home
news
exhibit
her-story
conference
support
links
contact

Women Protecting US will chronicle the saga of women with strong connections to the Bay State. While many are Commonwealth natives, others came here for school, marriage, or participated in military training programs that served as stepping stones for tours of duty around the world. Their lives touched and were touched by many others, forging connections that strengthened our state’s heritage.

Portraying women as powerful forces in the outcome of World War II, Women Protecting US will profile luminaries like Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers, LCDR Mildred McAfee, and RADM Grace Murray Hopper, as well as enlisted women such as Deborah Samson, a.k.a. Private Robert Shirtliff, of Plympton, MA, who disguised herself as a man in order to join the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War.

Equally important, the exhibit will interpret women’s mastery of mathematics, science, medicine, and engineering—skills that made WWII a war of advanced technology for the time.

The major exhibition and memorial space will use a variety of display formats such as collage poster panels, representational vignettes, oral history media presentations, artifacts, uniforms, letters, and commemorative awards.

A recent visit by two former WACs, Gloria H Tuperkeizsis and J. Elizabeth Brewer, President, Chapter 14 of the WAC Veterans’ Association and Judy Barret Litoff, Ph.D., Professor of History at Bryant University and a leading authority on women and WWII, helped to identify approximately 20 additional locations around the battleship that would benefit from a poster panel to highlight the women’s contribution to existing topic displays. Once these posters are installed, Battleship Cove’s visitors will benefit from a more gender-balanced perspective of the shared burden of national defense.