Collections

This collection pertains to Dorothy Marshman Fredrickson who served as a WAVE at the United States Navy Fleet Post Office in San Francisco, California. The collection contains letters from Fredrickson to her mother and sister. There are also photocopies of scrapbook pages as well as leisure photographs, newspaper clippings, greeting cards, menus, ticket stubs, railroad timetables, playbills, and show programs from the scrapbooks. The collection also contains periodicals and other publications from various sources, most concerning the Navy and/or WAVES, and WAVES rules and regulations handbooks.

This World War II collection relates to Gertrude Margaritte Ivory Bertram, an African American nurse who served in the U.S. Army. The collection consists of letters, photographs (depicting herself and her fellow nurses in uniform, as well as African American G.I.s, and a few photographs from her time in West Africa), personal items, books, manuscripts, newspaper clippings, and interviews. The materials mainly document Bertram's time at Fort Bragg, NC, but there is some information concerning her life before enlistment, travels during enlistment, and life after enlistment. Most of her enlistment was spent in West Africa and at Fort Bragg, NC. This collection is important, as it covers the unique experiences of women and African Americans during World War II, and offers insight that differs from the majority white male G.I. perspective. It depicts African American nurses in both a professional setting and casual settings as Bertram enjoyed downtime with her friends.

This collection pertains to Laura Mae Jackson DuFore who served with the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps during World War II. The collection contains four letters that she wrote to her sister and family while she was overseas, two letters from friends, a collection of black and white photographs mainly from New Guinea and the Philippines, foreign currency, various military documents, artwork created by DuFore, a metal bracelet with the name "Laura" etched in, a cigarette lighter made from a .50 caliber round, a Japanese fan, a Japanese cigarette, an Enlisted Infantry collar pin, photocopies of two scrapbooks, and various newsletters from air fields, ships, or other posts. The collection also contains a copy of DuFore's autobiography A Life So Full.

Mario Joseph Patruno's collection includes a manuscript/oral history that covers his service in the 101st Airborne through his wounding in Operation Market Garden. The collection also includes three photographs, two of Patruno and one photograph taken inside Patruno's C-47 Transport on the night of 5 June 1944.

This forty page oral history interview transcript relates to Robert Mckay who was a student and interned by the Japanese at Baguio in the Philippine Islands during World War II.  The interview was conducted with McKay at a Baguio Internee reunion. The transcript covers McKay's experiences before, during, and after internment.

This collection consists of correspondence and official records related to the service of Theodore Oxman in the Army Air Force in World War II. As part of the collection there is a sixty-fifth anniversary booklet of the Cornell University's Class of 1948 where alumni recount their World War II experiences in the different branches of the armed services. The collection also contains two photographs of Oxman and a book documenting the personnel and mission of the Grenada Army Air Field in Grenada, Mississippi.

This collection pertains to Technician Fifth Grade Zeddie P. Barron, Jr., who was stationed in Virginia, Kentucky, Ireland, Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, and Germany between 1943 and 1945. As a clerk in the 552nd Railhead Company, Barron was attached to the First Engineer Special Brigade. The collection contains personal letters sent from Barron to his wife throughout his period of service, military documents including a ration book, Barron's military record and entrance physical, as well as newspaper clippings, envelopes, and an unpublished poem by Eugene S. Masters reacting to the use of the atomic bomb.