from WNYC Studios. I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Wednesday, April 30th.

Now we continue our WNYC Centennial series, 100 Years of 100 Things. It's thing number 89, 100 years of women in the

military, including your oral history, stories of women in your family who served anytime from

World War I, let's say, until now. Who wants to tell any story of a woman in your family who served

in any branch of the military

as far back as you want to go, even before World War I, if there were any.

Our guest for this is Catherine Sharp Landek, Professor of History and Director of the Pioneers

Oral History Project at Texas Woman's University, and author of the book The Women with Silver Wings,

the inspiring true story of the women Air Force service pilots of World War II, and we will

certainly talk about them in this conversation. Professor Landek, thanks so much for joining us. Welcome

to WNYC and our 100 Years of 100 Things series.

Thanks so much for having me. Happy to be here.

When were women first allowed to serve in the U.S. military in any capacity?

Well, you have women that are serving in the American Civil War for certain and doing it in a variety of roles mainly as nurses.

But officially in the military, World War I is the real turning point.

And 100 years ago was 1925, not that long after the end of World War I.

What did women do in the U.S. military in World War I?

You have women doing a number of things. Of course, you have nurses, which were so important to the war, women serving in the Army

Nurse Corps. You have women serving in the Navy. There was a loophole in the Navy Yoman law where they said a person could be a yeoman,

and they didn't say that person had to be a man.

So they were able to fit some women into those positions, over 12,000 women, as a matter of fact.

Was it controversial?

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