Jeanne M. Holm Promoted, First Woman Brigadier General, U.S. Air Force
Jeanne M. Holm had a distinguished career in the U.S. Air Force, and on this day became the first woman promoted to the rank of Brigadier General.
After leaving military service, she became an advisor to President Gerald Ford on women’s issues. In that capacity, she helped draft a report on federal laws and regulations that would have to be revised if the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing women equal rights, was ratified.
The campaign for the ERA stalled in the late 1970s in the face of conservative opposition, however, and was never ratified.
Learn more about Jeanne M. Holm’s career: http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/Biographies/Display/tabid/225/Article/106699/major-general-jeanne-m-holm.aspx
Read her oral history interview at the Library of Congress: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.04293/transcript?ID=mv0001
Watch an interview with Jeanne Holm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOURasAPc38
Learn more: Evelyn Monahan and Rosemary Neidel Greenlee, A Few Good Women: America’s Military Women from World War I to the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (2010)
And more about women in the military: http://www.military.com/topics/women-in-the-military