Betty U. Baker Collection
Content Description
The collection includes an oral history transcript, 19 February 1999; photographs of Baker's Army Air Force service and after, 1944-1999.
Dates
- circa 1944-1999
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright is retained by the creators of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information. Please see our Sensitive Materials Statement.
Biographical / Historical
Betty Baker (1922-2012), of Culpepper, Virginia, was an air base historian and a troop information and education specialist with the Women's Army Corps (WAC) from 1944 to 1946. Betty Baker was born in Culpepper, Virginia, where her father was a small manufacturer and her mother a school teacher. She was raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Dickson, Tennessee, where she graduated from high school. Baker attended the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro) from 1939 to 1944 and majored in English. During that time she also worked for one year at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Factory in Baltimore, Maryland. Baker enlisted in the WAC in the spring of 1944. She completed basic training at Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia and then became the base historian at the Miami Army Air Field in Florida.
In early 1945 Baker was sent to Karachi, India (now Pakistan), where she served as a troop information and education specialist. She remained in Karachi until early 1946 and was discharged from Love Field in Dallas, Texas, on 16 January 1946. Baker held various positions after leaving the service, including literary agent assistant; sport camp assistant manager; radio news director; and newspaper editor and owner. She then spent twenty-eight years as director of the Community Action Agency for Wilkes, Ashe, and Allegheny counties in North Carolina. She also volunteered at the Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina.
Extent
0.21 Linear Feet (2 folders)
Language of Materials
English
Metadata Rights Declarations
- License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Creative Commons license.
Condition Description
The condition is good.
Offensive Language Statement
The UNC Greensboro University Libraries collects, preserves, and makes accessible unique and historical materials for learning and research. The nature of historical materials is such that some material may represent positions, norms, and values that are offensive and objectionable. These materials represent the opinions and actions of their creators. By providing access to these records in our reading room and through our digital collections, we recognize that archives and rare books can play a vital role in holding those creators accountable and in helping us learn from the past.
Our finding aids and other collection descriptions may occasionally re-use language provided by creators or former holders of the materials, but we strive to place outdated or offensive terminology in context. That said, we recognize that we may not always make the right decision and welcome feedback from all sources so we can learn and adjust our practices. Please contact us at scua@uncg.edu if you encounter problematic language in our finding aids or other collection description. We will review the language and, as appropriate, update it in a way that balances preservation of the original context with our ongoing commitment to describing materials with respectful and inclusive language.
Processing Information
Processed by Matthew McCarthy.
- United States. Army. Women's Army Corps -- History
- United States. Army. Women's Army Corps -- Interviews
- United States. Army. Women's Army Corps -- Military life
- United States. Army. Women's Army Corps -- Uniforms
- Women and the military
- Women veterans
- World War, 1939-1945
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Female
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Women
- Title
- Betty U. Baker Collection
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Matthew McCarthy
- Date
- 2022 May
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- eng
Repository Details
Part of the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives Repository