Talking About Women’s History: Three Questions and an Answer with Dr. Catherine Musemeche

Catherine “Kate” Musemeche is a graduate of the University of Texas McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas and the University of Texas School of Law. Musemeche’s first book, Small, was longlisted for the E.O. Wilson/Pen American Literary Science Award and was awarded the Texas Writer’s League Discovery Prize for Nonfiction in 2015. Her second book, Hurt, was named one of the top ten EMS books of the decade. She has also contributed to Smithsonian Magazine, the Wall Street Journal,  New York Times’ “Motherlode” blog, KevinMD.com, Creative Nonfiction magazine and EMS World. She lives in Austin, Texas.

In her most recent book, Lethal Tides: Mary Sears and the Marine Scientists Who Helped Win World War II, Musemeche tells the story of how the U.S. Navy was unprepared to enact its island-hopping strategy to reach Japan when World War II began and how oceanographers came to the rescue. Anticipating tides, planning for coral reefs, and preparing for enemy fire was new ground for the navy, and with lives at stake it was ground that had to be covered quickly. They turned to Mary Sears, an overlooked oceanographer with untapped talent who, along with a team of colorful and quirky marine scientists, became instrumental in turning the tide of the war in the United States’ favor. Sears and her team helped the navy “solve the ocean” by guiding them to optimal landing sites in the Pacific and by identifying thermoclines, temperature gradients in the ocean, where U.S. submarines could hide from the enemy.

How could I resist a story like that? Take it away, Kate!

Lethal Tides straddles the boundaries between biography, science writing, and military history.  How did you balance the three very different components of the story?

Thank you for noticing the three strands. Rather than seeing it as straddling, I attempted to weave the three strands—Mary Sears’ service in World War II, the nascent science of oceanography and the coming of age of the amphibious forces in World War II. I was elated when I realized I had these three strands to play with. What writer doesn’t dream of such narrative gold? When I learned that oceanography was a very new science at the advent of World War II (there were only about 100 trained oceanographers in the country and no oceanography majors per se) and that our amphibious forces, which had been conceived between World War I and World War II, were entirely untested that just made Mary Sears’ story all the more irresistible to me.

At the same time, however, weaving these three strands presented a massive challenge in terms of structure. Part One of the book is getting all the parts/people to the right place at the right time to launch central prong of the Pacific Campaign. Part Two follows the invasion schedule of the Pacific Campaign, working in, not just the challenges presented by each unique island target but also various advances in oceanography made along the way.

We are seeing more and more accounts of women who played vital roles behind the scenes in World War II.  Why do you think such stories were left out of the traditional histories of the war?  And why are we re-discovering them today? 

Each story of an unsung hero be it the story of a woman in science, an African American soldier, a Mexican American pilot, or some other person who was left out of the initial round of historical narratives, broadens our understanding of not only who helped win World War II but also what was required to win World War II. By telling the story of Mary Sears in World War II, I am also shining a light on oceanographers and really, all scientists who contributed to that war, in much the same way as the movie Oppenheimer is doing.

In the past when we thought of wars we thought of the men fighting them and the weapons they used, maybe the geography but a whole lot more goes into conducting a war including science, technology, medicine, supply chains and the people who unload boxes of supplies on beaches in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. To include these new stories is to enrich our understanding of military history and there are some terrific stories out there waiting to be told.

These stories are emerging now, I think, for two major reasons. First, the history of World War II is being told by the people who can identify with these stories and publishers know there is a market for these stories and want to get them out there.
 
Your previous books dealt with specifically medical issues.  Was it a challenge to make the leap to a historical narrative?

Lethal Tides did take me out of the world of medicine, my comfort zone, but at least the narrative centered around a scientist and the science of oceanography. As an academic surgeon I spent many years working alongside various scientists. I know the pressures scientists are under and how difficult it can be to get the data to conform to expectations.

There is definitely a learning curve in constructing a book-length narrative. I was fortunate that this story naturally lent itself to that structure. My challenge was more in combining three adventure stories into one continuous narrative thread composed of a character arc, the arc of a developing science and the arc of the amphibious forces. Another part of the challenge with telling the stories of historical figures who are all deceased, is digging out some details about what their daily lives were like. Even if someone remembers the person they are unlikely to know anything about their World War II service.

A question from Kate: What would you do if you had a tremendous idea for a new book about an unsung woman hero and your agent told you she didn’t think she could sell it? Have you ever had to deal with rejection in the literary world? What are your best coping mechanisms?

Rejection is something that all of us who are involved in traditional publisher have to deal with. It’s never easy. (And for the record: I had two book proposals rejected over the years, one by a series of publishers and one by my then agent.) As far as coping goes, I allow myself a little time to stomp around and shake my fists. Then I remind myself that it is not personal, and try to understand the rationale behind the rejection before I make a decision about what to do next.

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Want to know more about Dr. Catherine Musemeche and her work?

Visit her website: http://catherinemusemeche.com/

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Come back tomorrow for three questions and an answer with historian Catherine McNeur, author of Mischievous Creatures.

