Realizing the Dream of Flight: Biographical Essays in Honor of the Centennial of Flight, 1903-2003 - Wernher von Braun, Robert Gilruth, Willy Ley, Hugh Dryden, Donald Douglas (NASA SP-2005-4112)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), World Spaceflight News, Virginia P. Dawson, Mark D. Bowles
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Realizing the Dream of Flight: Biographical Essays in Honor of the Centennial of Flight, 1903-2003 - Wernher von Braun, Robert Gilruth, Willy Ley, Hugh Dryden, Donald Douglas (NASA SP-2005-4112)
Edited by VIRGINIA P. DAWSON and MARK D. BOWLES
National Aeronautics and Space Administration * NASA History Division * Office of External Relations * Washington, DC
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Chapter 1 - Bessie Coleman: Race and Gender Realities Behind Aviation Dreams / AMY SUE BIX
Chapter 2 - She Flew for Women: Amelia Earhart, Gender, and American Aviation / SUSAN WARE
Chapter 5 - Donald Douglas: From Aeronautics to Aerospace / ROGER BILSTEIN
Chapter 6 - Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., American Hero / ALAN L GROPMAN
Chapter 7 - Curtis E LeMay and the Ascent of American Strategic Airpower / TAMI BIDDLE
Chapter 8 - Willy Ley: Chronicler of the Early Space Age / TOM D. CROUCH
Chapter 9 - Who Was Hugh Dryden and Why Should We Care? / MICHAEL GORN
Chapter 10 - Wernher von Braun: A Visionary as Engineer and Manager / ANDREW J. DUNAR
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Introduction
While growing up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Milton Wright, the Wright brothers' father, liked to purchase toys for his sons that he hoped would stimulate their imagination. One of the most memorable gifts was a toy helicopter that was designed by the French aeronautical experimenter Alphonse Penaud. Milton gave his sons this gift in 1878, and, though it was a simple device with a stick bound to a four-blade rotor set in a spindle, it had the intended effect—it caused them to dream. Twenty-five years separated the gift of this toy and their invention of the airplane, yet the Wright brothers were convinced it had exerted an important influence. Tom Crouch argued in The Bishop's Boys that toys like these perfectly illustrated the significance of play for technological innovation. He wrote, "rotary-wing toys were to intrigue and inspire generations of children, a few of whom would, as adults, attempt to realize the dream of flight for themselves."1
If the first powered flight on 17 December 1903 represented a childhood dream realized, it was only the first step in the rapid evolution of the airplane from their flimsy kite-like contraption of wood and cloth to jet airliners and rockets in space. And, as extraordinary as the achievement of powered flight seemed in 1903, before the end of the century, space travel also would become a dream realized. Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin first circumnavigated Earth in April 1961, and, eight years later, American astronauts took the first steps for humankind on the Moon.
It is with great pleasure that we introduce Realizing the Dream: Biographical Essays in Honor of the Centennial of Flight. These essays in celebration of the Wright brothers' first flight 100 years ago grew out of presentations by a group of prominent scholars in 2003 at a conference sponsored by the NASA History Division and held at the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The volume focuses on the careers of some of the many men and women who helped to realize the dream of flight both through the atmosphere and beyond. These accounts are original and compelling because they examine the history of flight through the lens of biography. Collectively, these individuals helped to shape American aerospace history. There are obviously many other individuals that could, and arguably should, have been included in this collection, but we believe that the cross section of diverse individuals contained in this volume is important because it is symbolic of the dream of flight as a whole. These people all devoted their lives, and sometimes even sacrificed them, to the demands required for its realization.
The reasons behind the dreams were diverse. The technological potential first demonstrated by the Wright brothers enabled those who followed them to use flight as a means of racial uplift, gender equalization, personal adventure, commercial gain, military superiority, and space exploration. The history of flight is more than a story of technology; it had important cultural consequences as well, and these are some of the themes that the following biographies explore. We have arranged the essays roughly chronologically, though the careers of the people described here often span more than one period of history. None of the people in this volume were inventors like the Wright brothers, but their contributions to flight were nevertheless significant. They were daredevil pilots, entrepreneurs, business men and women, military strategists, and managers of large-scale technology who advanced the art, science, and business of air and space travel, often through sheer force of character. The final paper serves as an epilogue as well as a tribute to the Wright brothers. It describes a reenactment of their important glider experiments at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where the Wrights' childhood dream was first realized.
BARNSTORMERS AND ENTREPRENEURS
In 1900, at the point when they were ready to build a full-scale glider, Wilbur Wright wrote to Octave Chanute, an authority on flying machines, for advice on where to try out their latest glider. Wilbur admitted his obsession with flying, stating, "I feel that it will soon cost me an increased amount of money, if not my life"2 While neither brother died in an airplane crash, many other early aviators lost their lives, including Bessie Coleman, the first African American female pilot and the first of her race to earn an international pilot's license. In "Bessie Coleman: Race and Gender Realities Behind Aviation Dreams" (chapter 1), Amy Sue Bix describes the obstacles Coleman faced because of her gender and race, explaining the social context that allowed Coleman to promote the association of flying with social uplift for her race. Although race worked to her advantage in drawing media attention, it also affected her ability to earn as much as her white counterparts. Nevertheless, Coleman was compelled by the "gospel of aviation" to escape the bounds of gravity. She confronted, like other women and minorities, the challenges of pursuing her dream despite the social assumption that it was inappropriate for marginalized groups to fly and the technological dangers of undependable planes.
