- (1782-1783) Deborah Sampson, disguised as a man, serves in Washington’s army for over a year. Her gender discovered after being wounded she is honorably discharged and, later, receives a military pension.
- Mary Allen and Mary Marshall serve several months aboard the USS United States as nurses.
- Elizabeth Newcom (enlisted as Bill Newcom), Missouri Volunteer Infantry, Company D, is discovered and discharged after trekking 600 miles to the Pueblo Colorado, winter camp.
- Women serve in Union and Confederate battlefield hospitals as nurses and cooks and matrons (administrators), as well as Red Rover, the Union hospital ship.
- Mary Walker receives the nation’s highest military honor, the Medal of Honor. To this day, she remains the only woman to ever receive this medal, which was rescinded in 1917 (two years before her death) and restored in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter.
- With the Army Medical Department overwhelmed with yellow fever, typhoid and malaria cases, Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee suggested appointing qualified nurses from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) to the Army Surgeon General. By the end of the war 1,500 hundred nurses were contracted to the U.S. Army. McGee was appointed Acting Assistant Surgeon General, the first woman to ever hold that position, and is asked to write legislation to create a permanent nurse corps after their impressive performance.
- The Army Nurse Corps is established.
- The Navy Nurse Corps is established.
- 21,480 Army nurses served overseas and in the U.S.
- 233 bilingual telephone operators are recruited and trained for the Army to work near the French front as switchboard operators.
- The Army Quartermasters Corps employed 50 stenographers to work in France.
- 11,880 women are enlisted stateside as Yeomen (F) by the Navy to release seamen for sea duty and in shore billets.
- Over 1,476 Navy nurses served overseas and in the U.S.
- To “free men to fight,” 305 Marine Reservists (F) are enlisted by the Marine Corps to fill positions such as operators.
- The Coast Guard allows two women to serve.
- An Army Reorganization Act provision officer status “with relative rank” from second lieutenant to major to military nurses (full rights and privileges not granted).
Written by Jenifer Chrisman on August 14, 2017.
“Everyone has ocean’s to fly, if they have the heart to do it. Is it reckless? Maybe. But what do dreams know of boundaries?”
– Amelia Earhart (aviation pioneer)
Although their roles weren’t always readily apparent, women have a long history serving within the military, dating all the way back to the United States’ founding. From the American Revolution through the early 1900s, many women served as nurses, water bearers, cooks, laundresses, saboteurs and various other support staff. Other women went so far as to disguise themselves as men, serving as soldiers. They have served as spies, joined the Special Forces and everything in between.
1775-1783 (American Revolution)
1812 (War of)
1846-1848 (Mexican War)
1861-1865 (Civil War)
1866
1898 (Spanish-American War)
1901
1908
1917-1918 (World War I)
1920 (Army Reorganization Act)
Continued in: Women in the Military Part II (1941-1992)
