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During World War II, a group of volunteer, civilian women manually plotted aircraft traveling through Washington, D.C., air space. In her virtual talk, Anne Dobberteen discusses this select group of women, known as the “Washington Plane Plotters,” who performed secret, unpaid, skilled labor under the supervision of male military officers. The officers relied on the plotters for an up-to-the-minute picture of the sky in order to activate defenses during a potential aerial attack. Through their work, the women learned to see their familiar city from above using a global grid. World War II homefront historians largely overlook their work with the Antiaircraft Artillery Command, as well as the national volunteer effort with which these Plane Plotters were affiliated, known as the Aircraft Warning Service (AWS).
