Episode Transcript
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SERIES PUBLICATIONS OF THE. SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
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SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN AIR AND SPACE NUMBER 2
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United States Women in Aviation through World War One
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by Claudia M Oakes
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Aerial Photography from Photations Visit Photations.com and www.PhotationsStore.com for more fine art photography
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Help support this series by visiting PhotationsDonations.com
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Pilots
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There were women who knew they could pilot an aircraft as well as men could
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Like all aviators of the time these women received very little formal training they had to depend on their own enthusiasm, desire, and determination to achieve
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Some never had the opportunity or inclination to take the test for a license, but in those early days a license was not a necessary prerequisite for being a pilot
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It is interesting to note that few of these women continued their flying much beyond the end of World War One Despite their vigorous efforts to persuade the government to allow them to fly in combat zones, American women were not allowed to do so
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this may have dampened their enthusiasm for pursuing flying careers Also during World War One, aviation matured sufficiently that its novelty was beginning to wear off
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Flying was becoming more commonplace as the 1920s began Aircraft were less dangerous to fly and so perhaps less interesting to those who had flown the stick and wire open airplanes of the prewar days
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Opinion is divided as to who, Blanche Stuart Scott or Bessica Faith Raiche, was America’s first aviatrix
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Blanche Scott had her first contact with aviation in 1910 when she contracted with the Willys Overland Company to drive an Overland car from New York to San Francisco as a publicity stunt, the first transcontinental automobile trip ever made by a woman As she passed through Dayton, Ohio, she saw the activities at the Wright School, and while she was in California, she had her first airplane ride
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The pilot was Charles F Willard, Glenn Curtiss’ first pupil
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Ms. Scott’s cross country trip had gained her national attention, and she was approached by Jerome Fanciulli, head of the Curtiss Exhibition Company, who asked if she would consider learning to fly and performing with the Curtiss team at air shows and exhibitions
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She agreed and went to the Curtiss Company’s Keuka Lake Field at Hammondsport, New York, for instruction
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Glenn Curtiss was not at all enthusiastic about women learning to fly, but since Fanciulli had sent her, Curtiss himself agreed to give her lessons
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She was the first and only woman every taught by Curtiss personally On 2 September 1910, Ms. Scott made the first solo flight by an American woman
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Whether this flight was intentional or accidental is still open to speculation Blanche Scott may have become impatient with Curtiss’ distrust of women as pilots and decided to show him what she could do
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He had indeed blocked the throttle on her 35 hp pusher aircraft, but on that day 'something happened' to the throttle block, and Ms. Scott rose about forty feet into the air Curtiss was not happy, but he did recognize Ms. Scott’s ability, and she soon became a member of the Curtiss Exhibition Team, making her public debut at a Chicago air meet 1 9 October 1910
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That fall she married the man who had done advance publicity for her auto trip and temporarily retired from flying But she could not stay away from aviation long, and in July 1911 she was back in the cockpit, flying with the famous balloon and airplane pilot, Thomas Scott Baldwin, at Mineola, New York
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Flying in meets all over the country, billed as 'The Tomboy of the Air,' she became more and more daring She flew inverted twenty feet off the ground, sailed under bridges, and performed her famous 'Death Dive' in which she would plummet straight down from 4000 feet, sometimes not leveling out until she was only 200 feet from the ground
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Blanche joined the Ward Exhibition Team of Chicago and flew a Baldwin Red Devil airplane On 31 May 1913, as she was doing low altitude stunts at a meet in Madison, Wisconsin, a wing cable snapped, the aircraft crashed, and Blanche suffered an injured shoulder
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If the plane had not fallen into a swamp, her injuries might have been worse
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This injury kept her grounded almost a year, but in 1914 she went back to stunt flying and also made test flights for Curtiss and Glenn Martin By 1916 she began to be bothered by the public’s morbid interest in crashes and their seeming disappointment at air meets where no one was killed or injured
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She was also frustrated that there seemed to be no place in aviation for women engineers or mechanics, so at age 27 Blanche Scott retired
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Although Bessica Raiche’s solo flight did not occur until 16 September 1910, two weeks after Blanche Scott’s, Mr. sRaiche’s flight was considered definitely 'intentional,' and on 13 October the Aeronautical Society honored her with a dinner at which the Society’s president Hudson Maxim presented to her a gold medal inscribed 'First Woman Aviator of America, Bessica Raiche '
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Bessica Raiche was considered in her time one of the 'new' women: she drove an auto, wore bloomers while playing sports, and took active part in such 'masculine' activities as shooting and swimming She was also an accomplished musician, painter, and linguist
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But what really set her hometown of Beloit, Wisconsin, talking was her return from school in France with two new interests— aviation and a French husband
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Francois Raiche shared his wife’s interest in aviation, and they settled in Mineola, New York, where they could gain from the knowledge and experience of the many pioneer aviators living in that area The Raiches built their first airplane, a Wright type, in their living room, and it was in this frail craft of bamboo and silk, without benefit of prior instruction, that Mr. sRaiche made her first solo flight
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Her first accident occurred in this same aircraft, on her fifth flight
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It was a minor one, but it set her thinking about how her long skirts encumbered her So she appeared for her next flight wearing riding breeches
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Inspired by the success of their first aircraft, the Raiches built two more, which they sold
