Women's integration into the military academies afforded an almost unique opportunity to study social change. It was a tidy, well-defined natural experiment. The Air Force Academy was willing to permit the kind of external scrutiny that afforded an objective account of the facts of the first year of integration. For sixteen months the academy allowed the author to interview freely and repeatedly all persons concerned with planning and implementing women's admission. Working as a historian (with individuals and documents rather than with questionnaires), Stiehm tells the report of this first year as fully and as accurately as possible.


Women's integration into the military academies afforded an almost unique opportunity to study social change. It was a tidy, well-defined natural experiment. The Air Force Academy was willing to permit the kind of external scrutiny that afforded an object