Digital Exhibit on the Oregon History Project,\u201d Oregon Historical Quarterly<\/em> 116, no. 2 (2015): 234-248<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a> Karen Andersen, \u201cTeaching about Rosie the Riveter: The Role of Women during World War II,\u201d OAH Magazine of History<\/em> 3, no. \u00be (1988), 35.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students in Dr. Marisa Chappell’s fall 2023 History 363 “Women in U.S. History” class spent the final three weeks of Fall Quarter 2023 in OSU\u2019s Special Collections and Archives Research Center exploring women in Camp Adair\u2019s history. By Anish Alam, Annabel McMillan, and Gwyn Scalet As we explored the Camp Adair Sentry, the official newspaper […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1451,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[1345961],"class_list":["post-25167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hst363"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1451"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25167"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25210,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25167\/revisions\/25210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}