Established by the Army Air Force in 1943, the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program opened to civilian women with a pilot's license who could afford to pay for their own transportation, training, and uniforms. Despite their highly developed skill set, rigorous training, and often dangerous work, the women of WASP were not granted military status until 1977, denied over three decades of Army Air Force benefits as well as the honor and respect given to male and female World War II veterans of other branches. Sarah Parry Myers not only offers a history of this short-lived program but considers its long-term consequences for the women who participated and subsequent generations of servicewomen and activists. Myers shows us how those in the WASP program bonded through their training, living together in barracks, sharing the dangers of risky flights, and struggling to be recognized as military personnel, and the friendships they forged lasted well after the Army Air Force dissolved the program. Despite the WASP program's short duration, its fliers formed activist networks and spent the next thirty years lobbying for recognition as veterans. Their efforts were finally recognized when President Jimmy Carter signed a bill into law granting WASP participants retroactive veteran status, entitling them to military benefits and burials.

Often ignored in bibliographies and indexes, U.S. government documents provide a rich resource for understanding the status of American women. Huls' two-volume bibliography provides easy subject access to some 7,000 documents on social and employment issues, spanning nearly two centuries. Annotated entries covering published reports of Congress, agencies, councils, and commissions are arranged chronologically within topical chapters. Volume II: Labor covers issues related to women in paid employment, including protective labor legislation, affirmative action, federal employment and training programs, vocational counseling, and day care. It lists over 3,000 documents. Each volume includes a detailed subject index.