WASP Bee Haydu gives a smart salute from a B-25 cockpit. October 3, 2010. New Century AirCenter, Kansas. Photo by Brenda Hagood Lea.
On October 3, 2010 the Dole Institute of Politics honored the TWU Libraries and their archives of the Women Airforce Service Pilots by awarding the Dole Leadership Prize to the WASP and $25,000 to the TWU Libraries. As the official archives of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, TWU has the most extensive archival collection in the United States of WASP personal papers, oral histories and photographs. The collection, which also includes uniforms and other memorabilia, tells the story of the first females in history to fly for the U.S. military.
Between 1942 and 1944, at the height of World War II, more than a thousand women left homes and jobs for the opportunity of a lifetime--to become one of the first women ever to fly for the U.S. military. They volunteered as civilian pilots in an experimental Army Air Corp program designed to see if women could serve as pilots and relieve men for overseas duty. These women became the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II, better known as the WASP. Under the determined leadership of Jacqueline Cochran, Nancy Harkness Love and General Henry "Hap" Arnold, the WASP exceeded all expectations.
The TWU Libraries will use the Dole Leadership Prize to seed the creation, and contribute to the maintenance, of a WASP website. Plans are in place to digitize content from the WASP archives to create a website about the women, their contributions to the United States of America during World War II, and their place in the history of aviation. The project goals are to increase access to the rich content in the WASP archives, extend the inspirational reach that is inherent in the story of the WASP, and create a positive experience for the website visitor. The TWU Libraries plan to include information about WASP lives, interest in aviation, training, uniforms and planes, as well as contextual information describing WASP contributions during World War II and to the future of women aviators.The website will also feature information about visiting and researching the archives, purchasing reproductions for research and exhibit purposes, and contributing to the WASP archives.