Bessie Coleman's contemporary, Amelia Earhart, was able to capitalize on the huge popularity of aviation after Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight. In "She Flew for Women: Amelia Earhart, Gender, and American Aviation" (chapter 2), Susan Ware argues that Earhart used her fame as an aviatrix to advance a strongly feminist ideology, demonstrating the capabilities of women in a modern world. Earhart took to the skies not only for the thrill of aviation, but also to use women's competence as pilots as a tool to end prejudice against them. Ware believes that Earhart's disappearance in 1937, and the mystery surrounding this event, has obscured her legacy as a strong voice for feminism. Ware points out that women could earn a living from flying only as long as it was considered a form of entertainment. As the aircraft industry took shape in the 1930s, they encountered gender barriers that prevented them from becoming commercial pilots. The irony of Earhart's disappearance is that by 1937 she was already part of the bygone era of stunt flying, and today she is remembered more for the fact that she is missing than for her piloting accomplishments, such as being the first woman to cross the Atlantic by plane. Though women like Coleman and Earhart were strong individuals at the forefront of the emergence of aviation, they were unable to open the skies for women. The commercial airlines industry froze them out of the business side and also excluded them from flying. Men were the pilots; women were the stewardesses.
The next three essays feature larger-than-life male characters who played signal roles in shaping commercial aviation. In "Sharing a Vision: Juan Trippe, Charles Lindbergh, and the Development of International Air Transport" (chapter 3), William Leary discusses the emergence of international commercial air transport using the vantage point of the relationship between Charles Lindbergh and Juan Trippe. In the 1920s, they dreamed of a time when a commercial aviation industry would carry passengers around the world in both comfort and safety. They worked to achieve this dream by first providing commercial air service to Latin America in the early 1930s. Leary shows how Lindbergh's technical expertise and international fame coupled with Trippe's determination and entrepreneurial skills created Pan American Airways—one of the greatest airlines of the 20th century. Leary describes Lindbergh's influence on the decision to replace the Pan American fleet with turbojet airliners after World War II (WWII)—the high point in the fortunes of the company. Ultimately, though their disagreement over the development of a supersonic transport caused a rift, their shared vision of the future of commercial air transportation exerted a significant influence on the course of the development of 20th-century aviation. Despite the fact that Pan American could not recover from the oil crisis of the 1970s, Trippe and Lindbergh helped to make their early dream of commercial aviation a reality.
In "The Autogiro Flies the Mail! Eddie Rickenbacker, Johnny Miller, Eastern Airlines, and Experimental Airmail Service with Rotorcraft, 1939-1940" (chapter 4), David Lewis approaches the history of aeronautics by looking at one of its little-known detours. Ace pilot Edward V. Rickenbacker had already transformed Eastern Air Lines into a commercial success by the 1930s. Always a risk-taker interested in futuristic technology, he became interested in the potential of a rotor-driven aircraft called the autogiro. Rickenbacker saw the autogiro as a solution to urban congestion, since it could be used for both road and air transportation. With it the skies would be democratized, and the dream of an "aircraft for everyone" was born. To test the idea that the autogiro could speed the flow of the mail, Eastern Airlines obtained a contract with the U.S. Post Office for delivering mail between the Camden Airport in New Jersey and the roof of the 30th Street Post Office in Philadelphia. Lewis's essay is enlivened by the firsthand account of Johnny Miller, the company's former test pilot, now in his nineties. The autogiro, piloted by Miller, made 2,643 trips between Camden and Philadelphia in 1938. Despite proving the concept, Eastern Airlines failed to win another airmail contract, and the project quietly died. Though never a successful endeavor, the autogiro is symbolic of the multitude of unrealized aerospace dreams rendered unsuccessful due to myriad social, political, technical, or environmental factors.
To Roger Bilstein, the career of Donald Douglas was closely linked to the fortunes of the Douglas Aircraft Company. In "Donald Douglas: From Aeronautics to Aerospace" (chapter 5), Bilstein describes how in the 1930s the company developed the DC-3, which was a plane so outstanding that it became "an icon for 20th-century progress." Douglas was unusual because he was among the first of a new generation to receive formal instruction in aeronautical engineering. Bilstein emphasizes Douglas's relationships with other talented individuals of the period. These included not only the excellent engineering team he assembled at Douglas Aircraft, but also business associates like C. R. Smith, the flamboyant and visionary president of American Airlines. Envisioning coast-to-coast airline service, Smith engineered a key loan from the Roosevelt administration that made the depression-era development of the DC-3 possible. Douglas and his company continued to thrive in the 1940s and 1950s, enjoying lucrative military contracts while continuing to innovate. Bilstein ends his essay by describing the flawed corporate decisions and family problems that contributed to the unraveling of the company in the 1960s and 1970s.
MILITARY STRATEGISTS
By the 1940s, the aviation industry had reached its maturity, and flight technology was ready to play a major role as a weapon of war. In WWII, the airplane played a critical part in the Allied victory. Two individuals, whose careers were shaped by their wartime service as pilots, are discussed in the essays by military historians Alan L. Gropman and Tami Biddle. In "Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., American Hero" (chapter 6), Gropman describes Benjamin Davis's leadership of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first all-black fighter squadron in the Army Air Forces. Davis had faced discrimination throughout his career, but he was determined not to let race interfere with the performance of his duty during WWII. Under his command, the Tuskegee Airmen demonstrated their courage and competence in combat. Gropman argues that integration of the Air Force occurred between 1948 and 1951, well before the other military services, because of the powerful example provided by Davis and the Tuskegee Airmen. Four-star General Davis ended his career as the Director of Civil Aviation Security in the Department of Transportation, where he took a keen interest in reforming airport safety procedures under the Ford administration.
In her essay on Ohio-native General Curtis LeMay, Tami Biddle poses the question of whether LeMay was a hero or a threat. In "Curtis E. LeMay and the Ascent of American Strategic Airpower" (chapter 7), Biddle describes how LeMay became associated with the development of American strategic bombing during WWII. After the war, as the architect of the Berlin airlift and head of the Strategic Air Command, LeMay built a technically superior and well-disciplined Air Force during the Cold War. In assessing LeMay's character, Biddle points out that LeMay's detractors have portrayed him as a warmonger—ready and willing to go to war, possibly even without the direct order of the executive branch. Biddle presents a more balanced and intriguing portrait of the hard-assed, cigar-chomping man. LeMay strongly believed that "deterrence through intimidation" was the only effective way to keep the Soviet Union from attacking the United States. Biddle points out that LeMay's belligerent public persona actually may have contributed to keeping the peace.
