Donna B. Knaff

This book should be re-titled Beyond Rosie the Riveter: WHITE Women of World War II in American Popular Graphic Art. It completely ignores the fact that women of color pretty much had no choice but to work both before, during, and after WWII, and that their contributions have been (and continue to be) made invisible by culture, including books such as this.

Otherwise, this book was not as interesting as I was expecting based on a cursory glance. It has very few reproductions of the graphic art being referenced actually inside the book, so most of the explanations are written descriptions. That makes it very difficult to really grasp the subtle nuances and to obtain one's own interpretation of the art being commented upon. I think that any book that comments about artwork really needs to include most, if not all, of that artwork within its pages.

This book was exhaustingly repetitive. The author seemed to make the same comments over and over again in several chapters. It wouldn't have bothered me so much if the book had taken any kind of stand or had any unifying thesis to it, but it didn't. The book merely offers an "unbiased" description of graphic art in the WWII period pertaining to women's work (during the war) and reintegrating to "traditional femininity" (after the war). It was really frustrating to read a book that didn't offer too much outside just describing what the war propaganda said.… (mer)