#FlashbackFriday: Women Whose Jobs Made News at the Exchange in the ’50s
For Women’s History Month, which begins today, Flashback Friday flashes back to the ‘50s for some mid-20th century history about women at the Exchange.
It’s difficult to track exactly when the Exchange began employing women, but they had been part of the system since at least the early 20s. The July 1955 debut edition of what was then called the Exchange Service News—it wasn’t the Exchange Post until two months later—celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Exchange with a front-page story about the longest-running associates at the time.
They included three women: Rachel N. Dallas of the Baltimore Regional Office, who had 34 years of service at the time, and Fort Sam Houston’s Lilymae Smith and the U.S. Military Academy’s Marian E. Mieschberger, who had 33 years apiece (two men had the longest-running tenures, with 35 years apiece).
The February 1956 Exchange Post includes a story about 26 women who were in key positions at the Exchange. The story singled out Hannabelle Fleming, chief of the Personnel Division’s Training Branch at Headquarters. The same page features a story about six female general managers of Exchanges, including Marjorie Wetzel, who had been GM of the McChord AFB Exchange since January 1941.
Despite women being well-established at the Exchange, there were still stories about female associates encountering resistance or surprise when they did what was traditionally considered a “man’s” job.
A November 1955 article told the story of Marion Abney, a barber at what was then Fort Benning (now Fort Moore). Abney had three years of barber experience at the time, including in Alaska, where she had been Fairbanks’ only barber. But the story mentioned three male customers who refused to let her cut their hair. One said he “just didn’t trust women doing anything, never mind cutting hair.”
Another barber, identified as Mrs. Preston Douglas (pictured above), got the front-page treatment in the May 1959 issue. Douglas, who worked at the Westover AFB Exchange, was asked if her husband minded that she cut other men’s hair. She replied that it was sheer nonsense to think so. She regularly cut the hair of family members—including her twin sister, who was also a barber and returned the favor. Douglas also occasionally encountered resistance, but she just put it down to the shyness of some Airmen.
The May 1958 Exchange Post reported on Lucille “Lu” Hill (pictured above), who drove a mobile snack bar at Reese AFB in Texas, and Betty Ann Davis (pictured at top of story), a service-station attendant at Kessler AFB in Mississippi. Neither encountered the resistance the barbers received—although Davis, who had previously been a service-station attendant at Pendleton Marine Base in California, attracted long lines of drivers just because a female attendant was considered unique at the time.
When the articles were written, Hill and Davis were believed to be the only women in their job roles at the Exchange; Davis was even believed to be the only female service-station attendant in the entire Air Force. But in June, the Exchange Post ran a brief update saying that at least three other exchanges had informed him that they employed women in similar roles. The only Exchange named specifically was the Mather AFB BX, where all of the service-station associates were women.
