Project Timeline

We began working on Homefront Heroines in 2006, interviewing WAVES and SPARs. This started as academic research, with the intent of transforming it into a multi-media interactive documentary project. Follow our timeline!

Our Timeline

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February, 2006

Director Kathleen M. Ryan gets in contact with WAVES National (now known as MILWOMEN) and does the first interviews with Navy WAVES and Coast Guard SPARs.

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September, 2006

Ryan and friend Mel Kangleon attend the WAVES National Convention, held aboard a Carnival cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico. There Ryan interviews nine women and makes contacts to interview dozens more. Kangleon is unofficially adopted by the WAVES who meet her.

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October, 2006-May, 2008

Ryan continues interviewing WAVES and SPARs over the next 18 months. She receives a grant to do archive research from the Library of Congress and from the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon. She also completes her Ph.D. at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her dissertation is entitled When Flags Flew High: Propaganda, Memory and Oral History for World War II Female Veterans, and uses the oral histories gathered for this project.

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Summer, 2008-Spring, 2009

The project relocates to Ohio. Ryan presents research on the project at several conferences, including the International Oral History Association in Guadalajara.

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Summer, 2009

Producer David Staton begins work on the project. Ryan receives a grant to do research at Radcliffe College’s Schlesinger Library. Thanks to that funding and some additional funding from Miami University (Ohio), the two spend the summer, along with Executive (Fe)Line Producer Miranda, traveling across the United States, interviewing WAVES and shooting location and archival footage for the project, which is now been dubbed Homefront Heroines: The WAVES of World War II.

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August, 2009-May, 2010

Production Assistant Caitlin Van Mol begins working on the project, doing the groundwork for the first version of the website, which launched in Spring, 2010. The project receives a grant from the Ohio Humanities Council, and as a result is able to travel to archives and do expert interviews in Washington, Philadelphia and New York. Ryan and Staton meet WAVE officer Frannie Pringle Taft, who not only is interviewed, but provides the project with 5 reels of 16mm color film from World War II

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Summer, 2010

Based on the new material, Staton and Ryan write an updated project script. Line Producer Joe Sampson works on audio vignettes of selected interviews. The project relocates from Ohio to Colorado.

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Fall, 2010-Spring, 2011

Script revisions, based upon feedback from project consultants. The project receives grants from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of North Carolina Greensboro Archives and Special Collections for archive travel and archival film digitization. Production Assistant Keke Mullins creates video vignettes for selected interviews. Final expert interviews are shot.

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Summer, 2011

Post-production begins. Project successfully raises funds on Kickstarter and is able to bring WAVE Margaret Thorngate to the U.S.S. Missouri. Production Assistant Laura Hampton receives a research assistant appointment from the University of Colorado to create geo-tagged story elements for smartphones using the TagWhat platform. Hinges of History blog established.

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October, 2011

Web site launch.

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October, 2012

Film previews at WAVES National Convention in Orlando.

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April, 2013

Film debuts at Through Women’s Eyes, Sarasota Film Festival.

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October, 2013

Film screens at San Pedro International Film Festival.

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April, 2014

Film receives Broadcast Education Association Festival of Media Arts Award of Excellence.

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March, 2015

DVD and streaming release of film.

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February, 2017

Film screens at the exhibit Making Mainbocher at the Chicago History Museum.

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December, 2017

Project receives grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to revise website as an interactive documentary and archive to coordinate with the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II.

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July, 2018

Work on website revisions begin.

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August, 2018-May, 2020

Production assistants Jackson Deakins, Sofia Pena y Lillo, Hannah Prince, Syndey Schrank, Shea Sahm, and Caitlyn Sullivan produce video vignettes and work on the website content and navigation.

University of Colorado Ph.D. student Andy Sturt works to master OHMS, the Oral History Metadata Sychronizer, an open source tool that allows for linking interview transcripts with interviews in online archives.

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August 15, 2020

“Homefront Heroines: The WAVES of World War II” i-doc launched.

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Spring, 2021

I-doc wins 2021 Popular Culture Association Arlen Ellis Digital Research Award. The 2021 BEA Festival of Media Arts names it  Best in Competition, Interactive Multimedia and Emerging Technology—Website, Faculty Division. It is a finalist for Best of Festival, Interactive Multimedia and Emerging Technology, Faculty Division at the 2021 BEA Festival of Media Arts.

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