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Collection Data
- Description
- Harriet Pickens joined the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) in 1944 as a member of the Women's Reserves in the U.S. Naval Reserve. She was one of two African American women to be sworn in as an officer, and she was commissioned as a lieutenant following her training, the first to receive this high rank. The Harriet Pickens papers primarily contain documentation regarding her military service as a lieutenant in the WAVES (1944-1946) and her public service work.
- Names
- Pickens, Harriet, 1909-1969 (Creator)
- Dates / Origin
- Date Created: 1922 - 2005
- Library locations
- Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division
- Shelf locator: Sc MG 759
- Topics
- United States. Naval Reserve. Women's Reserve
- African-American soldiers
- African American women -- Political activity -- New York (State) -- New York (N.Y.)
- Authors, Black
- Women soldiers -- United States
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Female
- Harlem (New York, N.Y.)
- United States -- Armed Forces -- African Americans
- United States -- Armed Forces -- Women
- Pickens, Harriet, 1909-1969
- Notes
- Biographical/historical: Born in 1909 in Talladega, Alabama, Harriet Pickens joined the WAVES in 1944 as a member of the Women's Reserves in the U.S. Naval Reserve. She was one of two African American women to be sworn in as an officer, and she was commissioned as a lieutenant following her training, the first to receive this high rank. She served as an assistant in advanced training for WAVES recruits, which emphasized indoctrination, and she was responsible for teaching the recruits the history, organization, recent exploits, rating, and personnel of the Navy. She also was the director of the Navy Material Redistribution and Disposal Administration in New York.
Pickens, the daughter of William Pickens, a well-known educator, orator, editor, and civil rights leader, lived in Harlem for fifty years and took a deep and active interest in improving life for residents of this community. She held several administrative positions in community service organizations. Pickens died in New York in 1969.
- Content: The Harriet Pickens papers primarily contain documentation regarding her military service as a lieutenant in the WAVES (1944-1946) and her public service work. They also include biographical information such as material related to her education. Mention is also made of her classmate, fellow African-American officer Frances Wills. Pickens's community service work is represented by her notes for a course she took for the training of tuberculosis workers (1940), and a 1960 article she published concerning hospital care. Most of the material concerning her other community involvements is printed matter.
- Physical Description
- Extent: 0.63 linear feet (2 boxes, 1 oversize folder)
- Type of Resource
- Text
- Identifiers
- Other local Identifier: Sc MG 759
- NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b16466545
- MSS Unit ID: 25615
- Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): ee726070-b223-013b-1257-0242ac110003
