Making WAVES: Navy Women of World War II (2008) – Archival Book Listing

Front Cover, Making WAVES: Navy Women of World War II by Evan Buchner, 2008. | GGA Image ID # 13e87bfd44

On the Front Cover: "WAVES relax awhile during aviation machinist mate training at NATTC, Norman, Oklahoma." February 1943; Norman, Okla. Lt. Wayne Miller; 80-G-471588

📖 Review & Summary: Making Waves: Navy Women of World War II

🌍 Context & Importance

Evan Bachner’s Making Waves builds on his earlier works (At Ease and Men of WWII) but turns the lens on the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). Through more than 150 powerful images drawn from the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit, led by the renowned Edward Steichen, the book captures women in uniform learning, working, socializing, and serving during World War II.

The book matters because it documents how women reshaped Navy life: from clerical roles to aviation machinists, communications specialists, medical technicians, and intelligence workers. For students and educators, this is a primary visual record of how the Navy expanded opportunities for women—and how those opportunities helped lay the foundation for permanent integration after 1948.

📌 Key Highlights

1. A Rare Photographic Archive

Most of these photographs were unpublished until this book. They reveal WAVES at drill, in classrooms, in machine shops, and in recreation—each image humanizing the Navy’s WWII transformation.

2. Diversity of Roles

Women are depicted not only in traditional clerical work but also as aviation machinists, medical corps assistants, and telegraph operators. This challenges stereotypes about WWII servicewomen and makes the book invaluable for classroom discussion.

3. Humanizing Perspectives

While there are images of discipline and duty, there are also candid photographs of WAVES writing letters, laughing during coffee breaks, or enjoying recreation. This duality helps students see women as both professionals and individuals in wartime.

4. Industry Connection

The book also highlights women in defense industries, including riveting work on B-24 Liberators at Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Plant. This situates the WAVES within the broader “Rosie the Riveter” narrative, making it especially useful for teachers tying together home-front and military histories.

Message from the GG Archives

Making Waves: Navy Women of World War II by Evan Buchner featured outstanding photography throughout the book. Folks interested in WW2, Women in Service, or the WAVES, should strongly consider adding this book to their collection. It captured for all time women in the Navy that expanded the opportunities available to women and helped define the roles that would eventually lead to women serving in the Navy alongside the men. This timeless book deserves to be passed down from generation to generation.

Publisher Description

Counter In the spirit of his successful books At Ease and Men of WWII, Evan Bachner now focuses on the women of WWII. While traditionally female secretarial and clerical jobs took an expectedly large portion of recruits, thousands of WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) performed previously atypical duties in the aviation community—such as Judge Advocate General corps—medical professions, communications, intelligence, science, and technology.

The photography team, headed by legendary photographer Edward Steichen, captured these heroic women at work, rest, and play. All the photos are from the National Archives and most have not been previously published.

Potion of Title Page, Making Waves: Navy Women of World War II, Autographed by Desmond F. Griffiths, R.N. (Rtd), 21 May 2010. | GGA Image ID # 17f9463f4c

From the Inside Cover Flap

During the Second World War, the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit vividly captured the ordinary lives of women at war, both enlistees of WAVES as well as factory workers on the West Coast. Although they did not see battle, the women depicted in these images show the strength, bravery, and determination they shared and demonstrated.

Most of the photographs in this book have never before been published. For the WAVES, they fall into four categories: training, transportation, work, and relaxation. The women portrayed are, by turns, serious and lively.

They instruct naval officers in their responsibilities, are telegraph officers and stenographers, undergo rigorous physical training, drill, and tend and fire weapons. On a lighter side, they also share coffee and letters with friends, join in outdoor recreation, and attend dances.

The somber tone and significance of the women’s work is even more apparent in the section of the book devoted to workers at the Consolidated Vultee aircraft plant in California.

These are workers devoted to the war effort, competently doing their jobs. Rosie the Riveter may have been a fictional character, but what she represented is certainly reflected in the vital work documented by the photographers.

