The best of the Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes: Ethel Calvert

Calvert, Ethel. Ethel Calvert was created by Milo Milton Hastings (City of Endless Night) and appeared in “In the Clutch of the War-God” (Physical Culture, July-Sept 1911). Forty years in the future Ethel Calvert is in Japan when war breaks out between Japan and the United States. Calvert is sheltered by the family of Dr. Oshida, a friendly Japanese. Calvert slowly adapts to the Japanese way of life, which includes vegetarianism, eugenics, and exercise, and which has created a people who are physically superior to the meat-eating, sexually repressed Americans. Japan takes the Philippines, and after Calvert and the Oshida family are taught how to fly planes off of a Japanese aircraft carrier, they take part in the Japanese invasion of Beaumont, Texas. The Japanese occupation is relatively kind, and Calvert and the Oshidas begin working in the corn plantations. Eventually the United States is forced to sue for peace, Calvert finds true love, and Americans embrace the Japanese way of life.