The Unlikely First Women Soldiers

Citizens of Burgsteinfurt, under British occupation, march to the cinema under orders to attend the film viewing of the Belsen and Buchenwald films of the concentration camps, May 30, 1945.

Historian and novelist Elizabeth Cobbs joins us to discuss her latest book The Hello Girls: America’s First Women Soldiers. Cobbs tells the story of the women soldiers who operated the telephone switchboards in France for the U.S. Army during World War I. She reveals how their work helped give women the right to vote in 1920, and details their fight for veteran’s benefits that lasted 60 years.