Geraldine Muse Phillips Collection
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Geraldine Muse Phillips at Fort Lee
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Geraldine Muse Phillips poses outside while attending officer candidate school at Fort Lee, Virginia, in early 1949. She wears Women's Army Corps winter service dress uniform and barracks cap with a utility bag.
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Oral history interview with Geraldine Muse Phillips
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Primarily documents Geraldine Muse Phillips's background; her experiences in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) in the late 1940s; and her family life after her military service. Phillips discusses moving frequently as a child; her mother's mental breakdown; raising her younger brother; her father's experiences in the army with the 36th Field Artillery, including actions that earned him the Purple Heart; her parents' educational backgrounds; learning of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor while at Fort Bragg; and having difficulty with her studies at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina. " Phillips also describes some of her experiences in the WAC. Topics include learning to live with women of different backgrounds; living conditions in basic training; meeting her husband, Jack Phillips, at Fort Lee; reactions to women in uniform; homosexuals in the WAC; segregation and integration in the military; meeting Jeanne Holm; social life for the WACs; popular music from the 1940s. " Personal topics include marching in an American Legion parade in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; taking care of her mother; her sons' experiences in the military; and her opinion of women in combat positions.
