Millions of women have put their stamp on America. The nation has put some of them on its postage stamps to honor their achievements and service.
Women's past contributions paved the way for today's women to follow and give hope for the future, personnel psychologist Annette Baisden wrote in her DoD pamphlet "Women: Putting Our Stamp on America" for the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute. The pamphlet title comes from the theme of this year's observance of National Women's History Month.
Under the subtitle, "Military Nurses Stamping Out Suffering and Disease," Baisden said military nurses were the forerunners of today's women in the military.
In 1982, the Postal Service issued a stamp with the likeness of Civil War Dr. Mary Walker, the only woman to date to hold the Medal of Honor.
"During the Civil War Mary Walker became a nurse because she was denied acceptance as a military physician," Baisden said. "She later received a commission as an assistant surgeon and became the first woman doctor in the military."
Stamps have also been issued with pictures of Phoebe Yates Levy Pember (1995), a matron at Chimboratzo, a Confederate army hospital, and Clara Louise Maass (1976), one of the first military contract nurses.
A 1983 stamp honored Dorothea Dix, the first woman appointed to a federal administration position -- superintendent of Union Army nurses during the Civil War.
In 1978, the Postal Service issued a stamp on a postcard depicting "Molly Pitcher" loading a cannon at the Battle of Monmouth during the Revolution. Mary Hays McCauly had earned her nickname earlier as a battlefield water carrier.... When her husband fell wounded at his cannon at Monmouth, she took his place.....Gen. George Washington issued her a warrant as a noncommissioned officer, and she became known as "Sergeant Molly."
"Stamps tell the story of women who didn't need a stamp of approval to stamp out inequalities, injustices, stereotypes and suffering," Baisden said...."By texlling their stories, describing trends they shaped, offering examples of women pioneers, activist and ordinary women who transformed the world we live in, we encourage our followers to explore and take risks, to succeed and transform."
The first U.S. commemorative stamps were issued in Chicago in 1893 for the 400th anniversary celebration of Columbus' discovery of the New World. Several of the Columbian series featured the royal Spanish court and Queen Isabella, who financed Columbus' adventure into the unknown, according to Baisden.
Martha Washington, the nation's first first lady, became the first American woman honored on a stamp in 1902. Stamps with her portrait were also issued in 1923 and 1938.
Pocahontas was the third woman and first Native American to be pictured on a stamp, issued in 1907 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, Va....The heroine of the Capt. John Smith legend is virtually unrecognizable as either a woman or an Indian....The stamp is based on her only known likeness, a portrait of her as a member of high society when she lived in England as the wife of Virginia tobacco dealer John Rolfe.
The Postal Service issued a "Women in Our Armed Services" stamp in 1952 featuring pictures of women in uniform from the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force.
On Oct. 18, 1997, the Postal Service issued the "Women in MilitaryService"postage stamp at the dedication of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at the gateway of Arlington (Va.) National Cemetery.
The 37 million stamps printed featured uniformed women of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard.
The women portrayed on stamps "are paid this special tribute for a unique accomplishment, an historic achievement, or a contribution worthy of worldwide recognition," according to a U.S. Postal Service press release.
Images on stamps are selected by the U.S. Postal Service and members of the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee.
Eighty-five stamps featuring women can be found on the World Wide Web at www.usps.gov/fr_stamps.htm l. Click on "Women on Stamps."
WASHINGTON -- The stories of nearly 300,000 servicewomen are preserved in computerized registry of the Women in Military Service to America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.
Though considerable, that number is a mere 15 percent of the 2 million women eligible for inclusion in the registry, the heart of the memorial.
Officials of the Women in Military Service to America Memorial Foundationare trying to reach the remaining 85 percent so they can be included and help preserve the history of women in the military.
Women who served in any service branch can register themselves or be registered by a family member or friend by calling1-800- 472-5883.
Since June 1998, the foundation opened several new exhibits at the memorial, said foundation spokeswoman Jennifer Finstein.
The displays commemorate:
o The 50th anniversary of the Women's Armed Services Integration Act, on display through 1999.
o Native Americans, through 1999.
o The Spanish-American War, through May.
o Ethnic heritage months.
o The Women's Memorial dedication, on display indefinitely.
o The 25th anniversary of women in the service chaplains corps, on display indefinitely.
The foundation is preparing a new permanent exhibit on service women of the Korean War era, to debut in June 2000.
Curators are looking for donations of Korean War artifacts such as uniforms, documents, letters home, newspaper and magazine articles, instruction manuals, recruitment and information brochures, and photographs.
They're also collecting veterans' oral histories.
For more information, call Judy Bellafaire at
(703) 533-1155.
Weekly programs and seminars are scheduled at the memorial throughout March, Women's History Month.
On March 23, the foundation is sponsoring an appearance by author-journalist Betty Friedan, who will talk about the feminist movement, the changing roles of women and the impact of military women on these phenomena.
On March 30, a leading behavioral specialist and DoD consultant will present a seminar titled "Meeting the Leadership Challenge of Equal Opportunity in the 21st Century."
Call toll-free (800)- 222-2294 or (703) 533-1155 for more information or reservations.
Some major coming events include:
o A May discussion program with Tom Brokaw, NBC news correspondent and author of "The Greatest Generation."
o Memorial Day program.
o One-man art exhibit with Antonio Perez Malero in June.
o In June, the memorial will present the annual Margaret Chase Smith Leadership Award ceremony and program.
o Women's health seminars beginning this summer.
o Reshowing in July of the documentary "To Serve My Country, To Service My Race," the story of African-American women of World War II.
o An Oct. 18 ceremony will mark the anniversary of the memorial dedication.
o Veterans Day program.
By Rudi Williams
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON – Whenever Ann Walker's brattish attitude emerged, her grandmother would often say, "You're just like your great- aunt Mary."
