Browse Items (6 total)

This is a section of a LIFE magazine article titled "Missouri vs. Smith, Girl Student at One and a Coed at Other Lead Different Lives." It focuses on the college schedule and opinions of Smith College student Janet Trowbridge. It includes a photograph of her sitting front row and taking notes in a government class.

Essay written by Virginia Woolf on the topic of illness and its (lack of) coverage in literature, referring specifically to influenza throughout as an example of "illness." Woolf discusses, among others, themes like the mind as opposed to the body, the (in)capabilities of the English language, illness's connection to "incomprehensibility," and the role of the poet in society. The essay essentially argues that, though it doesn't seem to do so at the moment ("the moment" in this case being the early 20th century), illness should exist "among the prime themes of literature."

Self-portrait by Frida Kahlo depicting the artist's spine as a broken column. The rest of her body is constrained by an orthopedic corset and covered in nails, and there are tears painted on the artist's face.

This 1943 photograph by Marjory Collins shows women factory workers attending morning mass in Buffalo, New York, immediately after completing the overnight third shift. They sit and stand in the dim interior of a church, their coats are still on, and their scarves are tied tightly around their heads. These suggest exhaustion and the cold of early morning. This photograph shows a moment of transition between industrial labor and religious service, making clear how wartime work schedules shaped daily life for women employed in defense industries.

Interpretation Note
Collins' photograph offers a counter-narrative to the polished images of wartime labor circulated by the Office of War Information. Instead of depicting heroic productivity, this photograph shows fatigue, ordinariness, and the effort to maintain community and spiritual continuity amid punishing hours. The women's quiet postures echo Kate Eichhorn's point that some of the most revealing traces of women's history appear in the ordinary moments and materials that official narratives tend to ignore. In that sense, the photograph functions much like the feminist archives Eichhorn describes, because it shifts attention to lives usually kept at the margins and shows that even everyday acts can speak volumes about the pressures women faced. Ultimately, Collins' photograph reminds us that women's work in defense plants was a patriotic duty, but it was also a grueling cycle that reshaped home life, religious practice, and whatever small pockets of rest remained.

The 1943 Office of War Information poster features a woman in a bright red uniform working on what appears to be an aircraft canopy. Her calm and focused expression suggests confidence and skill. The bold title declares, "The more WOMEN at work the sooner we WIN!" Below, a list of occupations (such as farm worker, typist, bus driver, laundress, and others) encourages women to join many sectors of the wartime economy. The poster presents women's labor, whether in factories or service roles, as a patriotic act essential to victory.

Interpretation Note
This poster is a clear example of how state institutions actively shaped public memory of women's wartime roles by promoting certain stories about women's wartime labor while leaving out others. As Kenneth Foote argued, collective memory is built through selective emphasis, since societies often highlight specific events or meanings and downplay the aspects that do not fit the message they want to project. In this case, the Office of War Information presents women's work as a unified patriotic effort that is essential to national victory. The poster's clear slogan and orderly list of occupations support a motivating narrative. What falls outside that frame, such as the exhaustion, unequal pay, racial segregation, childcare struggles, or the abrupt layoffs women faced after the war, simply does not appear. Foote reminds us that this kind of selective emphasis is common in the formation of cultural memory, where representations produced by institutions determine which versions of the past circulate widely and which are allowed to fade. In choosing to emphasize patriotism, duty, and contribution over the difficulties and inequalities that shaped women's actual working lives, the poster helped define how an entire era would later be remembered.