cover image Into the Breach: 2american Women Overseas in World War I

Into the Breach: 2american Women Overseas in World War I

Dorothy Schneider. Viking Books, $29.95 (384pp) ISBN 978-0-670-83936-0

In this well-organized survey, the Schneiders (coauthors of Sound Off! ) tap a rich vein of diaries, memoirs, letters and fiction by an estimated 25,000 women who in WW I served a wide variety of needs of the military, civilians and refugees by working overseas in relief organizations. Despite military opposition, women journalists also traveled to the front and as far as Russia to cover the Revolution. While the authors note that the desire to escape from humdrum lives motivated some women to volunteer, engrossing accounts quoted here testify to their determination to be independent, their ingenuity and heroism. Dedicated, too, were the women's pacifist organizations, many of whose principles President Wilson incorporated into his Fourteen Points. Photos not seen by PW. (July)