Good Girls, Good Food, Good Fun: The Story of  USO Hostesses during World War II (Gender and American Culture)
Think of saddle-shoed coeds jitterbugging with the boys. The dance could be as sexually evocative then as grinding is now. It was all in a night's work for the thousands of young American women who volunteered to host soldiers in United Service Organizations clubs during WWII. The USO's domestic mission was to steer idle troops away from liquor, prostitutes and venereal disease, offering instead homemade cookies and wholesome smalltown girls. In constructing a portrait of wartime sexuality through the lens of the USO's American ideal of women, Winchell highlights what she views as the USO's middle-class prejudices. But she also offers studies of leadership in minority women's lobbying for such issues as canteen integration and access for women soldiers. Winchell, an assistant professor of history at Nebraska Wesleyan University, can't seem to let impressive research speak for itself, and her insightful observations are couched in the academic language of race, class, gender and the economics of women's work. The hostesses should have been the voice of this book—sometimes, they manage to be heard. 30 illus.(Nov.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.