Title	[Portrait of Dorothy B. Austell]
Date	1943-06-11
Subject headings	World War, 1939-1945 United States. Army--Women
Era	Vietnam Era (1964-1974)
Service branch	Army--WAC Army--AAF
Item description	Photographic portrait of Dorothy B. Austell, in uniform, standing by a field, with farm workers in the background. The photograph is dated June 11, 1943.
Veteran's name	Austell, Dorothy B.
Veteran's biography	Dorothy B.Dot" Austell (1920-2009) of Charlotte and Shelby, North Carolina, served as an undercover agent with the Women’s Army Corps in the Army Air Force from June 1943 to July 1946 . Dorothy B. Austell was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and raised in Shelby, North Carolina. She completed a two-year administration program at nearby Gardner-Webb College and became the assistant comptroller for the Cleveland County school system . In May 1943, Senator Clyde R. Hoey of North Carolina approached Austell about a top secret assignment in the Women's Army Corps, where she would perform undercover intelligence work against saboteurs in the armed forces. She agreed and enlisted in June 1943, and was sent to Daytona Beach, Florida, for basic training and administration school. She was then sent to Baer Field in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois, during the next three years. She was discharged as a first lieutenant on 1 July 1946 . Austell returned to her job as assistant comptroller, but later became an insurance agent for Pilot Life Insurance Company of Greensboro, North Carolina, where she was the first woman in the nation to make top agent. She later founded her own insurance agency, Dorothy Austell, Randall & Associates, in Raleigh, North Carolina. In 1998, Austell received "The Order of the Long Leaf Pine",the Distinguished Women of North Carolina Award for outstanding level of achievement. She died in Raleigh on 11 August, 2009.
Type	image
Original format	photographs
Original publisher	[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified]
Contributing institution	Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries
Source collection	WV0184 Dorothy B. Austell Papers
Rights statement	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Additional rights information	IN COPYRIGHT. This item is subject to copyright. Contact the rights holder noted above for permission to reuse.
Object ID	WV0184.6.001
Digital publisher	The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, University Libraries, PO Box 26170, Greensboro NC 27402-6170, 336.334.5304 -- http://library.uncg.edu/
OCLC number	900811890

[Portrait of Dorothy B. Austell]

Page/Item Description