The scanned documents are part of the local history collection of Fondulac District Library and have been digitized to increase access. The PDF document is more than 500 pages and contains the registration cards and details of 282 women from East Peoria and surrounding areas that registered for the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense, Illinois Division, Fondulac Unit. The cards were gathered at a registration drive at First National Bank in November 1917.
Each name in the index is linked to the scan of the front side of the woman’s registration card, which is immediately followed in the document by a scan of the reverse side. The file also includes a "Monthly Summary of Registrations and Service."
More information about the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense
Bowen, Joseph T. “The War Work of the Women of Illinois.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1908-1984), vol. 12, no. 3, 1919, pp. 317–29. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40186782. Accessed 30 June 2025.
Richardson, Thomas. “Entry 18: ‘An Army of Housewives’ — The Woman’s Committee during WWI.” History Hub, 19 June 2017, https://historyhub.history.gov/b/researchers-help-blog/posts/entry-18-an-army-of-housewives-the-woman-s-committee-during-wwi. Accessed 30 June 2025.
United States. Council of National Defense. Committee on Women's Defense Work, and Emily Newell Blair. The Woman's Committee, United States Council of National Defense: an Interpretative Report, April 21, 1917, to February 27, 1919. Washington: G.P.O., 1920. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.rslgqf. Accessed 30 June 2025.
VanOrsdal, Anita Anthony. “‘There Shall Be No Woman Slackers’: The Woman’s Committee of the Council of National Defense and Social Welfare Activism as Home Defense, 1917–1919.” PhD diss., Michigan State University, 2016. MSU Libraries, https://d.lib.msu.edu/etd/3897. Accessed 30 June 2025.