Dedication

This project is dedicated to the women in defense work who helped win World War II, who have seldom been thanked for their incredible efforts. The real Rosies are so much more inspiring than the pop art, and the freedoms we know today are thanks to them. 

Immense thanks to Ms. Betty Reid Soskin and Mr. Neil D. Reid who were happy to share their memories as members of the greatest generation. Thank you to my wonderful parents who supported me through these past two years of graduate school while teaching in a pandemic. Thank you to Dr. Laura Ping at Pace University, who embodies the attributes of a great teacher: kind, insightful, and challenging. Thank you to the James Madison Memorial Foundation, which funded my master’s degree in American History and growth as an educator of our great country. Thank you to National History Day staff Dr. Cathy Gorn and Mrs. Lynne O’Hara and their Sacrifice for Freedom programs, which funded and facilitated inspirational travel to Normandy and Pearl Harbor. These programs taught me the skills to take on this project. Tremendous thanks to my wonderful husband who listened to all my stories, fears, failures, and triumphs in the eight months of this project. He insisted that if I felt the need to thank him, that he be put last, and the World War II generation be listed first. “This is their story, I just enjoyed listening to it."