ARCHITECTS OF SPACEFLIGHT
The next set of essays centers on four individuals who contributed to making spaceflight a reality. In "Willy Ley: Chronicler of the Early Space Age" (chapter 8), Tom D. Crouch, well-known biographer of the Wright brothers, focuses on Willy Ley and the popularization of the idea of human spaceflight. A native of Berlin, like many of his German contemporaries, Ley was infected by the rocket craze of the 1920s. He joined the German Society for Space Travel and became one of its most visible members through his publications. However, in the mid-1930s, when the German military became interested in rockets, Ley was banned from writing about them. He left Germany and settled in the United States, where he published his first of many best-selling books on rocketry in 1944. These books explored the idea of lunar conquests and Martian explorations and caught the attention of Walt Disney in the 1950s. Ley contributed to three Disney television programs and served as an advisor to NASA. Unfortunately, Willy Ley died in 1969 just days before the first humans walked on the Moon.
In "Who Was Hugh Dryden and Why Should We Care?" (chapter 9), Michael Gorn argues that Dryden made important theoretical contributions to aviation and played a central role in the management of both NASA and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Gorn claims that the reason why Dryden's role in aerospace history has not received more historical attention lies in Dryden's self-effacing personality. While this might have been appropriate during the NACA era, the space race required more political savvy than Dryden possessed. Nevertheless, Dryden's contributions were significant. As Director of NACA between 1947 and 1958, he reoriented the Agency toward research on supersonic flight, an effort that culminated in the successful flight of the X-15. At the same time, Dryden encouraged efforts within NACA to become more involved in space-related activities at the three NACA laboratories. Each of the three, he has pointed out, had significant projects underway before the launch of Sputnik in 1957. When NASA was set up in 1958, Dryden became Deputy Administrator, serving under both T. Keith Glennan and James Webb. In this role, he helped to structure the managerial and technical priorities of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.
In "Wernher von Braun: A Visionary as Engineer and Manager" (chapter 10), Andrew J. Dunar interprets the career and personality of Wernher von Braun, one of the most complex and controversial individuals associated with the American space program. Recent scholarship has documented extensively von Braun's Nazi background.3 Dunar critically examines this scholarship in assessing von Braun's character. As coauthor of a publication on the history of the Marshall Space Flight Center, Dunar's knowledge of this particular NASA Center has given him a unique vantage point for his analysis.4 He focuses on von Braun's management style. Von Braun's autocratic, top-down approach at Peenemunde (known as the arsenal system) became institutionalized at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville, Alabama. This modus operandi continued into the NASA era with the development of the mammoth Saturn rocket at Marshall Space Flight Center. Dunar dispassionately explores the tensions inherent in von Braun's position within NASA. He points out that possibly because of its association with the Germans, the arsenal system never became the model for NASA contracting. He notes that despite his enormous contributions to the space program, von Braun never overcame the stigma of his Nazi background.
One of the key individuals in NASA's early space program, Robert Gilruth, is another individual whose obscurity is undeserved. In "Godfather to the Astronauts: Robert Gilruth and the Birth of Human Spaceflight" (chapter 11), Roger Launius, former Chief Historian for NASA and now Chair of the Division of Space History at the National Air and Space Museum, argues that Gilruth is an outstanding example of an engineering entrepreneur—a person defined by his ability to manage large-scale technology. Gilruth demonstrated his gift for molding people into a team when he headed Langley Laboratory's Pilotless Aircraft Research Division. Shortly after the launch of Sputnik, Gilruth organized the Space Task Group, later the nucleus for Project Mercury. Then, after President Kennedy announced the national goal of landing human beings on the Moon within the decade, Gilruth took over responsibility for setting up the Manned Spacecraft Center (renamed Johnson Space Center in 1973). There he was in charge of overseeing the space capsule development effort and the training of the Mercury and Apollo astronauts. Launius points out that the Apollo program achieved its political goal of beating the Soviet Union to the Moon. It also represented an enormous technological achievement by a government agency. Finally, "by sheer serendipity Apollo taught humanity about itself, and in the process altered our perception of the world on which we live." He regards Gilruth as the "unsung leader in the race to the Moon." Like many of the other individuals chronicled in this volume, he firmly grasped what was technically possible and set out without fanfare to turn the stuff of dreams into reality.
EPILOGUE
The final essay brings our volume on the history of flight back to the Wright brothers. Wilbur and Orville shared character traits with many of the people described in this volume. They were risk-takers and careful managers, dreamers and doers, entrepreneurs and architects of flight. Before flying their machine, they sought ideal conditions for their experiments, asking the U.S. Weather Bureau in Washington for a list of places on a beach that met their specifications for wind velocities. As a result they chose Kitty Hawk, an isolated location on the Outer Banks of the North Carolina coast.
The Wright brothers aimed for nothing less than complete control of their craft through a system called "wing warping." To their surprise, their first glider experiments at Kitty Hawk produced what Wilbur described as a "peculiar feeling of instability."5 In analyzing the problem, they became suspicious of the tables of lift coefficients that others had previously taken as accepted wisdom. Once wind tunnel experiments had provided the Wright brothers with new, more reliable data, they designed a new wing profile.
Museum curator Edward J. Pershey takes up the story at this point. In "Celebrating the Invention of Flight in a Hands-On Way: Replicating the 1902 Experimental Glider Flights of the Wright Brothers" (chapter 12), Pershey describes the important role this glider played in the invention of the airplane. He points out that even after the Wrights had redesigned the glider, stable flight eluded them. Wrestling with the problem, Orville came up with the idea of coupling the wing-warping control mechanism with a move-able rudder to increase the pilot's active control of the drag on the tail. Pershey argues that the reenactment of the 1902 glider flights, an effort underwritten by the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio, and spearheaded by members of its staff, provides important insights into their special form of experience-based knowledge and creativity. The Wrights flew the glider more than one thousand times in October 1902. These flights succeeded so well that by the time they left Kitty Hawk that year they were so confident they had invented the airplane that they sought patent protection for their control system. They fully expected the first powered flight to succeed the next year.
