Looking back at the 20th century from the vantage point of the new millennium, this title is a story of those everyday men and women who made victory in Europe possible. Attention is placed on those that worked in factories and on the production lines, in dockyards and coal mines.

As World War I raged across the globe, hundreds of young women toiled away at the radium-dial factories, where they painted clock faces with a mysterious new substance called radium. Assured by their bosses that the luminous material was safe, the women themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered from head to toe with the glowing dust. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" were considered the luckiest alive -- until they began to fall...

"World War I brought many changes for women. Some stepped into roles left vacant by men now serving overseas, while others helped the war effort as nurses, telephone operators, and more. This book explores the wartime roles of women around the world."--Amazon.com.

In search of "the best America there ever was," bestselling author and award-winning journalist Bob Greene finds it in a small Nebraska town few people pass through today-a town where Greene discovers the echoes of the most touching love story imaginable: a love story between a country and its sons. During World War II, American soldiers from every city and walk of life rolled through North Platte, Nebraska, on troop trains en route to their ultimate...

Tells the story of ordinary people in four quintessentially American towns - Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; and Luverne, Minnesota - and examines the ways in which the Second World War touched the lives of every family on every street in every town in America.

"1943, Seattle. While raging war reshapes the landscape of Europe, its impact is felt thousands of miles away too. Before the war, Nora Kinney was one of countless housewives and mothers in her comfortable Capitol Hill neighborhood. Now, with her doctor husband stationed in North Africa, Nora feels compelled to do more than tend her victory garden or help with scrap metal drives. At the Boeing B-17 plant, Nora learns to wield a heavy riveting gun...

As the Great War continues to take its toll, headstrong twenty-one-year-old Emily Bryce is determined to contribute to the war effort. She is convinced by a cheeky and handsome Australian pilot that she can do more, and it is not long before she falls in love with him and accepts his proposal of marriage. When he is sent back to the front, Emily volunteers as a "land girl, " tending to the neglected grounds of a large Devonshire estate. It's here...

A group portrait of four remarkable--and wealthy--New York women whose lives became intertwined as they pioneered new roles for women. With dash, wit, intelligence, and industry, Elisabeth Marbury, her partner, Elsie de Wolfe, Anne Morgan (daughter of J.P. Morgan), and Anne Vanderbilt had the courage to use their privileged status to transform their world. From attending New York's lively society balls and Europe's royal courts to marching in labor-organizing...