Women's History Month | Women in Aviation ()
Not without struggle, women have been part of aviation from its outset. The world of aviation has been one that emerged in the age of women’s suffrage, and one of the few industries that women could insert themselves into from the start. In honor of Women’s History Month, here is a look at some female aviation pioneers.
Early Show Pilots
Early aviation was promoted through traveling exhibitions and stunt show circuits, and women were not left out.
Ruth Law was an early aviator who got her license in 1912. She was an exhibition pilot, stunt pilot and a mechanic. She became the first aviator to fly from Chicago to New York nonstop. Rejected as a military pilot during World War I, she wrote scathing articles against the burgeoning male domination of military aviation. She was finally allowed to recruit for the Army pilot program and fundraise for the war effort as a uniformed Army non-commissioned officer (NCO).
Katherine Stinson also earned her pilot license in 1912 at the age of 21 and became quite wealthy from her stunt flying. She came from a family interested in flying. Her sister Marjorie Stinson was also a pilot, and together, the family founded and managed the Stinson Aviation Company. The company later branched into a flight school for U.S. Army aviators at Kelly Field in San Antonio where Marjorie was an instructor. Majorie became the first woman admitted to the U.S. Aviation Reserve Corps and the first woman to fly airmail for the Post Office. Katherine used her fame to fundraise for the Red Cross during World War I.
Rejected by all American flying schools since she was an African American and Native American woman, Bessie Coleman decided to head overseas. Instead, she learned French and in 1920 attended flight school in France paving the way for international fame in public flight circuits. She also went on speaking tours where she refused segregated venues and used her platform to speak out against racial discrimination.
Record Setters
The interwar period saw a boom in aviation sports and women rose to the challenge right along with it. The First Women’s Air Derby took place during the 1929 National Air Races and was the only event women were allowed to enter. The 20 female challengers had the same qualifications required of male aviators: an international pilot license, 100 hours of solo flight and 25 of cross-country experience.
Louise Thaden won first place in the heavy class. Over time, more events within the air races were open to women, and in 1936 Thaden again won first place in the biggest cross-country flight race, winning the coveted Bendix Trophy.
The first woman to attempt a transatlantic flight was Ruth Elder. While the flight was interrupted due to severe icing, she was still invited to a celebration at the White House with Charles Lindbergh in 1927. Elder flew in a Stinson Detroiter called “American Girl.” Interestingly, the plane was manufactured by the company Katherine & Marjorie Stinson helped found for their brother Eddie. She became a celebrity and actress, using her fame to promote aviation as a founding member of the Ninety-Nines.
The Ninety-Nines
In 1929 there were 285 licensed female pilots in the United States. Twenty-six of them gathered at Curtiss Field on Long Island, New York to discuss starting an all-female aviation organization. The name of the club came from its inaugural membership of 99 women pilots. Today their goal is still to promote the advancement of aviation and provide mutual support.
Amelia Earhart was elected the first president of the Ninety-Nines in 1931. She would go on to set the first women’s solo transatlantic flight record. Earhart also promoted commercial aviation and encouraged women in the field.
Female Aviators and the Military
Willa Brown became the first Black woman to earn an American private pilot’s license in 1938 after taking pilot training lessons, earning a master mechanic certificate and getting her MBA. She was a founding member of the National Airmen’s Association of America (NAAA), an organization founded with the express goal to further African American involvement in the aviation industry. To this end, Brown and her husband founded a flight school in Chicago, which was later selected to provide trainees for the Army Air Corps’ Tuskegee Institute pilot training program. In 1942 she became the first Black female Civil Air Patrol officer. Her continued advocacy against segregation in aviation contributed to the 1948 ban on segregation within the armed forces.
During World War II, segregation prevented Black female pilots like Mildred Hemmons Carter, who had attended Tuskegee institute and earned her pilot’s license via their first civilian pilot training program. She was rejected from the U.S. Army’s Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program, the only military option for female aviators during the war.
The WASP program was introduced to the U.S. by Jacqueline Cochran, a famous aviation racer who set numerous speed records in the pre-war period. At the outset of World War II, Cochran served in the British Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) as a Captain. The organization was part of the Royal Air Force (RAF), and utilized the skills of women pilots in ferrying and other non-combat jobs. When America joined the war, she brought the idea back home where it was met with much resistance and redesign until 1943 when Cochran became the director of the WASP program. In the post-war period she joined the U.S. Air Force Reserve, using both her military and civilian aviation qualifications to become a fighter pilot, a test pilot and the first woman to land on an aircraft carrier. She earned three Distinguished Service Medals over her career and held the most distance, altitude and speed records of any pilot according to the National Museum of the U.S. Army.
As women continue to serve as pilots in the armed forces and in commercial aviation they continue a tradition forged by these forerunners.
References
The Unwritten Record Blog by the National Archives
