Photo of Bertha Bolduc Chaffers and Margaret Chase Smith Item Info
- Title:
- Photo of Bertha Bolduc Chaffers and Margaret Chase Smith
- Description:
-
Image of Berthe Bolduc Chaffers, leader of the Women's Division of the Civil Defense Corps in Lewiston-Auburn during WWII, and Senator Margaret Chase Smith. Chaffers was born in 1891, and was educated with the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary in Quebec. Smith was the first woman to serve in both houses of the US Congress, and had French-Canadian roots as well.
The Civil Defense Corps was part of the Office of Civilian Defense, started by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1941. Members were non-military personnel who trained in various skill sets such as medical and nursing assistance, bomb reconnaissance, and rescue procedure, as well as as auxiliary fire and police, and serving as drivers and messengers.1 The Civil Defense Corps members served as their community’s first responders, should war come to the homefront.
1 Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, (2009-2019), “Civilian Defense on the Homefront, 1942,” The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History AP US History Study Guide, https://ap.gilderlehrman.org/resources/civilian-defense-home-front-1942.
- Subjects:
- photography, politicians, Women's Division of the Civil Defense Corps
- Source:
- Bertha Bolduc Chaffers Papers
- Type:
- Image;StillImage
- Format:
- image/jpeg
- Preferred Citation:
- "Photo of Bertha Bolduc Chaffers and Margaret Chase Smith", Bertha Bolduc Chaffers Papers, Franco-American Collection, University of Southern Maine
- Rights:
- In copyright - Educational use permitted
- Standardized Rights:
- https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/