If aviation's "winged gospel" fanned the enthusiasm of the daredevil pilots of the early years of aviation, it was sustained by people who were convinced of the commercial and military value of the airplane. Aviation had matured by the end of WWII, while rocketry was still in its infancy. Unlike aviation, rocketry developed rapidly in the 1950s—stimulated less by dreamers like Willy Ley than by Cold War exigencies. Spaceflight required management of technology on a scale that exceeded even that of the Manhattan Project during WWII. Yet, as these essays demonstrate, even the extraordinary feat of landing human beings on the Moon was both a technical and a human one, requiring unusual skills and vision. The airplane and the space capsule were never just modes of travel; they expressed aspirations. During the barnstorming era, the airplane represented social uplift—a means of literally transporting people regardless of their color closer to heaven. But even in its infancy, aviation had a darker side. Speaking of the airplane in the 1930s, Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote, "the machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them."6 As we face the perplexities of the 21st century, we would do well to ponder the personal qualities and achievements of the people who did not flinch from dedicating their careers and lives to realizing a dream.
The editors would like to thank many people who were involved in helping to conceive, arrange, and manage the conference that formed the basis of these collected essays. Foremost was Kevin Coleman, in charge of the history program and records management at Glenn Research Center. His expert managerial efforts ensured the success of the conference. Roger Launius, Chair of the Division of Space History at the National Air and Space Museum, and Steve Garber, NASA historian, conceived the topics and invited the authors for this conference. Other individuals who gave generously of their time included Susan Hennie of NASA Glenn Research Center and Bob Azzardi, Margarite Aponte, Bob Arrighi, Deborah Demaline, and Suzanne Kelly of Indyne, Inc. The following individuals also were instrumental in making the publication of this book a reality: in the NASA Headquarters History Division, Steve Dick, Chief Historian; Rebecca Anderson, intern; and Glen Asner, historian; in the NASA Headquarters Printing and Design Office, Michelle Cheston, editor; Shelley Kilmer, graphic designer; and Jeffrey McLean, printing specialist.
1 Tom D. Crouch, The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1989), p. 57.
2 Ibid., p. 181.
3 Michael J. Neufeld, The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemunde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era (New York: The Free Press, 1995).
4 Andrew J. Dunar and Stephen P. Waring, Power to Explore: A History of Marshall Space Flight Center, 1960-1990 (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4313, 1999).
5 Crouch, The Bishop's Boys, p. 212.
6 Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Wind, Sand, and Stars (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1939), p. 43.
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Bessie Coleman - Race and Gender Realities Behind Aviation Dreams
AMY SUE BIX
Over the first three decades following the Wright brothers' triumph at Kitty Hawk, Americans across racial and gender lines became fascinated by the rich possibilities of flight. Especially after world War I (WWI), ordinary men and women were enraptured by what historian Joseph Corn has called "the gospel of aviation," popular fascination with the marvelous, even magical, implications of flying. Many thrilled to the sense of leaving behind Earthbound limits, exploring suggestions that aviation had the power to cure disease, avert wars, and literally bring human beings closer to heaven.1
Underneath this adoration of airplanes, aviation from 1903 through the 1920s poses a more complex, less rosy picture. Early pilots spoke and wrote about the sheer joy of overcoming gravity, joining the birds in gazing down at towns and the land from a superior height. Yet while the feeling of flying itself might embody freedom, the process of getting into the sky was by no means free or fair. For many women and minorities, simply gaining access to airplanes and flying lessons posed particular challenges. Along with practical problems of finding the necessary financial resources, these marginalized groups faced the barrier of social assumptions that ruled it inappropriate for them to fly.
Ironically, while soaring into the sky might carry a sense of empowerment, the early equipment was undependable; in some cases, wings literally fell off airplanes. The evolution of aviation in this era often intensified life-threatening risks. Aside from the military applications made evident during the war, the practical value of airplanes had not yet matured by the start of the 1920s. In the absence of consistently viable commercial business or thriving passenger traffic, one of the few civilian functions of aviation was entertainment. In the prewar era, the sheer novelty of flying had been amusement enough; in seeing "birdmen" lift off the ground, first-time viewers could satisfy their curiosity and verify reports that flying machines had indeed been invented. Yet soon, flyers began expanding their repertoire, not only to attract spectators, but also as a result of their own competitiveness and desire to push the boundaries of aeronautics. By 1910, the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss set up companies to give aerial exhibitions and schools to train new pilots for these traveling teams. Public demonstrations of "fancy flying," as it was called, proved profitable monetarily, but with a high personal toll. Only one of the four men who signed a two-year contract with the Wright Exhibition Company actually lived to complete it.2
The postwar years continued the era of flying as a business of entertainment. The phenomenon of aviation as a spectator sport was indirectly given a boost by the recent conflict. With arrival of peacetime, the federal government put hundreds of surplus military aircraft on the market at relatively affordable prices. One of the most common, a Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplane, could be obtained for just $300 to $500. Pilots, many who had acquired flying experience in WWI, purchased surplus planes to begin careers showing off their flying skills to ordinary Americans. Barnstorming provided an avenue for new enthusiasts to enter the field, including Charles Lindbergh, who performed stunts such as parachute jumping and wing walking to earn money to buy his own plane. Barnstormers toured the country, flying out of county fairs, carnivals, local airstrips, or even farmers' fields. The "flying gypsies" incorporated dogfighting tactics of loops, rolls, and dives into their acts, giving "air circuses" a dramatic intensity highlighted in advertisements. The flirtation with danger became part of the attraction for audience members who relished seeing others testing the edge or anticipated witnessing a spectacularly horrific accident.3
Barnstorming demanded physical skill, mental sharpness, and the utmost daring, but was otherwise a relatively open occupation, shunning formal qualifications and rules. Where women and minorities were barred from entering the U.S. Air Mail Service (formed in 1918) and military flight units, a few found opportunities in barnstorming during the early 1920s. While white male flyers were no longer a novelty in themselves, female and minority pilots or stunt performers commanded attention by their mere existence. Yet while their rarity value could be commercialized, it also raised pointed questions about their abilities. Because they defied traditional gender and racial expectations, female and minority aviators faced skepticism, ridicule, or outright hostility, sometimes even from members of their own communities. Under this intensified pressure, women and minorities felt compelled to prove their skills over and over. Beyond being forced to justify their right to fly, early women and minority aviators faced other serious frustrations. To the extent that marginalization denied them access to the best training, newest planes, and other resources, inherent risks of their flying rose.
