"Martha-Settle-Putney" (November 9,1916-December 11,2008)

🔻🔻⦽😘Was an American educator and historian who chronicled the roles of African Americans in the armed forces.After serving as one of the first African Members of the Women's Army Corp during World War II,she devoted her life to researching and documenting the military service and achievements of African-Americans.

Following a period of employment with the War Manpower Commission after discharge from the army,she entered the academic world,earning    PhD at the University of Pennsylvania and pursuing a distinguished teaching career at Bowie State College ( now Bowie State University) in Maryland,where she chaired the history and geography department,and later at Howard University,her Alma mater, in Washington,D.C. Upon retiring from the faculty at Howard,she embarked on a writing  career that included three books and over 20 journal articles.At the time of her death at age 92 she was working on a fourth book portraying the contributions of
African Americans in combat dating back to the American Revolutionary War.

Martha was born to 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 African American voters for a candidate for Congress whom she had heard speak.The candidate won,with his help she got a scholarship to Howard University,where she receivFed a bachelor's degree (1939) and
master's degree in history (1940).

She remained in Washington where,despite her academic credentials,she was unable to get a teaching job.She settled instead for a statistical clerk postion with the War Manpower Commission.In 1943 she enlisted in the Women's Army Corps,which had been created the previous year.Interviewed years later,she explain,her decision this way: "The Corps, which was then less than a year old,promised an opportunity to become a commissioned officer.Though I had a master's degree in history,i refused to go and further south for a job,so the promise of a commission was the best option available.

Martha   was one of  40 African Americans women selected  for the Women's Army Corps (WAC) in 1943. She soon earned the rank  of  Lieutenant and was assigned  to a
basic training company at Fort Des Moines,Iowa.There,she was relegated to  menial duties such as leading drills and teaching calisthenics.She asked for, and was granted,permission to attend Adjutant General's School in San Antonio to train for an executive or administrative postion.This led an assignment as commanding officer of a WAC Hospital Company at the Gardiner General Hospital in Chicago,a position she held for the rest of  the war. 

Many years later, when asked in a T.V. interview by CNN correspondent Paula Zahn what "the whole world [should] understand about women's efforts in World War II, Dr.Putney replied: "They should understand...military occupational specialties as a man,except  carry a gun.Interviewed on another occasion,she said: "It is my thesis that military integration made the basis for the emergence and the expansion of the black middle class.

After the war,she returned to her job with the Manpower Commission,where she met
William M.Putney.They were married in 1948 and had one child,William,Jr.William Sr died in 1965.

Making use of  the G.I. Bill she enrolled in the doctoral program at the University of
Pennsylvania and in 1955 received her PhD in European History.After brief stints at
Morgan State University and Prairie View A&M University,she joined Bowie State College's history and geography department,which she chaired until 1974.She then returned to her Alma mater,Howard University,where she held the position of Senior Lecturer until 1983.

Interviewed by Tom Brokaw for his book The Greatest Generation,Howard Professor  Dr. Clifford Muse,Jr.,described Dr. Putney's approach to teaching: "She worked me to
death.I  really learned  from her.She tried to prepare you for discrimination in the sense you had to be very good to be accepted." Most of  the students at both Howard and Bowie were African-American,and former student  William Missouri noted  that  Dr.Putney would  as  unprepared students,"How can you be an African-American and not want  to  learn African-American history history?

After retiring from her teaching career,Dr.Putney turned to writing,focusing on the
achievement of  African-Americans in the military.Her first book,Black Sailors: Afro-American  Merchant  Seamen and Whale men Prior to the Civil War,published in 1987 by  Greenwood Press,was described by one reviewer as " A welcome contribution to what amounts to a new field  of  study,black history and the American maritime service.

Her second book,When the Nation was in Need: Blacks in the Women's Army Corps During World War II (Scarecrow Press, 1992) drew not only on the author's personal experience in the army but also from " archival records,manuscripts,documents,
contemporary newspaper accounts and interviews,statements, and the personal files
of  those who served." It received the 1993 Outstanding Book on Human Rights award for the  Gustav Myers Center for the Study of  Human Rights in American.

Dr.Putney was the editor of Blacks in the United States Army:Portraits through History (McFarland,2003),a pictorial collection whose paintings and sketches "depict black army personnel at war,as war  casualties,at prayer,in peacetime assignments,
in training,at play and at leisure,and as military muscians." Each illustration is accompanied by a narrative along with the artist's name,medium used,location of
the original,and  other information.

Dr.Putney published numerous articles in scholarly journals including the Maryland Historical Magazine,Journal of Negro History,Negro History Bulletin,and the Journal of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society.

She also was a frequent contributor to the Northeast News,a community newspaper.

Dr.Putney's chronicling of  the  military  exploits of  African Americans was not confined to the written word.She also conveyed these through the medium of public speaking.On July 17,1998,for example,she spoke at a National Park Service ceremony at  Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C.,Occasioned by the inception earlier
that year of the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System. She began her remarks with a
reference to the fatal attack on Fort Wagner,South Carolina,by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment,noting that "numerous accounts and the film 'Glory' have pretty much brought this event to the attention of the general public." She then pointed out that this assault "was one of the many battlefield exploits of  African-Americans during the Civil War.Before the war ended,African American troops had been involved in hundreds of skirmishes and engagements including thirty five major battles." Dr.Putney went on to cite the statistics of the grim price paid by the African-Americans who served in the Union on land and sea: of
their  200,000 number,there were "Some 68,000 casualties; some 37,000 of these lost their lives.

Dr.Putney was a member of the NAACP and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History  (Now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History).She volunteered  at the Smithsonian Institution and was on the editorial board of the Journal of the Afro-American Historical Genealogical Society.

Dr.Martha died,at the Community Hospice in the District of  Columbia.The Cause of death was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.On February 10,2009,she was buried at Arlington National Cemetery