Good Girls, Good Food, Good Fun: The Story of USO Hostesses During World War II (review)

Meghan Winchell's work, Good Girls, Good Food, Good Fun: The Story of USO Hostesses During World War II, is a welcome addition to the literature on American women during World War II. Utilizing oral histories or questionnaires from seventy women who volunteered in the United Service Organizations (USO) as junior and senior hostesses as well as more traditional primary sources, Winchell convincingly argues that USO hostesses "stabilized dominant gender roles in the midst of expanding work and career options for women at the same time that they subtly manipulated and, in the end, reshaped their own 'good girl' identities" (11). With the point that the majority of American women did not become Rosie the Riveters, regardless of Rosie's popularity today, Winchell reveals a significant part that women played during the war within traditional social norms of women's roles. She completed oral histories with a variety of women in order to have a "geographically balanced account of USO clubs" and has helpfully included her question set in an appendix (11).

The positions of the hostesses in the USO were, according to Winchell, based on nonthreatening, traditional images of American women. The senior hostesses were motherly as they chaperoned dances and compassionately listened to young soldiers' troubles. They were most often married women over the age of thirty-five and served to control the sexual energy between young uniformed men and the junior hostesses and to provide maternal comfort to those same men when needed. The junior hostesses were attractive, young, "good girls," who provided the "sexual service" of dancing closely with the men but keeping the men (and themselves) out of trouble by not actually having sex. The USO organization actively worked to control its own image by controlling the actions and image of the hostesses. The young women themselves "actively participated in upholding the reputation of the USO clubs" as the strict rules "acted as a type of shield of respectability for the organization and its young volunteers" (121). With her oral histories, Winchell is able to reveal the seriousness with which the women took the rules and when they were willing to set the rules aside for their own benefit.

Winchell utilizes her oral histories well to reveal the women's thoughts on sex and the dangers of sex (disease, pregnancy) and their relief at being a part of a respectable organization like the USO. Winchell argues for the women's sense of agency—they chose to join the USO instead of some alternate form of war-supporting work on purpose. They enjoyed the dances, were able to retain their personal reputations as "good girl[s]," and had "a safe place to experiment with sexual behavior" all while helping the morale of uniformed men (133).

While the overall content of Good Girls is very useful, at times Winchell is a bit redundant and even contradictory. She analyzes the quotes from her oral histories quite extensively, allowing the women's voices to be heard but providing a historian's view of those words occasionally in a manner that makes one wonder what the women would think of her analysis. One example of this is her analysis of Toni Chapman's explanation of her lack of knowledge about sex and pregnancy which, in her quote, she blamed in part on her Catholic schooling. Winchell goes on to analyze Chapman's comments arguing that she "cynically" recounted her knowledge and that she "resent(ed)" the Church's views on the female body (131). Perhaps Chapman's tone of voice in the interview came across in this manner; the text itself does not as much. Small cues from Winchell indicating the mannerisms or inflection of the interviewee might help to strengthen her analysis. There are other places in the book which seem a bit confusing and even contradictory. One example is part of Winchell...