The question of how and on what terms women and minorities could find a place in aviation reflected broader debates in American culture during the 1920s on the subjects of race and gender. While suffragists had finally secured voting rights for women in 1920, the women's movement suffered in the Red Scare conservative backlash and split down the middle over whether to pursue an Equal Rights Amendment. The Jazz Age brought individual women new visibility, transforming actress Mary Pickford, athlete Gertrude Ederle, and writer Dorothy Parker, among others, into celebrities. Female aviators faced a similar situation of entering the spotlight for their individual talent, yet also being evaluated and defining themselves in relation to their entire gender. The first generations of female pilots displayed this ambivalence and awareness. Some, including Amelia Earhart, refrained from calling themselves feminists, wary of the radical connotations of that label. Yet in public statements they repeatedly insisted that women could be excellent aviators and worked to enhance support for female pilots.
Similarly, for African Americans, the 1920s represented a time of racial violence, lynch mobs, and a revival of the Ku Klux Klan. Black artists and writers, such as Langston Hughes, found vital expression for their creativity in the Harlem Renaissance but had to depend on white patrons who romanticized African sensuality while ignoring hardships and discrimination facing blacks. For blacks interested in aviation, it would prove impossible to separate their individual aspirations and achievements from their community's broader political, economic, and social conflicts.
THE FIRST GENERATION
In the years after 1903, as aviation entered public awareness, a few women joined men in expressing interest in the art of flying. Although promoters such as the Wrights and Curtiss hoped to encourage the rapid spread of aviation, there were deep reservations about female involvement. Critics worried that women were inherently unsuited to become pilots due to their feminine temperament. They characterized women as too scatterbrained to master complex technology and so emotional that any crisis would send them into catastrophic panic. Curtiss was extremely reluctant to include women in his pilot training, fearing among other things the repercussions if a female aviator should be killed in a crash.4
It would be in Europe in the spring of 1910 that the first woman would qualify to fly. After instruction from the great French aviator Charles Voisin, Raymonde de Laroche received her license in March 1910 from the Aero Club of France and went on to compete in races and other contests against male pilots. Soon other women, such as Helene Boucher, made solo flights in France. By 1913, there were enough female pilots that France could create a special cup to honor woman aviators. Helene Dutrieu became Belgium's first licensed female pilot, and, in 1913, France awarded this "Girl Hawk" the Legion of Honor.5
In the United States, Blanche Scott, who had already gained fame by completing a strenuous cross-country automobile drive, used this record to overcome Curtiss's opposition to female pilots and began studying aviation at his school in the autumn of 1910. Billed as the "Tomboy of the Air," Scott later worked in exhibition flying, specializing in stunts such as a hair-raising "Death Dive." Bessie Raiche studied aviation in France, inspired by de Laroche, and married a Frenchman; she flew her first solo in the fall of 1910.6
In 1911, Harriet Quimby became the first woman in the United States to earn her pilot's license. As a journalist, Quimby saw firsthand the media rush to cover the aviation craze. Reportedly, after noticing that no female pilots had appeared at a big 1910 New York air meet and being caught up in racing excitement, Quimby determined to take lessons herself. After joining an exhibition team, Quimby suggested that female pilots also could join men in commercial aviation, running flying schools, carrying passengers, and delivering packages. In April 1912, Quimby won international renown by becoming the first woman to fly across the English Channel, overcoming bitterly cold weather in her open-cockpit monoplane. Almost three months later, back in the United States, Quimby fell to her death before thousands of spectators when equipment problems caused her plane to flip midflight.7
Other women proceeded to earn pilot's licenses during the remainder of the 1910s, and, like men, some sought to make a living and a name for themselves through flying. Ruth Law and Katherine Stinson joined the ranks of exhibition teams performing dramatic acrobatic stunts. Beyond that, Law and Stinson competed to win acclaim through altitude, endurance, and distance flight, setting new women's records and sometimes breaking men's records.8
THE CASE OF BESSIE COLEMAN
The first generation of American female pilots such as Scott, Quimby, Law, and Stin-son faced numerous doubters who considered flying inappropriate for women. Nevertheless, each managed to gain entry, finding some supporter willing to offer training and encouragement. The obstacles would be multiplied for Bessie Coleman, with race joining gender in conditioning the reception of her announced ambition of flying.
At first glance, Coleman would not appear a likely candidate to succeed in becoming the world's first black female aviator and the first of her race, male or female, to secure an international pilot's license. Coleman was born in a one-room cabin in Atlanta, Texas, apparently on 26 January 1892. For African Americans of that era, racial tension, public lynchings, community segregation, and assertions of white supremacy shadowed life in the South. Jim Crow laws barred blacks from sharing public facilities such as railroad cars, restrooms, and drinking fountains with whites. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and institutionalized discrimination denied voting rights to many black men. Allegedly frustrated by race-related economic marginalization, Bessie's part-black, part-Native American father, George Coleman, left the family to move to Oklahoma Indian territory when Bessie was nine.9
In what became a single-parent household, Bessie assumed the responsibilities of running the home in Waxahachie and tending to her younger sisters while her mother Susan went out to perform domestic services. Such obligations occasionally interfered with Bessie's attendance at the black one-room schoolhouse 4 miles away. Moreover, in cotton country, black youngsters' education was interrupted every year for them to help their families gather extra income through cotton picking. Though Bessie resisted this draining labor by slowing her pace, family members recall that she also protected Cole-man interests by making sure the foreman credited them with full weight for each sack. Although financial constraint burdened the Coleman family, Susan strove to improve her children's prospects by emphasizing the importance of cultivated manners, self-respect, and racial pride. According to family memory, Susan ensured that, through reading and oral tradition, Bessie and other children would become familiar with black figures such as Harriet Tubman and Booker T. Washington.10
After finishing eighth grade, Bessie used money she earned through laundry work to enter Oklahoma's Colored Agricultural and Normal University in 1910. When lack of funds compelled Coleman to depart after a single term, she returned to Waxahachie and continued working as a laundress.
