Kathryn Lufkin Alcorn

Her common name was Katie and she was part of an historic change to the U.S. Armed Services during World War I. Beginning in 1917, women who were not nurses could enlist in the Navy.

Katie was born in Easton, Pennsylvania in 1895. Her father, Charles, was a railroad engineer but when he died in 1901, his wife, Delia, was left alone with five little ones. She remarried, bringing her children to their new home on Cleveland Street in Philadelphia.

In 1914 the Allied Powers initially consisted of France, Great Britain, and Russia, and the opposing side included Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. Over the ensuing years, 12 more countries became involved, including the United States in 1917.

As the U.S. Navy was marshalling its fleet for the war it was having trouble finding enough sailors, but the need for clerical workers was also critical. When the Secretary of the Navy studied the terms of the recently passed Naval Reserve Act of 1916, he discovered that the act did not state a specific gender requirement for yeomen, the enlisted personnel who fulfill administrative and clerical duties.

So, in March of 1917 the Navy Department authorized the enrollment of women in the Naval Reserve with ratings of yeomen, radio electricians, or other rank, changing the make-up of the nation’s defenses forever. The first woman to enlist who was not a nurse was Loretta Walsh on March 17.

Just 35 days later on April 23, Katie enlisted. By the end of April, 600 had signed up. The Navy would subsequently enlist 11,200 more. Before she enlisted she worked during the day and took night classes at Temple University, hoping to become a teacher.

Most of the yeomen (F) personnel (with the F denoting the sailor is a female) performed office duties such as typing, stenography, bookkeeping, accounting, telephone operations, and inventory control. Others became radio operators, draftsmen, photographers, telegraphers, chemists, and finger printers. They were assigned to stations throughout the country and U.S. territories. Katie was assigned to the Philadelphia Navy Yard as a stenographer and clerk.

War was declared in April before the organization of the new yeoman groups were well organized. Accommodations for the women were uncertain since there were no female barracks. If the recruits were assigned to a station in another city or state they had to find their own housing or look for a YWCA. Fortunately, Katie could commute.

At first they also had no specific uniforms but eventually a standard design was developed. This photo captured a group of workers in their new outfits. It’s possible that Katie could be among those posing on this launch.

The Great War ended with the Armistice in November, 1918, but that wasn’t the end of the paperwork. The women were sent home with an honorable discharge as soon as their specific duties were no longer needed. They also obtained full veterans benefits and military preference to obtain a civil service rating for jobs in the federal government.

Katie took advantage of that benefit after her discharge on September 4, 1919. Thanks to her performance on the civil service exams, she became the secretary to the captain of the yard.

Katie married Charles A. Alcorn in 1929 and had a son, Charles, Jr, in 1932. She worked as a stenographer, and her husband was a clerk for the railroad. The Alcorn home was at 3303 Tilden Street in the Roxboro section of the city.

Her grave marker says she served in both world wars and her rating was communications yeoman (CYN). In a 1953 interview she explained she couldn’t reenlist when she wanted to because her son was under the age of 18, meaning that women with children were barred.

But she did reenlist in 1949 in the Naval Reserve with the rating of chief yeoman of the fleet air service squadron. That means she took part in monthly drills, in her 50s, at Willow Grove Naval  Air Station with 167 men. Decades after leaving her pursuit to be a teacher, she assumed that role as she instructed the yeomen reservists in their duties.

The Philadelphia Naval Home began admitting females in late 1968 so it’s possible that Katie spent her last years there. As a Navy veteran, she was entitled to a grave with a military marker in the Naval Plot after her death in 1976.