Pearl Harbor, Pants, and a Piece of Paper Presentation

Explore the impact of Pearl Harbor on gender roles and fashion.

This is an in-person program. Masks are optional at all in-person library events.

December 7, 1941 changed the course of history. The attack on Pearl Harbor also caused immediate changes to gender roles within the United States, altering women’s lives and even their clothing. Explore how a coded message that arrived too late set in motion a civilian response that shifted lives in an instant. Join Valarie J. Anderson and Eileen Tannich Gose as they delve into one-of-a-kind primary sources that tell one family’s story of “a date that will live in infamy.”

Eileen Tannich Gose comes from a long line of strong women. As a result, she realizes that the gains in equality for women today come from the efforts of women in the past. Eileen’s research of the topic resulted in the book, Reflecting Freedom: How Fashion Mirrored the Struggle for Women’s Rights. In addition to her scholarship of women’s equality and fashion, Eileen holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and master’s degree in education.

Valarie J. Anderson is an award-winning author, historian, avocational archaeologist, and a Navy “brat.” She believes that life is enriched by the curious and drove her parents crazy by repeatedly asking, “Why?” It is still her favorite question. Her blog, The Footfalls of History, explores the “why” of things based upon research unearthed while writing her non-fiction works, Pearl Harbor’s Final Warning and Money Eater: Bernard Otto Kuehn. Pearl Harbor’s Final Warning, won a gold medal for history from the Military Writers Society of America. She will soon release Sparks in the Ether, which explores the expansion of radio in the 1930s and the “why” of family betrayal.