According to accounts, Coleman's ambition drove her to leave Texas in 1915, joining the flood of African Americans making the Great Migration, heading for Chicago to join older brothers Walter and John. After mastering the beautician's trade, Coleman found employment in black community barbershops as a manicurist. When the United States entered WWI, Walter and John served in France with the segregated Eighth Army National Guard unit. Upon returning, John allegedly taunted his sister by comparing black women unfavorably to the strong Frenchwomen he had encountered overseas, particularly citing the example of female pilots.11
Engrossed with the challenge of emulating these daring female flyers, Coleman soon encountered difficulty. While a number of white women had gained aviation training since Scott and Raiche in 1910, Coleman's gender and race counted for two strikes against her. All the white pilots and flying schools she approached apparently rejected her requests. There were no African American aviation institutions or even individuals in position to accept Coleman as a flying student. When Coleman related her plight to Robert Abbott, influential editor and publisher of the black newsweekly Chicago Defender, he encouraged her to sidestep that barrier by attending flying school in France. With his assistance and encouragement, Coleman acquired a passport, visas, and basic French language, then sailed out of New York in November 1920.12
The first flying school Coleman approached in France refused her, since two of its female students had recently died in accidents. Ultimately Coleman gained admission to the Ecole d'Aviation des Freres Caudron in Le Crotoy, France's most renowned training center. Caudron already had accepted female students, including Frenchwoman Adri-enne Bolland, who became the first woman to fly over the Andes Mountains.13 Coleman undertook a seven-month course of ground lessons and trial-and-error practice flights in the wood-framed, fabric-covered Nieuport biplane. Walking 9 miles daily from lodgings to class, Coleman persisted despite seeing a fellow student suffer a fatal crash, a risk well known to every aviator. On 15 June 1921, Coleman demonstrated her takeoff, landing, and flying skills to earn a license from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, the distinguished world aviation organization.14
After continuing flying lessons in Paris over the summer, Coleman sailed home in the autumn of 1921. Upon arrival in New York, reporters received her as a curiosity; her accomplishment was interpreted in both the black and white communities as significant primarily due to her race and gender. Aviation magazines duly recorded her acquisition of flying credentials, without analyzing or condemning the discrimination that had forced Coleman to gain her license overseas. For aviation enthusiasts, Coleman's story seemed to verify the inevitable success of human flight, measured in terms of its spread. However, to them, the existence of one African American female pilot did not necessarily signify an equal distribution of flying ability between whites and blacks or provide reason to anticipate a massive influx of black pilots, male or female. Coverage of Cole-man in specialized aviation publications and in mass-market media reflected the press's general fascination with aviation. Newspapers and magazines of this era ran regular columns and special features on aviation, both catering to and feeding readers' fascination with flight. This coverage particularly highlighted aviation "firsts," such as the first air commuter and first scheduled passenger flight; Coleman represented one among this series of "firsts."15
For black-oriented newspapers and for the African American public, Coleman's identification signaled something different, not just another aviation "first," but a political and social landmark. Moreover, her arrival coincided with intense debate within the black community over the relationship between race and adoption of modern air technology. Coleman herself would contribute to that discussion, making tangible the concept of black flight.
As Jill Snider has pointed out in her research on African Americans and aviation history, Coleman's return to the United States as an internationally qualified pilot in the fall of 1921 occurred less than four months following the infamous Tulsa race riot of June. While African Americans fled from homes going up in flames, airplanes soared over the chaos. White authorities apparently used planes to conduct aerial surveillance of areas under siege and to ensure that blacks from nearby were not moving toward the trouble. Blacks later reported having observed white aviators dropping gasoline or bombs and shooting at escaping black men, women, and children. Given the climate of Klan-fueled violence against blacks in this era, African Americans began considering with alarm the potential of airplanes as weapons racists might employ to decimate or even exterminate the black race.16
Coleman's presentation of herself as an aviator, then, occurred at precisely the time when members of the black community were heatedly denouncing use of the airplane in Tulsa as a tool for murder and debating how African Americans should react. Marcus Garvey, leader of a growing black nationalist movement, incorporated this discussion of the airplane into his campaign to glorify blackness and strengthen the race for a forthcoming struggle. As part of his campaign for blacks to return en masse to their motherland, Garvey declared that control of military technology would dictate the future of Africa. Just as Tulsa's black community had been helpless against the airplane, he declared, it was futile for Africans to use stones and spears against white colonial masters who possessed planes and machine guns. By learning to build, fly, and maintain airplanes themselves, Garvey suggested, American blacks could protect the race and lift Africa triumphantly toward freedom.17
Within this rhetorical context, black nationalists hailed any African American involvement with aviation as a step toward racial victory. Those who remained dubious about Garvey's approach could still rejoice in Coleman's achievement. Black newspapers featured the first African American woman flyer as a front-page celebrity, quoting Cole-man herself touting her uniqueness as a nonwhite, nonmale pilot. At a time when numerous white critics openly branded black people with charges of laziness, stupidity, criminality, and other vices, Coleman appeared to disprove stereotypical assumptions that blacks did not have the intelligence or bravery necessary to fly. At a time when women were still second-class citizens in terms of legal status, political position, and economic opportunity, Coleman had shown what a "Negro girl" could do. In interviews with the Chicago Defender, Coleman projected her success as a beacon for all African Americans, an opinion perfectly suited to the Defender's racial-uplift agenda. In the era of the Harlem Renaissance, when black artists and authors such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston displayed their talents as an expression of the race, African Americans were ready to embrace Coleman. The cast of New York's hit black musical Shuffle Along presented her with a trophy, and the Metropolitan Baptist Church invited her to address its large congregation. In interviews and speeches, Coleman promoted her ambitions, announcing plans to special-order a plane for herself and promising to help other African Americans learn to fly.18
In February 1922, Coleman again left for Europe, where she pursued an advanced aviation course in Paris, visited airplane designer Anthony Fokker in Holland, and made numerous flights in Germany. Returning to America in August, Coleman began capitalizing on media attention, dramatizing (and, it seems, occasionally embellishing) her exploits. Even the New York Times noted the arrival of this "Negro aviatrix," whom the reporter said had been hailed by "leading French and Dutch aviators as one of the best flyers they had seen."19
Fortunately for her, Coleman by nature was not afraid of the spotlight, since, as a curiosity to blacks and whites alike, she had little chance of avoiding attention. More to the point, Coleman consciously cultivated publicity as a tool to advance her aviation career. She visited newspaper offices to distribute her own press releases and testimonials, wrote on stationery illustrated with pictures of her stunt flying, and screened newsreel footage of her flights in Germany. Coleman fashioned her public identity as a black woman of special beauty and daring, and the press collaborated equally eagerly in creating her glamorous image.
