"Martha-Putney" [ November 9,1916-December 11,2008]

Born Martha Settle,she was the daughter of Oliver & Ida Settle of Norristown Pennsylvania.Her daddy worked as a laborer to support his wife and eight children.As a young woman,she helped garner black votes for a candidate for Congress whom she had heard speak.The candidate won,and with his help she got a scholarship to Howard University,where she received a bachelor's degree (1939) and master's degree in history (1940).Failing to find a job as a teacher in Washington's public school system, she toiled,unhappily,as a statistical clerk with the government's War Manpower Commission. The future looked bleak.

On February 1,1943,Martha joined the women's Army Auxiliary Corps.She entered the 35th Officer Candidate School at Fort Des Moines Iowa,where she was commissioned on July 7,1943.After completing OCS,Martha was assigned as Basic Training Company Officer at Fort Des Moines.She had two temporary duty assignments in Texas and was assigned company commander of the 55th WAC hospital company stationed at Gardiner General Hospital in Chicago.She is the author of When the Nation Was In Need: Blacks in the Women's Army Corps during World War II (Metuchen,N.J.: Scarecrow Press, Inc.) 1992. The only war-era slight that hurt her was one that she she was powerless to change at the time.Back in Des Moines, a group pf German P.OW.'s being held nearby was invited to the officer's club the same club from which African American officers were barred."They were letting the enemy in,but keeping us out."

After the war was over,Matha's doggedness helped her through doctororal studies at Penn,on the G.I. BILL.When she interviewed with the late Dr.Lynn Case G "29 Gr"31,then head of the history department,she remembershim telling her,"We don't give these degrees to your people." I just looked at him frankly and tolf him I didn't want him and the University to give me one thing.If he didn't think I could make it,let me know as soon as possible. Because,i didn't have any time to waste.He said okay and halfway through the semester,he told me,"You're going to make it." Martha went on to teach at Bowie State College and then howard University,pushing her students to work to their potential.After retiring,she kept busy writing books and article; her latest project is a history of African-Americans in the Army from the Revolutionary War through the present. Martha was one of four recipents of the 1999 Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal,honoring individuals who have made contributions to society in ways that reflect Roosevelt's ideals.

She attributed her lifelong perseverance to lessons in self-esteem she picked up from her parents,growing up in a family of eight children Norristown Pennsylvania."I just decided I wasn't going to accept [ other people's'] classifications for me,"she says."I knew that somebody was going to open the door for me if I kept on pushing.She authored,blacks in the United States Army: Portraits through history,Black Sailors: Afro-American Merchant Seamen and Whalemen prior to the Civil War,and When the Nation was in need: Blacks in the Women's Army Corps during World WarII.Martha S.Putney,who became one of the first black women to serve in the Women's Army Corps during World War II and who went on to write pioneering works history of African Americans in the military.Martha died in Washington.