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Soon they formed the French American Aeroplane Company and formally went into business They imported China silk for wing coverings and were the first to substitute piano wire for iron stove wire to save weight
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They believed that lightness was the key to improved aircraft flight Mr. sRaiche designed and helped build her own personal plane, a Curtiss type biplane, with a 40 hp four cylinder rebuilt marine engine, having a speed of 35 miles per hour
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Unfortunately, Mr. sRaiche’s health deteriorated, and she was forced to stop her aviation activities and move west The Raiches settled in California, and after her recovery, her interest in aviation apparently faded
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Still not content with usual 'woman’s work,' however, Mr. sRaiche returned to school, received her degree in medicine, and became a practicing physician
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The first American aviatrix to be killed in an airplane crash was Julia Clark
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Ms. Clark was a native of London but had come to the United States, married, and settled in Denver It was while she was living there that she decided to learn to fly
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She enrolled as a student in the Curtiss Flying School at North Island, San Diego, California, the first woman to be taught there
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On 19 May 1912, she received her pilot’s license, having flown in a fifteen mile per hour wind at an altitude of about 800 feet She purchased a Curtiss airplane and planned to do exhibition flying
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The group she joined was scheduled to fly at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield on 21 and 22 June
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Ms. Clark decided to make a test flight on 17 June just at dusk The visibility was poor, and one wing of her biplane struck a tree limb
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The aircraft crashed to the ground, pinning Ms. Clark beneath it She died on the way to the hospital
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The Moisant Aviation School at Hempstead, New York, unlike some of the other aviation schools in the country at that time, welcomed women as pupils
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The members of the Moisant family who operated the school had studied the work of the French with monoplanes, so in contrast to the use of biplanes by most other aviation schools, the Moisant instructors taught their pupils in Bleriot type monoplanes
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One of the many women trained there was Bernetta Miller She received her license on 25 September 1912, and joined the Moisant International Aviators
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Because they flew monoplanes, the group was invited to the U S
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Army’s aviation field at Col. lege Park, Maryland, to demonstrate that type of aircraft In October 1912, Ms. Miller flew the first monoplane demonstration flight before U
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S Government officials
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perhaps her selection for this first flight was based on the idea that if a woman could fly this tricky aircraft, anyone could
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On 20 January 1913, after her return to New York, Ms. Miller attempted to establish a new women’s altitude record
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During this flight the oil flow indicator broke, and she was covered with oil Although partially blinded, she successfully made a dangerous emergency landing
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Ms. Miller took an active part in World War One even though she was not allowed to fly at the front as she would have liked
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She joined the Women’s Overseas Service League and was attached to the 82nd Infantry Division in France She served first as an accountant and then went to the front as a canteen worker
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She was awarded the Croix de Guerre and many American citations for her work
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Mr. sRichberg Hornsby of Chicago was the eighth U S
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woman to receive a pilot’s license She soloed on 12 June 1914
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Not much is known about her except that she was a graduate of the Wright School in Dayton, Ohio
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It was not until late 1912 that the west coast had its own aviatrix Before that, people interested in the novelty of women flying aircraft had to be content with waiting until eastern exhibition groups made tours
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Late in the summer of 1912, Alys McKey, a Californian, answered a classified advertisement: 'Wanted—young lady to learn to fly for exhibition purposes ' She was interviewed by Fred A
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Bennett and one of his aviators, John Bryant, of the Bennett Aero Company of The Palms, California, which had placed the ad They accepted her for instruction thus fulfilling her longtime dream of learning to fly
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(When she was only 12 years old, she had written a school composition about an imaginary flight from New Jersey to California )
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Alys began her instruction in one of Bennett’s two Curtiss biplanes, the same one used by Glenn Curtiss in his 1909 flight down the Hudson She soloed in November 1912 and made her first exhibition flight at North Yakima, Washington, 3 May 1913
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She was the first woman ever to fly in Washington, Oregon, or Idaho
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While the Bennett Flyers were performing in Boise on 29 May 1913, Alys and Johnny Bryant were secretly married Marriage to Bryant seemed to make Alys even more determined to prove herself as an aviator
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she was not content to bask in the reflected light of her husband’s achievements At Seattle on 17 July, she set a new women’s altitude record of 2900 feet
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Subsequently she went with the group to Vancouver, Canada, where she not only became the first woman to fly in Canada but did so before the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York
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In the midst of this meet that brought her personal triumph, tragedy occurred
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On August 6, Johnny Bryant was making his second flight of the day over Vancouver when the plane’s steering column broke Alys watched helplessly as her husband groped vainly for the control wires and crashed to his death
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Alys gave up flying for several months, but in November she made several flights for movies in Seattle, and during 1914 she continued to do exhibition flying on the west coast
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In 1915 she went east to St Louis to put her mechanical abilities to use with the Benoist Airplane Manufacturing Company
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She moved with the company to Sandusky, Ohio, where she served as an instructor and did some test flying In October 1916 she went to work as an instructor for the Scientific Aeroplane Company in Stratford, Connecticut