The Chicago Defender gave Coleman a particularly enormous buildup in anticipation of her first American flying show in late summer. Coleman made a personal appearance at the 1922 United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) New York convention to promote her appearance and was greeted as the attractive personification of the Garveyites' hopes for black pilots. Though her debut exhibition was delayed by inclement weather, the rescheduled appearance on 3 September 1922 was understood to be the first public flight of a black female pilot in the United States. The theatricality of that production was undeniable and deliberate; donning a striking military-style uniform, Coleman lifted off in an on-loan Curtiss airplane to the accompaniment of the national anthem. Her flight itself seems to have been able but unspectacular; organizers did not permit her to perform any stunt flying.20
To the white public, Coleman's claim on attention lay in the simple fact that a "Negress Pilots Airplane," as the New York Times put it. The dramatic ceremony served to underscore Coleman's link to history, the sheer novelty of a black female flyer. But to black observers, details of the program sent deeper messages about race and technological progress—a politicized promise of black incursions into the white-controlled territory of aviation. While Coleman remained the star of the program, UNIA member Herbert Julian performed a parachute jump as an additional feature. African American pilot Edison McVey made a cameo appearance, presenting Coleman with a beautiful bouquet upon completion of her demonstration, a ceremony of welcome for a fellow African American flight pioneer. The theme of black pride in past, present, and future accomplishment was further underscored by the fact that Coleman's appearance honored the all-black Fifteenth New York Infantry, which had seen service in WWI.21
The Defender expended even more extravagant rhetoric promoting Coleman's first flight in her adopted hometown of Chicago several weeks later. Articles billed her as "the Race's only aviatrix" and a pilot who had "amazed continental Europe." Advertisements promised a chance to "see this daredevil aviatrix in her hair-raising stunts"22 Coleman performed a display of takeoffs, glides, turns, and figure eights for a crowd of about two thousand, including her mother, sisters, and other relatives. The Defender praised Cole-man as part of the newspaper's campaign to win respect for blacks, making Coleman into the personification of progress through self-help, education, and persistence. Equally important, editors hoped that Coleman's attractiveness and colorful adventures could draw readers. The black press gave Coleman nicknames of "Queen Bess" and the "Bird Woman." While American observers labeled white female flyers with cute labels such as "angels," "sweethearts of the air," and "powder puff pilots," press references to Coleman consistently stressed her racial identity. White newspapers headlined her uniqueness as a "Negro aviatrix," while black media emphasized her representation of the race.23
With such publicity, Coleman was positioned to establish a career as an exhibition flyer performing at airshows and fairs around the country. While white barnstormers made a reputation through ever-more-daring stunts, for Coleman racial identity became a highly visible component of her reputation. Plans for her flying appearances, however, were complicated by racial politics. Some problems would have been virtually inescapable for a black woman trying to compete in a field controlled by white men. On the other hand, Coleman herself contributed to foil some potential prospects. Black entertainers had a separate traveling circuit, and Bessie unfortunately alienated key organizers by confusion over bookings and by breaking a contract to star in a film whose script she considered to be patronizing.
To maintain her access to flying and raise money to open the African American flight school she envisioned, Coleman sought commercial employment. She positioned herself as an entrepreneur, proposing to drop tire-company leaflets from her plane and appear in their promotions. Yet while white female pilots such as Amelia Earhart would succeed in parlaying their attractiveness and ability into endorsement contracts, Coleman's racial marginality limited her sponsorship possibilities. Moreover, Earhart and other white pilots had connections within the flying community—mentors who recommended them for sales jobs or other aviation-related work. Due to her marginalization and training abroad, Coleman had no comparably wide base of support among established aviators. While exploring financial options in California in February 1923, Coleman arranged to present a flying demonstration as the star draw at a Los Angeles fair. Upon taking off from Santa Monica, the engine of Coleman's newly purchased but old surplus Curtiss Jenny stalled. The crash left Coleman with fractured ribs, a broken leg, and useless airplane wreckage. The African American press played up her fortitude in bearing the physical pain and praised her unshaken determination not only to continue flying herself, but to help other blacks become pilots. Coleman reportedly sent a telegram announcing, "Tell them [my fans] all that as soon as I can walk I'm going to fly."24
Determination could not work miracles, however, and Coleman experienced continued setbacks both in her personal flying career and in her efforts to secure capital for an African American flight school. Newspaper articles repeatedly announced that Coleman's training center was about to open or indeed was ready to receive students; Coleman apparently declared on several occasions that she had ordered or purchased one, two, or an entire fleet of airplanes for herself and students. Those aircraft never materialized, and Coleman had to keep borrowing planes for her own flights. After lengthy recuperation from her injuries, Coleman resumed appearances in air shows in Illinois and Ohio in late 1923. But beyond those regional shows, Coleman was unable to expand her bookings. Her headstrong independence had antagonized managers and agents, who branded her as overly temperamental. Without capital, Coleman could not purchase her own plane or finance her flying plans; without performance prospects, she could not count on income. After a year and a half of career stagnation, Coleman finally secured a schedule of lectures and public flying demonstrations for mid-1925 in her birth state of Texas.