As with the two previous collections in this series, At Ease: Navy Men of World War II and Men of World War II: Fighting Men at Ease, the images in this volume are drawn from a subset of the Navy Records Group at the Still Picture Branch of the National Archives and Records Administration in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The photographs are the work of a group of some of the finest photographers of their day, or any day: the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit headed by Edward Steichen. As in the earlier books, the high level of artistry and composition in the photos is striking, due to the experience and craft of the men behind the camera.

Featuring more than 150 photographs, WAVES offers a different view of World War II. These are not images of men at war; rather they portray the essential work and efforts of the women at home who made the success of the war possible.

About the Author

EVAN BACHNER is a longtime collector of photographs and a photographic historian. He lives in New York City with his husband.

About the Photographer

Soon after the war began, magazine images credited to Horace Bristol stopped, and did not reappear until after the war. I did find several images of Navy life in his distinctive style, attributed to him, with no copyright.

I assumed he was in the military, and set out to find out more. I wrote to the Navy museum in Washington, D.C. and they referred me to the National Archives.

An archivist in the Still Picture Branch wrote back to me with the information that Horace Bristol had been part of the “Naval Aviation Photographic Unit” headed by Edward J. Steichen (1879-1973).

Steichen was officially commissioned as a Lieutenant Commander (later Captain) in the U.S. Navy in 1942 to lead this unit. As such, the photographs produced by Steichen and his team were created as works of U.S. government employees on official duty. Under U.S. law (17 U.S.C. § 105), works of the federal government are not eligible for copyright and are automatically in the public domain.

The archives had all the images taken by the unit, including the one I had seen in Brooklyn. Each image was carefully labeled with an index number.

Simple, except there were two catches: the images were mixed in with about 786,000 other Navy photographs, and they were only spottily cataloged.

Luckily, there was a cross reference, at least giving the short number ranges that corresponded with the unit’s work. I could find them, if I went through every single one of hundreds of boxes, looking for the relevant images among the 200 prints in every box. Determined researchers, given time and patience, could find these “hidden” images.

The WWII Navy photos — including WAVES training, aircraft, shipboard life, etc. — are government records. The National Archives (Record Group 80-G) is the custodian, and they are public domain. You can use the WWII WAVES and Navy photos from Steichen’s unit without restriction, as long as you credit the source properly (e.g., “National Archives, Naval Aviation Photographic Unit, RG 80-G”

Back Cover, Making Waves: Navy Women of World War II by Evan Buchner, 2008. | GGA Image ID # 233480621f

On the Back Cover: “Women riveters work on tail fin for B-24 in Consolidated Vultee Plant, Downey, California.” August 1943; Downey, Calif.; LCdr. Charles Jacobs; 80-G-475913

A Note about the Captions

The captions used in this book are derived from the original captions assigned during World War II. They list the original title assigned to each photograph, the date the image was logged in. the location where the photograph was taken, the name of the photographer, and the photograph number later assigned to each image by the National Archives.

The titles are quoted verbatim for the sake of historical interest. These photographs were found in Records Group 80-G. General Records of the Department of the Navy, 1804-1958.

All are housed in the Still Pictures Records L1C0N, Special Media Archives Services Division at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.

Frontis photo WAVE trainees at Naval Air Technical Training Center. Norman, Oklahoma: Lucille Henderson, AMM, and shipmate on business end of a machine shop hoist." March 1943; Norman, Okla.; PH2 Howard Liberman; 80-G-471681

Citation

Bachner, Evan. Making WAVES : Navy women of World War II / Evan Bachner. New York : Abrams, 2008. 160 p. : chiefly ill. ; 28 cm. D769.597 .B33 2008 ISBN: 9780810995239-0810995239

🖼️ Noteworthy Images

Front Cover – WAVES relaxing during aviation machinist mate training, Norman, Oklahoma, 1943.

Frontis Photo – WAVE trainees at Naval Air Technical Training Center, working in a machine shop hoist (Norman, OK).

Inside Pages – Women drilling, training in communications, and instructing officers.

Back Cover – Women riveters at the Vultee plant, Downey, CA, August 1943.

These images are striking for their composition and artistry—credit to the Steichen-led unit—but more importantly, they document Navy women in action, providing genealogists and students with authentic, sourced glimpses of service.

