- Putney, Martha S.
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▪ 2009Martha SettleAmerican historian and teacherborn Nov. 9, 1916, Norristown, Pa.died Dec. 11, 2008, Washington, D.C.chronicled the contributions of blacks in the U.S. military in such landmark works as When the Nation Was in Need: Blacks in the Women's Army Corps During World War II (1992) and Blacks in the United States Army: Portraits Through History (2003), which she edited. Drawing on her own experiences as a recruit trainer, conducting personal interviews, and relying on the slim documentation that she could uncover, Putney recorded her findings in those works and in her first volume, Black Sailors (1987). Though Putney earned a master's degree (1940) from Howard University, Washington, D.C., she was unable to secure a teaching position in that city and found work as a statistical clerk with the War Manpower Commission. In an effort to find more fulfilling work, she joined (1943) the newly organized (1942) Women's Army Corps, becoming one of the first black women to enter the WAC, where she remained until 1946. After earning a Ph.D. (1955) in European history from the University of Pennsylvania, she embarked on a teaching career at Bowie State College (now Bowie State University) in Maryland and at her undergraduate alma mater. At the time of her death, she was preparing a historical portrait of black Americans in combat service from the Revolutionary War to the Persian Gulf War.
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Universalium. 2010.
