Lipstick & War

09/18/2026

Hispanic Heritage Month began earlier this week, and for the rest of September I’m taking a closer look at Puerto Rican women who served in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II.
This series draws from a larger research project I completed on Puerto Rican Wacs and the ways race, gender, and colonial status shaped their military service.
One of the first things I encountered in that research was surprisingly basic: the Army wasn’t consistent in how it recorded their racial identity.
That inconsistency tells us quite a bit about race, citizenship, and belonging in the wartime Army.

“Puerto Rican” was one of the racial classifications available to the Army during the induction process.
But Puerto Rican women weren’t consistently recorded that way.
Most were classified as Puerto Rican while others were recorded as White or Negro.
The question, then, isn’t what race Puerto Rican Wacs “were.” It’s how the Army chose to classify them, and what those classifications meant within a segregated military structure.

Born in Cayey, Puerto Rico, Carmen Contreras Bozak was living on the mainland when she enlisted in the WAAC in October 1942. Her enlistment record classified her as “White, Citizen.”
That classification mattered. By recording Contreras as white, the Army placed her within a racial category that carried greater access to training, assignments, and opportunities for service.
In 1943, she deployed with the 149th WAAC Post Headquarters Company, the first contingent of Waacs sent overseas.
Her experience illustrates what I describe in my research as a “sliding scale of identity.” The Army’s classification of Contreras as white shaped the circumstances under which she could serve.

My preliminary analysis of the National Archives’ WWII Army enlistment records identified 249 Wacs of Puerto Rican descent.

26 of these women were classified as White, 2 as Negro, and 7 have missing or undefined racial information.

Most of the women (and all of those in this dataset who enlisted on the island itself) were classified as Puerto Rican.
The Army could therefore record “Puerto Rican” as a race in one woman’s record, while recording another Puerto Rican woman as White or another as Negro.

The Army’s racial classifications are only one part of this story.
Puerto Rican women were U.S. citizens, but they came from an island still governed under American colonial rule. Their service in the WAC was shaped not only by race, but by gender, citizenship, language, and Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States.
Those questions became especially visible in 1944, when the WAC finally began recruiting women on the island itself.


That’s where we’ll pick up next.

09/11/2026

September to me means a welcome to Fall Fashion, and a much needed wardrobe shift after the last of summer’s heat. In September 1942, auxiliaries were also facing a wardrobe shift—but not necessarily a seasonal one! This photo is from a scrapbook in my collection, and shows a WAAC trainee in the first pattern summer service uniform. The original khaki cotton jackets (or blouses) came with a matching belt that had been quite the object of debate before getting approved in May 1942–on the grounds that a belt could detract from “defects in figures.” However, the belts proved to be more of a problem than a solution, and during the pattern revisions in October 1942, the belts were eliminated. As evidenced by the back of this photo, Waacs who had already received the belted service jacket were instructed to stop wearing it.

The rapidity of mobilization and exigencies of war meant that the WAAC/WAC had a near constant iterative process of uniform design and redesign from 1942-1945, and makes the material culture of the Corps an especially interesting topic!

09/07/2026

Labor Day was born out of the American labor movement of the late nineteenth century, when workers organized for better wages, shorter hours, safer working conditions, and a greater voice in the workplace.

Freda Wenner intended to leave her civilian job at the Erie Proving Ground and enlist in the Women’s Army Corps. There was one major hurdle: her job was essential war work, and before she could enlist, her supervisor had to provide a letter releasing her from her civilian position.

This detail illustrates a part of the WAC story that is sometimes overlooked, the history of the Corps is also part of the history of American labor, particularly the long history of women in the workforce.

By 1940, more than 13 million American women were part of the civilian labor force. Wartime mobilization expanded their opportunities considerably as women moved into industries and occupations that had traditionally employed men.

