Women in Civil and Military Aviation: The First 125 Years (1804-1929)

J. Robert Dille, M.D., M.I.H.
Aviat Space Environ Med 2000; 71:957-61

Abstract

Several recent papers have dealt with women as military aviators and their assignment to combat billets. This brief review highlights the first 125 yr of women in aviation. Few people recognize that women have flown and held military aviation command positions since 1804 when Mme. Marie Blanchard was named as Napoleon's new Chief of Air Service. Maj. Nicholas Lhomond advised Napoleon to invade England with hundreds of balloons carrying soldiers. Mme. Blanchard knew that her husband, Jean-Pierre, and Dr. John Jeffries flew west to east and that Dr. Pilatre de Rozier died trying to fly to England. She advised Napoleon to tell Lhomond to prove it by going across first by himself. The list of women in aviation is long and distinguished. A woman made the first solo balloon flight across the North Sea. Aida de Acosta became the first woman to pilot a (gasoline) powered aircraft (dirigible) solo, in Paris, on June 29, 1903, months before Orville Wright's flight. In the U.S., Mrs. Klumpke-Rogers of San Francisco was the first astronomer to leave the Earth to study stars from a balloon. Mrs. Charles A. Van Renssaelear was Chairman of the Committee on Training Camps for Kite Balloon Operators during World War I. Ruth Law raised money for the Red Cross and Liberty Loan drives and recruited men for Army and Navy flying service. Katherine and Marjorie Stinson trained military pilots at their flying school in Texas beginning in 1917. Women set records for altitude, distance, barrel rolls, parachute jumps, etc. However, there were barriers, especially in the U.S., that were still present in 1929 when female pilots entered air races and formed the Ninety-Nines.

Keywords: female aviators, aviation history.

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Table of Contents for Volume 71, Number 9 of the ASME journal.