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Hannibal Free Public Library Code Girls
by
April 15, 2019 |
Discussion Questions
1. What particular
skills and characteristics did the Army and Navy look for in the women recruited
to their code-breaking programs? How were stereotypes about women employed or
challenged in the recruitment effort?
2. How did World War Two affect personal and romantic relationships? What were
Americans’ attitudes toward marriage then—and did those attitudes change at all
for the "code girls" generation?
3. Why do you think Dot Braden and Ruth "Crow" Weston became such great friends?
If they had met in other circumstances or in peacetime, do you think they would
have gotten along just as well?
4. Consider the various motivations Mundy cites for the women who signed up as
code breakers. Do you think they differed from those of the men serving in
America’s military then?
5. Some of the code girls were affected by the extended secrecy of their work.
How might keeping secrets, however necessary, affect a person’s relationships or
her identity in the world?
6. What were the particular successes and struggles of Agnes Driscoll? Why might
she have eventually resorted "to extreme measures to retain her authority"?
7. What does it mean that the organizational hierarchy of Arlington Hall was
relatively "flat"? How was this beneficial to the code girls?
8. Frank Raven, while acknowledging the skills of the "damn good gals," also
concluded that many of the code girls were "damn pretty gals." What effect might
this statement and the perspective of people like Raven have had on the women
and their work?
9. Barnard’s Virginia Gilder sleeve noticed in the marching WAVES "a remarkable
cross section of the women of the United States of America, from all our
economic and social classes … and from all our multitude of racial origins and
religions." What might have caused such diversity and co-operation, and how do
you think this changed after the war, if at all?
10. What were the challenges for many of the women after the war?
http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/non-fiction/11123-code-girl-mundy?start=3