When Congress established the WAAC in May 1942, the legislation specifically described its purpose as making the “knowledge, skill and special training” of American women available to the national defense. The Army could recruit women as clerks, stenographers, telephone operators, drivers, cooks, technicians, and eventually hundreds of other specialties because women already brought many of those skills with them from civilian life.

Freda joined their ranks in 1945. Her story is a particularly good example of how closely the histories of women’s military service and women’s labor are connected. The WAC rested, in part, on generations of women entering wage work, learning trades and professions, organizing for better working conditions, and challenging the boundaries of what Americans considered “women’s work.”

Labor Day recognizes the contributions of American workers, and WAC history is inseparable from the generations of working women who came before.

07/20/2026

Join me today at 2 pm Eastern with WW2TV - Paul Woodadge to talk about about one of my favorite WAC units!

WAC Detachment in Normandy: Forward Echelon Communications ZoneWit...

07/02/2026

More photos from .taste.of.history, peep those interpreter hands 👐💅 (and please ignore the tattoo coverup wearing off)
Image Credit to Tim Branscum and Joey Sorace

06/23/2026

Time traveling is more fun with good friends.

The Unladylike Corps

Photo credit: Dave Stone

06/22/2026

Another long material culture post:
Like many aspects of the WAAC, the history of the dress for Cooks, Bakers, and Laundresses has its origins in the First World War. The dress was based off of commercially available dresses worn in the home and commonly used as uniforms for women working as waitresses, cooks, and housekeepers. Nicknamed Hoover dresses, Hooverettes, or Hoover aprons, the Internet is full of barracks lore on the origin of the name being connected to the vacuum cleaner brand or as a censure of President Hoover for their popularity during the Great Depression. The actual source of the name is from Hoover’s WWI effort, the United States Food Administration (USFA). The USFA actively recruited & hired women to help with the rationing efforts during the war, offering employment and agency in high-level roles in a period when American women were still fighting for the right to vote. Members of the USFA were entitled to make and wear their own “Hoover Helper’s Uniform,” consisting of a belted wrap dress and white cap. It was this dress, wholly utilitarian in design and economical to sew, that would become a staple in many women’s wardrobes in the coming decades. The dress for Cooks, Bakers, and Laundresses was made of white cotton sheeting, and paired with a bibbed apron and cap. Women assigned as Bakers or Cooks were issued 6 aprons, 4 caps, and 4 dresses. Worn with stockings and the service shoe, the uniform was conspicuously devoid of any insignia—the only other accessories were a name badge, and any jewelry approved for wear in uniform, such as a watch, ID bracelet, or wedding ring. I made the uniforms that and I wore this weekend, and paired mine with deadstock cotton stockings, reproduction service shoes by All Heels on Duty, deadstock name badge, original WAAC ID bracelet, reproduction watch by Timeworn .

06/21/2026

Day 2 of .taste.of.history, thanks to for the photo! This really has been the most fun I’ve had with an impression in ages—already making plans for what I can add next for the WAAC Bakers & Cooks School!

06/19/2026

First day of .taste.of.history portraying the Bakers & Cooks School at the Third WAAC Training Center. knocked the day room and the rolls out of the park, and I talked about the training program and molasses cookies. First attempt at a new impression always has room for improvement, I look forward to continuing to research and add to this. If you can make it tomorrow, the event runs 9-6 at ’s Sandstone village—free to the public!

06/16/2026

Amherst Historical Society’s Taste of History event is this Friday & Saturday! This event focuses on historic foodways, with a range of eras represented at Sandstone Village. I love foodway history, and am so excited for the opportunity to interpret the Third WAAC Training Center’s Bakers & Cooks School with The Unladylike Corps. We’ll be serving molasses cookies straight out of the Baking Manual for Army Cooks and offering a glimpse into the classroom where auxiliaries learned how to feed the Army’s newest corps. We hope to see you at the event—it’s free to the public Friday, June 19th, 9-5 and Saturday, June 20th, 9-6.