Once again we will present at the MHA Conference. Admission is free, open to the public, and includes a complimentary lunch on both days – click here to RSVP. Our programs this year conclude a three-year GGRWHC project illustrating women’s initiatives to register women for work during WWI and to create a home defense. Most American historians know little of this history beyond the old saw that women’s patriotism during WWI led to the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Look for our two panels:

• Thursday, May 30 at 10:30 a.m.: “Problematic Coalitions and Competing Interests: WWI-Era Women and Wartime Labor” looks at women entering the industrial work force during WWI. Industrial burdens increased as fewer men were available for factory positions; and once again midwestern women, who were already national leaders in Progressive Era reform movements, stepped up to play a leading role. This panel will study women already in factories when the war began, then how the successes and failures of Woman’s Committee reform efforts affected them as the war proceeded.
• Friday, May 31 at 2:45 p.m.: “Buried Treasure: The WWI Registration of American Women for War Work” will focus on the WWI Woman’s Committee efforts in 1918 to profile and number the women available for war work as a basis for moving ahead its other projects; the 2018 creation of a powerful, searchable database for the largest known collection in Grand Rapids; and the ongoing search for more cards to illustrate how the previous experiences of midwestern women leaders helped them shape such successful strategies that their registration work became the national model.