While working as a feature writer at the Milwaukee Journal, Caroline Iverson Ackerman began taking free flying lessons at the University of Wisconsin, sponsored by the U.S. government. Although the school initially rejected her because she was a woman, Ackerman was called back when the school failed to meet its quota of males. She passed all her courses and received her pilot's license in the fall of 1940. In the spring of 1942, she was recruited to be an aviation researcher for Life magazine, which subsequently convinced her not to join the war effort with the argument that covering aviation news was more useful than being another woman pilot. Shortly thereafter, she was promoted to aviation editor at the age of 26 and continued in that position for the duration of the war. In 1947, Ackerman, like many other women in the workforce, was released from her job as the soldiers returned from the war.

Mary Anderson was Director of the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor for 25 years. This collection includes transcripts of three radio speeches broadcast on Feb. 22, 1942, by Mary Anderson for the working women of the Allied nations. Anderson describes the changing nature of employment for women before and during World War II and the history of sex discrimination in employment. She also forecasts how the employment climate for women may change after the war.

Putney was the women's supervisor at Boeing Aircraft Company in Renton, Wash., from 1942 to 1945. This collection consists of 21 photographs of women working on B-29 bombers at the Boeing plant. It also includes correspondence and a clipping concerning Putney's work.

Helen Meriwether Lewis Thomas received her A.B (1928) in astronomy and Ph.D. (1948) from Radcliffe College. She worked during World War II at the Radio Research Laboratory at Harvard and then at the Radiation Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She went on to work as a senior engineer at Raytheon (1947-1954), and later as head of publications at MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics. This collection includes an interview transcript describing MIT's Radiation Laboratory and photographs of radar on U.S. Navy warships (1941-1945).

The audiotapes, transcripts, and interview cards in this collection served as research material for the documentary The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter, which was produced around 1980 by Connie Field and Clarity Educational Productions. The collection includes interviews with women who worked in factories and shipyards, mostly welding and riveting, during World War II. There is also a handful of interviews with men who supervised or worked alongside the women. There are over one hundred and seventy interviewees, many of whom are Chicana, American Indian, and African American.

This collection includes interviews conducted by Sherna Berger Gluck between 1979 and 1982 with 45 women who worked in the Los Angeles aircraft industry during World War II.

The Winnie the Welder Oral History Project was conducted by the seventh grade class of Broad Meadows Middle School in Quincy, Mass., under its teacher, Ronald G. Adams. The project focused on the first women hired as shipbuilders at the Quincy Fore River Shipyard and Bethlehem-Hingham Shipyard during World War II.

This documentary by Shady Side Academy (Pittsburgh, Pa.) student Julia Love features some of the women who built glider wings at the Heinz factory. The film includes World War II footage on recruitment of women workers and the use of gliders in combat, as well as an interview with a glider pilot. A second video is the introduction to the premiere of the film, with speakers Eva Moseley, Susan Rhodes, Julia Love, and film editor Henry Simonds.