Katherine Landdeck, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of History | Texas Woman's University

Denton, TX, UNITED STATES

Women in aviation/military, nation’s foremost expert on WWII Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), Emmy-nominated documentary producer

Contact

Biography

Katherine Sharp Landdeck joined the TWU Department of History and Government in the fall of 2002. She directs the history internship program and teaches American History survey courses as well as upper-level and graduate courses on U.S. Between the Wars, World War II, The World at War, Post-1945 U.S., Oral History Methodology, and other topics in twentieth century America. Her primary topic of interest is the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP, of World War II. She was featured in NPR Morning Edition’s Gracie Award winning story on the WASP and her timeline for the story is mentioned in the White House Photographers Association Award of Excellence. She was a part of KERA’s “Nowhere But Texas 2” film about the WASP, “High Hopes,” which won a Texas Emmy. She was featured in the 2014 Gracie award-winning documentary "We Served Too" which aired on PBS nationwide in November 2013. Her expertise on the WASP has been recognized by The Washington Post, CNN, NPR's All Things Considered, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, Nine Network of Australia, TF1 Network of France, CBS Evening News, as well as USA Today, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and the Denver Post. She has written for the The Atlantic and The Huffington Post and numerous aviation publications. She is working as co-author to publish WASP Dora Dougherty Strother McKeowan’s memoir. Landdeck is also completing her own manuscript, Against Prevailing Winds, which follows the WASP from the 1920s to the present. She has begun to research her next book about the women who became military pilots after the WASP, in the 1970s and 1980s. And as part of her work in public history, she helped sponsor and design the National Award winning float, “Our Eyes Are On The Stars,” in the 2014 Tournament of Roses Parade. Landdeck served as a co-chair of the TWU Public Voices Thought Leadership Fellowship from 2014-2015. She also served as Guggenheim Fellow at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in 2000.

Industry Expertise (2)

Education/Learning

Research

Areas of Expertise (7)

American History

Political Science

WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots) in World War 2

Oral History

20th Century America

World War II

Women in the Military

Education (3)

B.A.: University of Arkansas at Little Rock, History and Political Science

University of Tennessee: Ph.D., History

University of Tennessee: M.A., History

Affiliations (1)

Wingtip to Wingtip Association : Vice - President

Media Appearances (5)

Arlington burial battle still brewing for family of female WWII pilot

Stars and Stripes online

2016-01-06

The WASPs "are a distinct group of women with the surviving 100-or-so women all in their 90s," Texas Woman's University history professor Kate Landdeck told the Associated Press. "It is just mean-spirited for the secretary of the Army to question their value to their country. Again."...

Female WWII pilots barred from Arlington National Cemetery

AP: The Big Story online

2015-12-31

Kate Landdeck, a Texas Woman's University history professor who has focused much of her academic research on WASPs, said she doesn't understand the rationale for the Army going out of its way to exclude this group of women from Arlington after they had been deemed eligible for over a decade without controversy. WASPs "are a distinct group of women with the surviving 100-or-so women all in their 90s," she said. "It is just mean-spirited for the Secretary of the Army to question their value to their country. Again."...

Remembering women pilots of WWII

Daily Record online

2015-11-09

This group of women contributed greatly to the war effort in several roles that marked gender role reversal -- they broke new ground, ignoring social stigma and gender discrimination, and flying even while some wanted them to stay grounded. “it was a controversial time for women flying the aircraft," said Katherine Landdeck. associate professor of history at the Texas Woman's University, and a WASP expert. "It was unacceptable to have women replacing men.”

WASP archives at TWU featured in documentary

Denton Record

2013-11-07

TWU provided resources and research assistance forthe documentary, including access to photographs, documents and clothing thatare housed at the university, according to Katherine Landdeck, a historyprofessor who has researched the group for almost 20 years and is featured asan expert in the documentary.

Violet Cowden, Wartime Plane Pilot, Is Dead at 94

The New York Times online

2011-04-23

“We had defeated the Luftwaffe by then, and so our pilots were not dying at the rate that they had been,” said Katherine Landdeck, a historian at Texas Woman’s University who is an authority on the WASPs. “The whole purpose of the WASP program was to release male pilots for combat duty. By December of ’44, the WASPs were no longer releasing them, they were replacing them. And that was the argument that was used against them.”

Articles (2)

Called to Serve: Stories of Men and Women Confronted by the Vietnam War Draft (Book Review)

Oral History Review

2012 Tom Weiner has been on a journey for over forty years, beginning in 1969 on the night he learned his draft lottery number was 117. When called in for his Army physical, he nervously answered yes when asked if he has ever smoked marijuana...

Good Girls, Good Food, Good Fun: The Story of USO Hostesses During World War II