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Science on the Home Front: American Women Scientists in World War II. By Jordynn Jack Champaign: University of IUinois Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-252-07659-6. Figures. Notes. Bibfiography. Index. Pp. 165. $20.00.
This slim volume features the World War II work of a number of American women in the social and natural sciences. The author's purpose is twofold: to raise awareness of the overlooked or long-forgotten contributions made by these women and to "shed some light on the gendered culture of science" (p. 2). The book focuses on four groups: women psychologists who saw the war as an opportunity to increase the number and status of women in the profession; women anthropologists participating in a study of the experiences of interned Japanese-Americans; women physicists working on the Manhattan Project; and women nutritionists on the National Research Council who developed the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs).
The analytical tool chosen by Jack, a professor of English, is the rhetoric of science. She examines the nature...