Steph Hinnershitz joined the Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy as a Historian in June 2021. Before coming to The National WWII Museum, she held teaching positions at Valdosta State University in Georgia, Cleveland State University in Ohio, and the US Military Academy at West Point. She received her PhD in American History in 2013 from the University of Maryland and specializes in the history of the Home Front during World War II. She has published books and articles on Asian American history, including Race, Religion, and Civil Rights: Asian Students on the West Coast, 1900-1968 and A Different Shade of Justice: Asian American Civil Rights in the South. Her most recent book, Japanese American Incarceration: The Camps and Coerced Labor during World War II, was recently published with the University of Pennsylvania Press. Her research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, West Point, the Social Science Research Council, the Library of Congress, and the US Army Heritage and Education Center, among others.
Stephanie Hinnershitz, PhD
Historian, Institute for the Study of War and Democracy

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Carlson's Raiders
On August 28, 1942, the Detroit Times announced that the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion would receive its own official battle song. Newspapers across the country celebrated the battalion, informally called Carlson’s Raiders after the commander Lt. Colonel Evans Fordyce Carlson, for its successful assault against the Japanese on Makin Island in the Pacific.
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The Wartime Internment of Native Alaskans
At the outset of the Aleutian Islands campaign, 800 native Unangan were removed and interned in squalid camps from 1942 through 1945.
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“I Paid My Dues to Be Called an American:” Sergeant Frank “Foo” Fujita’s POW Experience in the Pacific
Frank Fujita’s American citizenship and Japanese heritage made his time as a prisoner of the Japanese particularly torturous.
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The Marshall Plan and Postwar Economic Recovery
The Marshall Plan was a massive commitment to European recovery after World War II that was largely supported by Americans.
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Protecting the Home Front: The “Annie Oakley” Prison Guards
While Rosie the Riveter manned the wartime industries, the Annie Oakleys patrolled prisons as the first female guards.
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Anna M. Rosenberg and Women in Defense after World War II
Anna M. Rosenberg turned her experiences with military affairs during World War II into a position as the first woman to serve as Assistant Secretary of Defense.
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Private George Watson's Medal of Honor
Private George Watson received the Medal of Honor for his courageous rescue of fellow soldiers.
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Japanese American Incarceration: The Camps and Coerced Labor
The Institute for the Study of War and Democracy’s Dr. Steph Hinnershitz discusses excerpts from her book on the anniversary of Executive Order 9066.
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Supplying Victory: The History of Merchant Marine in World War II
The US Merchant Marine provided crucial, yet often overlooked, logistical support for the Allied war effort.
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Proclamation 2527 and the Internment of Italian Americans
The surveillance and detention of Italian Americans after Pearl Harbor is a little-known piece of WWII history.