This book is a well-researched look at seven women who grew their careers in the period following World War II when most women stayed home to raise families. From politicians to television, the ideal woman was portrayed as happiest at home - raising kids, cooking and cleaning and being a help-mate to their husbands who went out every day and worked. Do you remember Leave it to Beaver, a popular television series at this time? The mom, June Clever, spent her days happily cooking and cleaning (always wearing her pearls). There were still women who worked outside the home and some even advanced in their fields but they were not the norm. I grew up during the 50s and 60s and had a mom who worked outside our home plus two grandmothers who also worked so I never really bought into the belief that women were happiest as a housewife. But when I started working in the 60s, I learned about the prejudice against women in the work place and realized how strong my mom and grandmothers must have been to face it every day.

In this book, the author looks at seven successful women who had strong careers during this time. She wants to learn what inspired these women, and what can they teach women and girls today? I found all seven of these women very inspiring and brave to continue on their chosen paths.

If you are a female reader, you need to read this book and learn the lessons of these inspiring women from the past. March is National Women's History month -- a perfect time to read this book!

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own. ( )

Author Kathleen Courtenay Stone as a girl was fascinated by the women in her father’s Yale Law School Yearbook. The women she knew were homemakers. Women on television were moms who wore pearls in the kitchen. Her own mother gave up a job she loved to stay home. Who were these women? How did they come to their careers?

Stone became a lawyer herself. She never stopped wondering about the women from her parent’s generation and what it took to forge a career. She determined to find and interview women who became professionals in a society that did not support working women, where they would always be ‘girls.’

My husband’s grandmother had to find work after the early death of her husband. She worked the floor at GM in Flint. As the only female, the men just called out ‘girl’ when they wanted her. She became Girl at home as well. Girl was part of the women’s group that delivered meals to the men inside the plant during the Sit Down Strike in 1936. She was a proud union member.

The women in They Called Us Girls accomplished amazing careers during a time when women were expected to be content as wives and mothers.

There is the artist Dahlov Zorach Ipcar (b 1917), whose work I recognized from children’s books. Ipcar’s parents were cutting-edge artists whose works hung at the 1913 Armory Show. She followed in her parent’s footsteps, learning from them, developing her identity as an artist as an early teenager. Stone visited Ipcar at her Maine farm where she and her husband lived and worked as farmers and artists. Her career changed when she provided illustrations for Margaret Wise Brown’s story The Little Fisherman.

Readers met other women with interesting careers. Muriel Petioni (born 1914), an African American physician. Cordelia Dodson Hood (b. 1913), Intelligence Officer. Physician Martha Lipson Lepow (b. 1927) who worked with polio researchers. Mildred Spiewak Dresseljaus (b. 1930), physicist, who was awarded the National Medal of Freedom by President Obama. Nonprofit leader Frieda Garcia (b. 1933), born in the Dominican Republic, who rose to become a political and social activist. Rya Weickert Zobel (b 1931), Federal judge, who graduated in the fourth class with women at Harvard Law School. Law firms were not hiring female lawyers, so she became a law clerk. President Kennedy chose her to be the first female judge in Massachusetts.

These short biographies consider the women’s roots and early life, and their motivation and journey to their chosen careers. Each is interesting and inspirational. Stone interjects historical stories and facts, and relates her own career path.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss. My review is fair and unbiased. ( )