The Girls Next Door

In the last few decades, several books have appeared on the Red Cross, Salvation Army, United Service Organizations (Uso), and other entertainment organizations that supported the U.S. armed forces during wartime. The first studies were often administrative histories, but more recently they have been written by or about women full-time employees and entertainers. All have focused on one region, one organization, or one war. Kara Dixon Vuic's The Girls Next Door pulls together the history of women in military recreation over the last century, synthesizing the best of these publications and adding extensive archival sources. She interprets female gender roles in wartime in terms of the latest scholarship in gender studies and military social history. Vuic begins by explaining that these recreational programs “sought to combat prostitution, remind soldiers of their mothers or sweethearts, and symbolize a supportive American home front” (p. 1). She persuasively argues that these women were not “sideshows” but rather

Business · Criminology · Entertainment · Front (military · Home front · Media studies · Military service · Political science · Public relations · Recreation · Scholarship · Service (business · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Engineering · Gender Studies · History · Law · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics

• Class/War

  Justin F Jackson•Labor Studies in Working-Class…•2025

  Add to list