For Coleman, as for almost any African American of this era who achieved public stature, racial politics inevitably complicated her daily routine. Coleman had to plan her travels knowing there were public spaces and accommodations in Jim Crow regions where blacks were unwelcome. As a celebrity, she gained a small influence over racial conditions at her own appearances. Coleman's performances around Houston and elsewhere in Texas attracted thousands of spectators, both white and black—a situation that generated difficulties in the era of segregation. In Waxahachie, Coleman threatened to boycott the show if arrangers insisted that whites and blacks enter the grounds through separate gates, and organizers capitulated (though seating remained segregated). In Florida, Coleman similarly warned that she would cancel her scheduled parachute jump if the Orlando Chamber of Commerce refused to let blacks attend.
Beyond her gender and race, Coleman resembled other barnstorming pilots, who were mainly white men, in her drive to maximize the entertainment value of her flying through flair and apparent personal risk. Coleman regularly posed for photographers as part of her appearances, standing in front of her plane in her specially designed costumes and playing to the waving crowds. She aimed to amaze onlookers with attention-getting acrobatic stunts, including parachute jumps, barrel rolls, loops, and steep dives taking her plane extremely close to the ground. While male pilots usually cultivated a macho image to accompany their daring showmanship, Coleman's popularity rested on a more feminine brand of personal charisma. Her uniforms carried an air of military distinction, yet also fashionably accentuated her graceful petiteness and light-skinned femininity, making her control of a powerful machine all the more impressive. Advertisements described her as "the little girl who has the nerve to fly," highlighting her petite status and youthful appearance in contrast to more mature men whom society usually credited with extra courage.25
Even when she followed the same standard barnstorming act as white male pilots, Coleman's routine conveyed a unique set of racial messages. In connection with their exhibitions, performers at air circuses regularly sold adventurous spectators a chance to climb aboard planes for short hops. Coleman joined other barnstormers in selling rides for $3 or $5 apiece, yet, for her African American audiences, the offer carried additional racial significance. Coleman was particularly interested in sharing the experience of flying with black passengers—a dimension of her public performances that justified their superficial theatricality in terms of a larger race mission. African Americans who watched a Coleman show or stepped into her plane to venture up themselves had been guided by the black press and black leaders to think about the racial politics of flight.
During the same years that Coleman was striving to advance her career, Herbert Julian also was working to connect his personal interest in flying to the Garvey movement's black-nationalist aviation agenda. The African American stunt team of parachutist Julian and pilot Edison McVey gave exhibitions during the summer of 1923, primarily in black venues. McVey was temporarily forced into retirement by a crash when his aircraft stalled, but later resumed flying and delivered UNIA lectures promoting aviation. Meanwhile, however, Julian had come under criticism for personal scandals, for having misrepresented his background, and for ostentatious behavior. Snider explains, "By late 1923, Julian's panache had become an embarrassment for some, especially as it increasingly caught the eye of white journalists. The New York Times and other white papers frequently made Julian a target of their humor, publishing numerous articles parodying him as a Negro buffoon attempting to master a white man's technology."26
Coleman could in no way be characterized as a buffoon; her public character, though dramatized to suit requirements of the entertainment business, was untarnished by scandal or clownishness. At the same time, her remarks about the importance of increasing black involvement in aviation often seemed to suit the Garvey orientation. Coleman frequently stressed the importance of bringing African American men into flying, saying, "We must have aviators if we are to keep up with the times. I shall never be satisfied until we have men of the race who can fly." It would be men, of course, who in Garvey's world would lead the battle of black liberationists against white colonialists.27
Yet as a petite female, Coleman herself never matched Garvey's plan for an army of black pilots prepared to wage race war. Her personal image fell more into line with the integrationists' vision of black pilots as a nonthreatening (at least physically) statement to whites of African American capabilities and as an equally significant message to blacks about the possibilities of individual uplift.
Moreover, within just a few years, the Garvey movement headed toward implosion. For all the attention he received, Garvey had never won full endorsement from the African American middle-to-upper-class establishment. The black press generally remained wary of Garvey's radical nationalism, and Chicago Defender editors and writers in particular backed an alternative vision of black individual progress within a white American world capable of social reform. Garvey's pretentiousness alienated other observers, and, not entirely to the dismay of his black critics, the federal government pursued and ultimately imprisoned Garvey on counts of mail fraud. Garvey's fall turned the spotlight toward more mainstream leaders' assessment of aviation as a route toward integration rather than race conflict. Integrationists suggested that by learning to fly, African Americans could counter racist stereotypes of blacks as ignorant, cowardly, or backwards, proving the race's claim to join whites in the skies and in a democratically reformed society on equal status. These commentators also stressed that given the promising future for aviation expansion in the United States, blacks should pursue it as a potential source of employment and economic opportunity.28
For this set of optimistic observers, Coleman's success in becoming a pilot reflected credit on all African Americans, particularly those who overcame any qualms and paid a few dollars to join her on a ride. This race-uplift aim in her individual gospel of aviation remained a constant theme in Coleman's public career. She spoke publicly about the importance of improving the national perceptions of African Americans and promoted aviation as a modern means to that end. According to the Houston Post-Dispatch, Cole-man declared, "I want to interest the Negro in flying and thus help the best way I'm equipped in to uplift the colored race."29
Coleman's example as an aviation entrepreneur also encouraged those who believed that blacks could find a place in this new enterprise. Citing the fact that popularity of automobiles had created jobs for blacks as chauffeurs, Coleman (like a number of other African American observers) predicted that the spread of airplanes could bring a natural progression to black employment as hired pilots. In lectures at black churches, halls, and theaters, Coleman spoke about turning "Uncle Tom's cabin into a hanger" with her dream of setting up a black flying school. The day before what would be her final flight, Coleman paid a visit to each black public school in Jacksonville, Florida, impressing the children with her sharply tailored uniform.30