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Like many of her contemporary aviatrices, she made repeated applications for flying in combat during World War One, but to no avail
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Her preferred method of assisting the war effort through aviation being frustrated, she worked for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Akron helping build military dirigibles
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Helen Hodge was the first woman west of Chicago to receive a pilot’s license (Alys McKey Bryant never took the test
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) Ms. Hodge became interested in learning to fly in 1916 and tried to enter the Christofferson Flying School in San Francisco Even with all the fame that women were gaining in the field of aviation, the school turned her down because of her sex
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Her persistence and constant presence at the school finally resulted in her acceptance, conditional on her taking all the same courses as the men So Ms. Hodge’s training began with the study of engines, airplane construction, and the theory of flight
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Finally, her actual flying lessons began in a Curtiss type biplane with Frank Bryant, Johnny Bryant’s brother, as her instructor She received her license 12 November 1916, and began flying mainly for her own pleasure
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During World War One she taught U S
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aviation cadets and also made some exhibition flights During one of these flights the engine mount broke and her engine fell out of the plane
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She managed to land by taking the controls in her hands and climbing out on the front wheel to nose it down
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Aviation was becoming more and more popular with women on the west coast Another pupil at the Christofferson School was Jean Doty Caldwell
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She, too, studied under Frank Bryant Although by November 1916 she had 15 or 20 solo hours and was ready to try for her license, she gave up flying because of her family’s bitter opposition
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Another aviatrix who had a short lived flying career was Mary Highsmith Sims Heinrich
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She abandoned her flying when she married her instructor in December 1914 After the death of her first husband, Mr. Sims (the occasion for her inheritance of a small fortune), Mr. sHeinrich had decided to use part of her inheritance to enter into the spirit of the day and learn to fly
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She had first enrolled at the Moisant School in Hempstead, New York, and then transferred to Albert S Heinrich’s school at nearby Baldwin
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She had made several flights on Long Island but had not flown in competition nor received her license when Mr. , Heinrich proposed She agreed to give up flying after their marriage
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Dorothy Rice Peirce was also one of the century’s new women with many interests outside conventional 'woman’s work ' She learned to fly in Mineola, New York, and obtained Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (Aero Club of America) certificate number 561 on 17 August 1916, the tenth woman in the United States to be licensed
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In addition, she was a painter, a sculptor, a writer, a championship bridge player, and a world traveler
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The woman who is now known best as the person who taught Amelia Earhart to fly had problems in finding flight instruction for herself Neta Snook grew up in Iowa and developed the desire to learn to fly from watching balloon ascensions at county fairs
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Her hero was Thomas Scott Baldwin She wanted to attend Glenn Curtiss’ aviation school at the Atlantic Coast Aeronautical Station in Newport News, Virginia
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But even in 1916 Curtiss still was not in favor of women learning to fly, so the school turned her down
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Ms. Snook entered college in Iowa that fall but did not abandon her dream of learning to fly
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In the summer of 1917 she was accepted at the Davenport School of Aviation The school had just opened and had no airplane, so the task that faced Neta and the other members of the first class there was to build one
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Her first flight was in that airplane on 21 July 1917, with the school’s instructor, Louis Boudor She made several more flights with Boudor during that summer and was allowed to take the controls more and more often
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However, before Neta could solo, the school was closed on 9 September following a bad accident in which the school’s new president was killed and Boudor badly injured
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Neta’s fortune took a turn for the better, however, when shortly thereafter she was finally accepted by the Curtiss school at Newport News She didn’t have enough money to cover both her transportation and the flying lessons, so she tried to hop freight trains
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Although she was discovered and ejected, she was helped along her way by railroad workers after they heard her story Apparently the novelty of a woman wanting to learn to fly appealed to them
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She arrived in Newport News on 5 October and began her lessons immediately
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Eddie Stinson, who was then at the school and who later formed the Stinson Aircraft Company, took her on several flights to teach her aerobatics Thomas Scott Baldwin visited the school, and Neta had the opportunity to meet the man she had long admired
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Her work in the school machine shop helping overhaul OX 5 engines was so good that the instructors rewarded her with extra flying time But again, before she had a chance to solo, her school was closed, this time for security reasons, since the United States had entered World War One
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Neta and several other students at Newport News went south to another Curtiss school in Miami in January 1918
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There they met Glenn Curtiss himself, who still didn’t like the idea of women flying Very shortly after instruction got underway in Miami, the U
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S Government ordered all civilian flying to cease for the duration of the war
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Neta went back to Davenport, without having soloed, and so with no license
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Apparently, however, she was not unknown, because she was hired by the British Air Ministry in July 1918 She was their representative in Canada and the United States for speeding up deliveries of planes, parts, and engines which couldn’t be manufactured in England because of the war
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Neta took a firm stand with the various companies, insisting that the British equipment should have priority because they were actually holding off the enemy while the United States was still in the process of building an Air Corps
