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.

Marie-Anne Greenough worked for the U.S. government as a translator and propaganda/intelligence analyst in Washington, New York City, London, Frankfurt, and Berlin (1941-1946). She also served as a correspondent for the Stars and Stripes for six months before returning to the United States. During the early 1950s, she worked on the newsletter of the Atlantic Union Committee for a Federation of All Democracies. The collection includes diaries, scrapbooks, articles, and correspondence relating to her work overseas. It also contains letters in German to Marie-Anne from a boyfriend written between 1938 and 1940.

Susan Morse Hilles, art collector and philanthropist, was the wife of Frederick Whiley Hilles, a professor of English who served with U.S. intelligence during World War II. The collection consists of an interview with Hilles.

Hazel Hunkins-Hallinan was born in Aspen, Colorado, but later lived in England and worked as a freelance journalist. In 1942, Hunkins-Hallinan was evacuated to the United States for the remainder of World War II. Between 1942 and 1945, she worked for a number of government offices, including the Foreign Economics Administration.

During World War II, Mary Pillsbury Lord served as Assistant Regional Director of the Office of Civilian Defense and in 1944 was appointed chairman of the National Civilian Advisory Committee of the Women's Army Corps, which enabled her to tour Army installations in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. She was later appointed U.S. representative to the General Assembly of the United Nations and U.S. representative to the Commission on Human Rights (1953-1961).

Peirce, a native of Boston, Mass., was recruited by the FBI in 1941 to work as an undercover agent. She joined the Women's Army Corps in August 1942 and was one of the first women intercept operators for the Boston Intercept Command. She was later stationed as a flight dispatcher in Bangor, Maine, and at Mitchell Air Force Base, Long Island, New York. She was discharged from the military in 1945. Throughout her life she retained an avid interest in women in the military, collecting clippings and other information on the subject.

A pacifist and feminist, Rankin was the first congresswoman, representing Montana in 1917-1919 and in 1941-1943; she was the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. participation in both world wars. In the 1920s she worked for the National Consumers' League and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and founded the Georgia Peace Society. In the 1930s, she worked for the National Council for Prevention of War. From 1945 to the early 1970s, she traveled extensively, especially in India, opposed the Vietnam War, and worked for the Equal Rights Amendment. This collection best documents Rankin’s vote against U.S. entry into WWII and the consequent public reaction, though both terms in congress are covered.

• A nurse and Republican congresswoman from the Fifth District of Massachusetts, Edith Nourse Rogers was elected in 1925 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her husband, John Jacob Rogers. Re-elected to every successive Congress, she died in office, having served as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. During both world wars, American presidents assigned Rogers to survey the medical care of wounded American soldiers overseas, and between the wars she oversaw the care of disabled veterans. Legislation attributed to Rogers includes improvement of the Foreign Service, establishment of the WAC, enactment of the G.I. Bill of Rights and the Korean veterans' benefits bill, establishment of a permanent Nurse Corps for veterans, and other laws providing aid and assistance to permanently disabled American war veterans.

Rosinal Marguerite Wolfson headed a Red Cross ambulance unit in France during World War I. She lived with her brother and parents in Manila, Philippine Islands, before, during, and after World War II, and was a Republican National Committeewoman for the Philippine Islands from 1921 to 1947. The collection includes reminiscences of experiences of Americans during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II.

Ellen Sullivan Woodward was the second woman in the Mississippi House of Representatives. She held various state jobs, was assistant administrator of the Works Progress Administration in Washington (1933-1938), a member of the Social Security Board, a member of U.S. delegations to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and director of the Office of Inter-Agency and International Relations of the Federal Security Agency. The collection contains materials concerning women in the work force during WWII.

Mary Bancroft was an author and intelligence officer for the Office of Strategic Services. In the 1930s she moved to Switzerland and subsequently worked for Allen Dulles in the Office of Strategic Services. She penned a memoir entitled Autobiography of a Spy. The collection includes Bancroft's wartime reports to Allen Dulles.

Although she is best known for her cooking shows, Julia Child and her husband Paul Child served overseas with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. This collection contains an OSS report regarding a trip to China as well as correspondence between Paul and his twin brother Charles chronicling the lives of Paul and Julia in the OSS. Letters written during World War II discuss Paul's work in India (1944), Sri Lanka (1944), and China (1945).

An economist and restaurateur, Mary S. Garin-Painter worked for the Office of Strategic Services, where she pioneered statistical models for analyzing Germany's military capabilities. After the war she worked for the Federal Reserve Board in Washington and at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, and in 1949 she served in Paris under the Marshall Plan.

Louise W. Holborn was an educator, political scientist, and internationally recognized authority on refugee issues. She was born in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany, and was an active volunteer during World War I. Between 1928 and 1932, she studied at the University of Heidelberg and the German School of Politics in Berlin, but she discontinued her studies when Hitler rose to power in 1933. Holborn left for England, where she briefly resumed her studies at the London School of Economics before immigrating to the United States in 1934. In addition to her teaching career, Holborn worked for the United States Office of Strategic Services during World War II.

Katherine Mildred Keene enlisted in the U.S. Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in December 1942, and in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) in August 1943. From September 1943 to May 1945, she was stationed in London, England, working for the secret intelligence and research and analysis branches of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Following Victory in Europe Day, Keene became secretary to the head of the OSS Research and Analysis Branch in the European Theatre of Operations and served in briefly in Paris, France, before being stationed in Germany. She was demobilized in October 1945 and returned home to Seattle. This collection contains correspondence, diaries, photographs, a WAC uniform, and ephemera documenting Keene's service.

A pilot, cartographer, professor, and intelligence officer, Margaret Mace Kingsman was one of the first women to obtain a pilot's license, and she worked as chief cartographer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the U.S. Office of Strategic Services until 1945. Following the war she worked as a career officer for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (1948-1966).

Kathryn Coleman Wharton Packe served with the Office of Strategic Services/Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in London during the war while her children were in private schools in the United States. The collection consists of letters from Packe mostly to her son John, describing her travels, daily life, visitors, and work during the war.

Patricia Rosalind Cutler Warner served in the Office of Strategic Services in Europe during World War II. This collection includes some personal correspondence and autobiographical sketches concerning her service in the OSS.

Elizabeth Phenix Wiesner worked as a medical secretary and was a member of the Massachusetts Women's Defense Corps. She served with the American Red Cross in Italy and North Africa (1943-1944) and with the Office of Strategic Services in Europe (1944-1946). She entered the Foreign Service and served at the American embassy in Berlin in 1948. She is the author of Pilgrim & Pioneer: A Journey with God (1989) and Between the Lines: Overseas with the Red Cross and OSS (1998). The collection includes letters by Wiesner to her parents between 1943 and 1946 as well as a draft of Between the Lines.