"When I was a teen-ager, I started to wonder, who is this great- aunt Mary?" said Walker, 74. "I sort of hungered for information about her, but I couldn't find much. Nobody, including my grandmother, seemed to care about her. She always said, 'Your aunt was always dressing like a man.'"
Her curiosity surged when one of her father's friends, a history professor, told her about her distant relative, actually her great-great-aunt, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker of the Civil War Union Army.
He told her Mary Walker was the first American woman to be a military doctor, a prisoner of war and a Medal of Honor recipient.
She was also a Union spy and a crusader against tobacco and alcohol.
"He told me she was always imitating men, and if she had dressed like a lady, she would have had a larger role in history," said Walker, a resident of Washington's Georgetown Aged Women's Home. A retired free-lance journalist, Walker said she's working on a book, "Woman of Honor," to tell the story of her aunt's Civil War exploits and her controversial life thereafter.
Through the family friend and research, Ann Walker learned her aunt was born on Nov. 26, 1832, in Oswego County, N.Y., and graduated from Syracuse Medical College in 1855. She married fellow medical student Albert Miller, but declined to take his name. The couple set up a medical practice in Rome, N.Y., but the public wasn't ready to accept a woman physician. The practice and the marriage foundered.
When the Civil War started, the Union Army wouldn't hire women doctors, so Walker volunteered as a nurse in Washington's Patent Office Hospital and treating wounded soldiers at the Battle of Bull Run in Virginia.
In 1862, she received an Army contract appointing her as an assistant surgeon with the 52nd Ohio Infantry.
The first woman doctor to serve with the Army Medical Corps, Walker cared for sick and wounded troops in Tennessee at Chickamauga and in Georgia during the Battle of Atlanta.
Confederate troops captured her on April 10, 1864, and held her until the sides exchanged prisoners of war on Aug. 12, 1864. Walker worked the final months of the war at a women's prison in Louisville, Ky., and later at an orphans' asylum in Tennessee.
The Army nominated Walker for the Medal of Honor for her wartime service. President Andrew Johnson signed the citation on Nov. 11, 1865, and she received the award on Jan. 24, 1866. Her citation cites her wartime service, but not specifically valor in combat.
Walker's citation reads in part that she "devoted herself with much patriotic zeal to the sick and wounded soldiers, both in the field and hospitals, to the detriment of her own health. She has also endured hardships as a prisoner of war for four months in a Southern prison while acting as contract surgeon."
The War Department, starting in 1916, reviewed all previous Medal of Honor awards with the intent of undoing decades of abuse. At the time, for instance, the medal could be freely copied and sold and legally worn by anyone.
Past awards would be rescinded and future ones would be rejected if supporting evidence didn't clearly, convincingly show combat valor above and beyond the call of duty.
Mary Walker and nearly 1,000 past recipients found their medals revoked in the reform. Wearing the medal if unearned became a crime. The Army demanded Walker and the others return their medals. She refused and wore hers until her death at age 87 in 1919.
In the late 1960s, Ann Walker launched an intensive lobbying campaign to restore her aunt's medal. A Nov. 25, 1974, letter from the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee read, in part, "It's clear your great-grandaunt was not only courageous during the term she served as a contract doctor in the Union Army, but also as an outspoken proponent of feminine rights. Both as a doctor and feminist, she was much ahead of her time and, as is usual, she was not regarded kindly by many of her contemporaries. Today she appears prophetic."
President Jimmy Carter restored Mary Walker's Medal of Honor on June 11, 1977. Today, it's on display in the Pentagon's women's corridor.
Walker said her relative was controversial on the battlefield and in civilian life. During the war, she wore trousers under her skirt, a man's uniform jacket and two pistols.
As an early women's rights advocate, particularly for dress reform, she was arrested many times after the war for wearing men's clothes, including wing collar, bow tie and top hat.
The Women in Military Service to America Memorial at Arlington (Va.) National Cemetery features the story of Dr. Mary E. Walker along with a photograph of her and her walking cane. Curator Judy Bellafaire called Walker "quite a character," and one whose ideas made her seem eccentric in her own day and age.
"But judging her from today's perspective, much of what she spoke and wrote about, that people made fun of at the time, is probably true today," Bellafaire said.
Walker, she said, wrote volumes about the evils of tobacco and alcohol and women's clothes and authored two books: "Unmasked" and "Hit," a fictionalized autobiography.
"My most favorite of her sayings is, 'Let the generations know that women in uniform also guaranteed their freedom,'" Ann Walker said. "She was strong. I wish I'd known her. It would have been fun."
A photograph and the walking cane of Dr. Mary E. Walker, the only woman awarded the Medal of Honor, is featured in "Serving with the Military: 18th and 19th centuries," an exhibit at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington (Va.) National Cemetery.
Another exhibit features the story of Dr. Mary E. Walker, the only woman awarded the Medal of Honor, along with a picture of her decked out in men's clothing and her walking cane.
Sunday, 07 March 1999 saw the groundbreaking for the Tribute To The Women Veterans Memorial in Reading PA City Park Veterans' Grove. This splendid monument, sponsored by the Combined Veterans Council of Berks County Pa., and made possible by a grant of $40,000.00 from the Pennsylvania Department of Economic and Community Development, and donations from many Veterans' and Civic groups, has been erected overlooking the other Memorials...WWI..WWII...Korea...Vietnam...in Veterans' Grove. The dedication took place Sunday 07 November 1999 and was attended by well over 200 people. Detachment Marines Ferne Lauter and Betty Auchenbach were pictured in the newspaper while placing a wreath at the foot of the Memorial. Many more Detachment members took part in the well planned and executed ceremony. Note: IndividualMembers of this Detachment donated $400.00 to this project.
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