2021 City Nature Challenge Results
The last time I posted, it was the City Nature Challenge (CNC), an international bioblitz! In 2021 the Hampton Roads area did pretty well considering we are still coming out of a pandemic. There is also always room for improvement– stay tuned for our exciting CNC efforts for 2022!
As mentioned in some previous blogs, World War II was the first time in US history that women were allowed to officially enter the military in any major capacity, outside ofNursing. This change brought many white, middle-class women into the labor force for the first time and opened up opportunities to women and people of color in jobs that would otherwise be denied to them.The Women’s Army Corpsor WAC (originally the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps) was the only one of these groups to integrate women into its corresponding military branch fully. However, in the 1940s, there were much stricter ideas of gender norms, gender expression, and heteronormativity. This meant there was significant pushback against the idea of women joining the military, as this was viewed as the epitome of masculine spaces. As a result, many suggested that women did not belong in the military, despite many women joining the WAC (andothergroups) and excelling in their new roles.
There was a lot of concern about what women joining the military might mean. A slander campaign arose between 1943-1944, about 1-2 years after the forming of WAC/WAAC, which claimed that women who joined the WAC were either promiscuous or lesbians. These rumors were sourced from several places. One is a prominent newspaper article on the WACs claiming that WACs would receive free prophylactic equipment, just as the male GIs did. However, this was inherently false, one of the many double standards that women in the military were held to.
Tomorrow marks the 156th anniversary of Juneteenth, the oldest commemoration marking the end of slavery in the United States of America. Frederick Douglass, a former enslaved person himself, even referred to it as the second Independence Day. Also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day, the word “Juneteenth” is an amalgamation of “June” and the “19th.”. Let’s turn back the hands of time for a moment and look at what happened 156 years ago.
On June 19, 1865, federal troops under Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to deliver an unexpected but welcomed order to the enslaved population living in and around this city located on a barrier island. General Order Number 3 states as follows:
With this blog post, I’ll be taking us back, once again, to World War II. You may already be familiar with the WAVES, or Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, which functioned as the women’s reserve branch of the Navy during WWII. While we did have a previous blog post on theWAVESand what some of their members did when serving at theHampton Roads Port of Embarkation (HRPE), with this blog I’d like to delve a little deeper, and talk about two specific WAVES: Lt j.g. Harriet Ida Pickens and Ensign Frances Wills, the first African American women to join the WAVES, and the first African American officers in the WAVES.
We often think of WWII as being a general call to arms, an “all hands on deck” time in our history. Despite this sentiment and the genuine need for troops, the military often barred or refused to enlist African Americans. While the女性的军队集团s(or the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps until 1943) andArmy Nurse Corpsallowed African American to enlist in 1942, they were both segregated institutions. The Navy’s WAVES, the Coast Guard’s SPARS, and Navy Nurse Corps did not integrate for several more years. Despite the racist policies and practices put in place by the military, many African Americans (and BIPOC) continued to fight against these bigoted policies and attempted to enlist.
We here at The Mariners’ Museum and Park take pride in our mission which states that we connect people to the world’s waters, because that is how we are connected to one another. On our website, museum president Howard Hoege III emphasizes that, “We strive to provide an intellectual and emotional experience that is shared by generations, across cultures, and without barriers or judgment.”1The museum would like to take this opportunity to share that May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. As May draws to a close, please take a moment to reflect on the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who have contributed to our understanding of the Pacific Ocean, ocean navigation, and maritime knowledge in general.
In Memoriam – A Loss to the Maritime and Polynesian Community
