“My professional future can be lost in a minute”: Re-examining the Gender Dynamics of US Army Nursing during the Second World War

Abstract

Celebrations of Second World War nurses as virtuous, angelic heroines have elided the complex realities of nurses’ lives during this time of extreme social upheaval. Nurses’ sexuality has remained a taboo subject in scholarly examinations of their wartime service, while the pregnancies of nurses – who were not allowed to marry – were intentionally omitted from the official military record. This article significantly revises our understanding of Second World War nursing by examining the letters of two American women who embarked on romantic relationships that resulted in pregnancy and their subsequent discharge from the US Army. Through critical feminist analysis, it investigates how both women navigated their personal lives and shifting gender roles during and post-war. An examination of their radical choices and experiences discloses the hidden history of unmarried, pregnant nurses returning from the Second World War and how the US military dealt with those nurses and their children.