Women's History (MD)

A unit of the Women's Army Corps was stationed at Fort Ritchie, Maryland after World War II. This collection shows the women in the unit from 1966 to 1974. Many of these women later served in Germany, Japan, or Vietnam. The WACs were disbanded in 1978 and then integrated with the male units of the army.

Lucile Wilcox Roeder, 1903-1992, was an Allegany County, Maryland politician and environmental activist. She was the first woman to serve in the Cumberland City Council and as a member of the Board of Allegany County Commissioners, and served on the Maryland Environmental Trust.

Local women from western Maryland dedicated themselves to spreading word of the women’s suffrage movement long before Maryland voted to ratify the 19th Amendment. In Washington and Allegany counties organizing was slow, but steady.