 

Helping to Write Women’s History

One of the greatest challenges in writing history is reading handwritten documents from the past. Many times over the last few years I found myself cursing struggling with Sigrid Schultz’s letters.* Her handwriting was not great. Her use of punctuation was erratic. (I blame this on years of writing stories in cablese  and sending telegrams. Punctuation cost money, which meant you only used it when it was essential.) I managed her letters and notes in English and even French with minimal teeth gnashing. Banging my way through her letters in German was much much harder. So hard that I struggled with one letter for well over an hour before I realized it was in Norwegian, not German.**

All of which leads me to the National Women’s History Museum’s Women’s History Month project. Over the course of March they are urging people to help transcribed Clara Barton’s papers at the Library of Congress.*** The Barton transcribe-a-thon is part of the Library’s By the People public history transcription project. Here’s the link to the Women’s History Museum’s call to arms: https://events.womenshistory.org/events/transcribe-clara/ . It includes tips on transcribing and links to the campaign to transcribe Barton’s papers and the larger By the People project.

Future historians will thank you.

*I hear snickers, maybe even guffaws, from those of you who have suffered with my handwriting over the years. You may have noticed that, thanks to my experience with Sigrid's letters, I type most of my letters now.

**I do not read Norwegian.

***Barton was more than “just” a nurse. (Not that “just” should ever be applied to nurses as far as I’m concerned. The more I’ve learned about nurses over the years, the more impressed I become.) If you would like a quick introduction to or refresher on Barton’s life, you can find it here, here and here.

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Come back on Monday for three questions and an answer with Dr. Catherine Musemeche, author of Lethal Tides: Mary Sears and the Marine Scientists Who Helped Win World War II.

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Just a reminder that The Dragon for Chicago is now available for preorder wherever you buy your books. If you want a signed copy, you can order it through my local independent bookstore here: https://www.semcoop.com/dragon-chicago-untold-story-american-reporter-nazi-germany Use the special instructions block at the bottom on the order page to request a signed copy and tell me how you want it signed.

Many thanks to those of you who chose to pre-order. It makes a difference.

 

Talking About Women’s History: Three Questions and an Answer with Kip Wilson

Kip Wilson is the author of critically-acclaimed young adult verse novels White Rose (Versify, 2019), about anti-Nazi political activist Sophie Scholl, The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin (Versify, 2022), set in a queer club in Berlin during the last days of the Weimar Republic, and One Last Shot (Versify, 2023), about anti-fascist Spanish Civil War photojournalist Gerda Taro. Kip holds a Ph.D. in German Literature and spends her days as a Library Technician at the Concord-Carlisle Regional High School.

I’ve been looking forward to reading One Last Shot ever since Kip announced she was writing the book, and I am so pleased to have her back on the Margins to talk about it.

Take it away, Kip!

What path led you to Gerda Taro? And why do you think it is important to tell her story today?

I’ve long been interested in the interwar period (The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin also takes place in the 1930s), and I’m married to a Spaniard, so I’ve been learning about the turbulent history of Spain at that time for a while. But I didn’t connect to a protagonist until August 1, 2018, when I saw an impish girl holding a camera on the Google Doodle. I clicked on the image right away of course, and was intrigued enough by what I saw about Gerda Taro at first glance that I quickly ordered several books about her and her more famous partner, André Friedman (aka Robert Capa).

Writing about a historical figure like Gerda Taro requires living with her over a period of years.  What was it like to have her as a constant companion?

You know, it was pretty amazing. The more I knew her, the more I loved her. What a firecracker! I wish I could hang out with her, truly. But that’s not to say she was a perfect individual or had a fantastic life. She lived through incredibly difficult times and did what she had to do to survive. Photographs of her show a goofy personality, a thirst for adventure, and an unrivaled self-confidence I certainly wish I had. “What would Gerda do?” is certainly a question I sometimes ask myself since getting to know her that delivers much more interesting results.

What types of sources do you rely on to create rich fictional characters from obscure, or poorly documented historical figures?

Gerda Taro unfortunately falls into this category, because she left behind no surviving letters or diaries–just a single telegram! But I’m so lucky that many of Gerda’s photographs are available online through the International Center of Photography (ICP): https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/collections/gerda-taro-september-26-2007-january-6-2008. It’s amazing how much you can tell about Gerda from photographs of her as well as by her.

I’m also lucky that Gerda’s biographers were meticulous in their research–interviewing surviving friends and acquaintances when they were still alive, and digging deep in the archives to find all kinds of incredible  historical details.

 

A question from Kip: Who or what initially sparked your interest in women’s history? I’m curious to hear what started you along this path.

One of my favorite things to do when I was small was curl up next to my grandmother and ask her, "What did you do when you were a little girl?" From there it was a short step to reading biographies about historical women who ignored social boundaries and accomplished things—the kind that are written with the intention of inspiring young girls. My grade school's revolving library owned a whole series of them. Each volume started with the woman as a little girl who didn’t quite fit in. Every week a new one arrived and I snatched it before anyone else could get it, eager to read about Clara Barton, Madame Curie or Julia Ward Howe. They were undoubtedly whitewashed accounts of complicated lives, but I loved them.

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Want to know more about Kip Wilson and her work?

Visit her website: kipwilsonwrites.com

Check out her Instagram account: @kipwilsonwrites.

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Tomorrow it will be business as usual here on the Margins with a blog post from me.   Then we’ll be back on Monday with an interview with Dr. Catherine Musemeche, author of Lethal Tide