WOMEN's role in history, including the World War II period (1939-1945) in Trinidad and Tobago, was highlighted in two books published by historians Professor Emerita Bridget Brereton and Dr Karen Eccles at the National Library, Port of Spain on Thursday – the day before Armistice Day (November 11) marking the end of World War I (1914-1918.)

The books were Brereton's History Matters: Selected Newspaper Columns 2011-2021 and Islands at War: TT during World War II by Brereton and Eccles.

[caption id="attachment_985194" align="alignnone" width="1024"] The book launch of 'History Matters' author by Professor Bridget Brereton and 'Islands at War - Trinidad and Tobago During World War II' authored by Professor Bridget Brereton and Dr. Karen Eccles, held at the Audio Visual Conference Room and Auditorium at NALIS-National Library and Information System Authority(NALIS)
Thursday 10th November 2022. - Photo by Roger Jacob[/caption]

The launch was chaired by Dr Glenroy Taitt of the Alma Jordan Library, UWI, St Augustine, with a welcome by Nalis executive director Paula Greene.

UWI, St Augustine principal Prof Rose-Marie Belle Antoine, in her remarks, praised Brereton for her "calm, unbiased advice" and "very rational, empathetic approach."

Historian Prof Brinsley Samaroo, reviewing Islands at War, said history should provide guidelines for the future. He said the war years were a complicated slice of TT's history, with US occupation, TT becoming the Commonwealth's biggest oil producer and a takeover target for German ambitions, while seeing an upswing in local agricultural production displacing the influence of a colonial cartel, temporarily. Samaroo's favourite chapter was Forgotten Women of World War II, a detailed probe into the lives of ordinary women – nurses, teachers, telegraph operators and social activists.

"These women operated in a world dominated by men who dictated that upon marriage a woman had to resign from government employment." Bigger jobs went to British women.

[caption id="attachment_985193" align="alignnone" width="842"] Professor Brinsley Samaroo, delivers remarks on the book 'Islands at War'
The book launch of 'History Matters' author by Professor Bridget Brereton and 'Islands at War - Trinidad and Tobago During World War II' authored by Professor Bridget Brereton and Dr. Karen Eccles, held at the Audio Visual Conference Room and Auditorium at NALIS-National Library and Information System Authority(NALIS)
Thursday 10th November 2022. - Photo by Roger Jacob[/caption]

Local women, however, pitched in to help to bail Britain out of the war, a record of their lives surely now inspiring to modern women.

"Chapter two revisits the story of Jean and Dinah through the sexploitation of local women by the Americans."

He said calypsonian Slinger "Mighty Sparrow" Francisco had little sympathy for such women abandoned by the Americans.

Samaroo said the war stimulated Carnival, calypso and steelbands, as the American