"Forgotten Veterans, Invisible Memorials: How American Women Commemorated the Great War, 1917-1945"
12In commemoration of Gold Star Mother’s and Family’s Day, The National WWII Museum hosted a pre-recorded conversation with author and historian Allison Finkelstein, PhD on her book Forgotten Veterans, Invisible Memorials: How American Women Commemorated the Great War, 1917-1945.
In Forgotten Veterans, Invisible Memorials: How American Women Commemorated the Great War, 1917–1945 Finkelstein argues that American women activists considered their own community service and veteran advocacy to be forms of commemoration just as significant and effective as other, more traditional forms of commemoration such as memorials.
Finkelstein employs the term “veteranism” to describe these women’s overarching philosophy that supporting, aiding, and caring for those who serve needed to be a chief concern of American citizens, civic groups, and the government in the war’s aftermath. However, these women did not express their views solely through their support for veterans of a military service narrowly defined as a group predominantly composed of men and just a few women. Rather, they defined anyone who served or sacrificed during the war, including women like themselves, as veterans.