🎓 Relevance for Teachers, Students, Genealogists, and Historians

Teachers & Students: This book is a ready-made visual primary source for essays, projects, and classroom debates about gender, war, and citizenship. It helps students understand how women’s roles in the Navy went beyond stereotypes.

Genealogists & Families: Photographs contextualize the types of work and environments an ancestor may have served in as a WAVE. Even if an ancestor isn’t pictured, the imagery provides a visual backdrop to their service records.

Historians & Veterans: It adds depth to WWII naval scholarship, showing not only battles but also the support forces ashore. For veterans and their families, it affirms the legacy of women who “kept the Navy running” during the war.

📚 Encouragement for Students

💡 Instead of citing copyrighted books directly, students writing essays should use the GG Archives materials—digitized brochures, training manuals, newsletters, and official Navy documents—which provide primary sources free of copyright restrictions. This ensures stronger, original research and builds historical skills by working with authentic archival material.

🌟 Final Thoughts About Evan Bachner’s Making Waves

Evan Bachner’s Making Waves is less a traditional history text and more a visual archive bound as a book. Its greatest strength lies in showing the Navy’s women as they truly were—training hard, working skillfully, and still finding time to smile and share letters from home. For educators, genealogists, veterans, and families, this book remains a tribute in photographs to the women who helped transform the U.S. Navy during WWII. ⚓📷💙

WAVE Photograph Archive Locations & Access

1. National Archives, Still Picture Branch (College Park, MD)

• The original negatives of the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit are housed here. These include many Steichen-era photographs documenting WAVES and naval aviation.
• Some photos taken by Steichen and his unit are digitized and available online via the National Archives Catalog or their Flickr Commons.
  
• Example: A Navy stewardess playing cards aboard ship—credited to a member of Steichen’s unit—can be viewed online with an accessible image.

2. Harry Ransom Center (University of Texas at Austin)

• The Center houses a personal collection of 172 gelatin silver prints taken by the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit under Steichen’s leadership. The collection is open for research.

3. National Air and Space Museum Archives (Smithsonian)

• Known as the Edward J. Steichen WWII Navy Photographs Collection, it contains ~442 copy photographs (transparencies and negatives) documenting naval aviation during WWII.
• Original negatives remain at the National Archives, but NASM provides access to reproduction copies.

4. Additional Steichen Archives

Other repositories holding relevant Steichen collections include:

• MoMA Archives
• George Eastman Museum
• U.S. Naval Academy Nimitz Library
• Yale’s Beinecke Library
• ICP (International Center of Photography)

These may contain Steichen’s broader body of work, although Navy-specific photos are primarily at the institutions listed above.

Summary of Access to Images

• National Archives (College Park, MD) Original negatives of Steichen’s unit photography. Online Access — via NARA catalog/Flickr
• Harry Ransom Center (UT Austin) 172 gelatin silver prints from Steichen’s unit On-site (open research)
• NASM Archives (Smithsonian) ~442 copy photos (transparencies & negatives) of naval aviation Reproductions accessible
• Other Institutions (MoMA, ICP, USNA) Broader Steichen archive (incl. Navy) Varies—usually by request

Final Thoughts

So, yes—those compelling photos are archived and accessible! Many are publicly available online (especially via NARA), and others are preserved in institutional collections open for research.

Library of Congress Catalog Listing

• Personal name: Bachner, Evan.
• Main title: Making WAVES : Navy women of World War II / Evan Bachner.
• Published/Created: New York : Abrams, 2008.
• Description: 160 p. : chiefly ill. ; 28 cm.
• ISBN: 9780810995239 OR 0810995239
• LC classification: D769.597 .B33 2008
• Related names: United States. Naval Aviation Photographic Unit. United States. National Archives and Records Administration.
• LC Subjects: United States. Naval Reserve.; Women's Reserve--Pictorial works. World War, 1939-1945--Naval operations, American--Pictorial works. World War, 1939-1945--Photography. War photography--United States--History--20th century. Women sailors--United States--Pictorial works.
• Browse by shelf order: D769.597
• Notes: Includes photographs chiefly taken by the Naval Photographic Unit and housed at the National Archives.
• LCCN: 2007036127
• Dewey class no.: 940.54/5973082
• Geographic area code: n-us---
• Type of material: Book