As World War I raged across the globe, hundreds of young women toiled away at the radium-dial factories, where they painted clock faces with a mysterious new substance called radium. Assured by their bosses that the luminous material was safe, the women themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered from head to toe with the glowing dust. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" were considered the luckiest alive--until they began to fall mysteriously...

When a man is murdered at a high society picnic on her beat, journalist Kitty Weeks is plunged into a wartime conspiracy that threatens to derail the United States' attempt to remain neutral and to disrupt the privileged life she has always known.

Tells the many forgotten stories of the men and women who served in the Great War, reminding Americans of their impact on our country that can still be felt today.

American Women in World War I provides the first comprehensive overview of women's role in the World War I war effort. Through personal interview, and excerpts from diaries, letters, and memoirs, the author relates poignant stories of wartime experiences and provides a unique perspective on the progress of women in military service. Devoting one chapter to each of the nine areas of service, the author interweaves richly detailed personal stories with...

Imagine a more controversial Rosie the Riveter-a generation older and more outlandish for her time. She was the "farmerette" of the Woman's Land Army of America (WLA), doing a man's job on the home front during World War I. From 1917 to 1920 the WLA sent more than twenty thousand urban women into rural America to take over farm work after the men went off to war and food shortages threatened the nation. These women, from all social and economic strata,...

"The untold story of the movement that came close to keeping the United States out of the First World War. This book is about the Americans who tried to stop their nation from fighting in one of history's most destructive wars and then were hounded by the government when they refused to back down. In the riveting War Against War, Michael Kazin brings us into the ranks of the largest, most diverse, and most sophisticated peace coalition up to that...

"From New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini, a bold, revelatory novel about one of the great untold stories of World War I--the women of the US Army Signal Corps, who broke down gender barriers in the military, smashed the workplace glass ceiling, and battled a pandemic as they helped lead the Allies to victory"-- June 1917. Arriving in France, General John Pershing found himself unable to communicate with troops in the field. Pershing...

The emotional toll of war can be as debilitating to soldiers as hunger, disease, and injury. Beginning in World War I, in an effort to boost soldiers' morale and remind them of the stakes of victory, the American military formalized a recreation program that sent respectable young women and famous entertainers overseas. Kara Dixon Vuic builds her narrative around the young women from across the United States, many of whom had never traveled far from...

Biographer Lee gives us a new Edith Wharton--tough, startlingly modern, as brilliant and complex as her fiction. Born in 1862, Wharton escaped the suffocating fate of the well-born female, traveled adventurously in Europe and eventually settled in France. She developed a forceful literary professionalism and thrived in a luminous society that included Bernard Berenson, Aldous Huxley and most famously Henry James, who here emerges more as peer than...