Joseph J. Corn’s The Winged Gospel: America’s Romance with Aviation, 1900–1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983) launched my interest in this era. Many other vivid histories include Tom D. Crouch, Wings: A History of Aviation from Kites to the Space Age (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003); Paul O’Neil, Barnstormers & Speed Kings (Alexandria VA: Time Life Books, 1981); Robert Wohl, A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908–1918 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994); David T. Courtwright, Sky as Frontier: Adventure, Aviation, and Empire (College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press, 2005); Bernard Marck, Women Aviators: From Amelia Earhart to Sally Ride, Making History in Air and Space (Paris: Flammarion, 2009); and Eileen F. Lebow, Before Amelia: Women Pilots in the Early Days of Aviation (Dulles, VA: Brassey’s Inc., 2002).
Poet Diane Ackerman’s memoir, On Extended Wings: An Adventure in Flight (New York: Atheneum, 1985), captures the magical experience of learning to fly. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, the Museum of Flight in Seattle, the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, NY, and several others display some of the earliest flying machines. Biplanes made in the United States included the Wright Flyer, the Curtiss “pusher,” and the Curtiss Jenny (JN-4D). Blériot monoplanes were imported from France. I use modern spelling (airplane not aeroplane) and terminology (airport not aerodrome).
A few books and articles about the characters are listed in the notes below.
Kitty Hawk, 1900 “We came . . . got them,” letter from Orville Wright quoted in Peter L. Jakab, Visions of a Flying Machine: The Wright Brothers and the Process of Invention (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990), 92.
Dominguez Field Air Meet Los Angeles, 1910. Ballyhoo or bally: carnival barker’s pitch before an event. Twenty-four sheet: a billboard-size advertisement.
Bird Woman “The Car, The Girl, and The Wide, Wide World,” painted on the side of her Overland car, Julie Cummins, Tomboy of the Air: Daredevil Pilot Blanche Stuart Scott (New York: Harper Collins, 2001), 10.
Suiting Up “I have the air intoxication . . . means,” Matilde Moisant, Harriet’s friend and fellow student, quoted by Elizabeth Hiatt Gregory, “Women’s Record in Aviation,” Good Housekeeping (September 1912): 145–149, reprinted in Harriet Quimby, America’s First Lady of the Air, ed. Ed Y. Hall (Spartanburg, SC: Honoribus Press, 1990).
Drag “. . . that cub, Beachey,” cited in “Los Angeles Meet Closes a Thorough Success,” Aero: America’s Aviation Weekly II (February 10, 1912): 376.
Daredevil Undertaker’s Chair: the exposed seat in a Curtiss pusher.
Flying Lesson: Winds Terms for wind speed adapted from the 1806 Beaufort scale by Sir Francis Beaufort.
Accident “Certainly not . . .” and “They were going . . .” adapted from “Miss Quimby Dies in Airship Fall,” New York Times, July 2, 1912, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1912/07/02/100541622.pdf (accessed May 12, 2018); and Lawrence Goldstone, Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies (New York: Bal-lantine, 2014), 329–330.
Flying Lesson: The Aviation Recipe adapted from Hugo R. Ensslin, Recipes for Mixed Drinks (New York: 1916).
Packing the Parachute “You’re awful small . . .” Elizabeth Whitley Roberson, Tiny Broadwick: The First Lady of Parachuting (Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican, 2001), 58; “Honey, that’s the way . . .” 14; “this was all . . .” 16.
Panama–Pacific “The medal is not here yet; could you go up one more time?” Frank Marrero, Lincoln Beachey: The Man Who Owned the Sky (San Francisco: Scottwall Associates, 1997), 174. Jump rope rhyme, adapted from 187.
The Wing Walker “Flying circus” first coined by Pickens with Curtiss and Beachey in 1911. “Flying circus three miles long and a mile high,” Art Ronnie, Locklear: The Man Who Walked on Wings (South Brunswick, NJ and New York: A. S. Barnes, 1973), 57.
Stunt Money “. . . rain, shine, or cyclone,” and “Bandages are box office,” Ronnie, Locklear, 157 and 79.
The Barnstormer “Rides . . .” and “Let’s Get Acquainted,” air circus handbills in the Lindbergh Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Library, Yale University.
Flying Lesson: Strange Field Landings On contact flying, see Dean C. Smith, By the Seat of My Pants: A Pilot’s Progress from 1917 to 1930 (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press/Little Brown, 1961), 106–107.
Feel “The scare is part of the thrill,” newspaper interview quoted in Heather Lang, Fearless Flyer: Ruth Law and Her Flying Machine (Honesdale, PA: Calkins Creek, 2016), 15. Also see “Ruth Law—Queen of the Air: Challenging Stereotypes and Inspiring a Nation” by Billie Holladay Skelley, www.ninety-nines.org/ruth-law.htm (accessed April 5, 2017).
Shroud Lines “I drift down . . . grass,” details adapted from Bill Rhode, The Flying Devils: A True Story of Aerial Barnstorming (New York: Vantage Press, 1983), 139–140.
Heaven “. . . how much . . . there,” adapted from Charles A. Lindbergh, “WE” (New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1927), 60. Early in his career, Lindbergh was a barnstormer like Pangborn.
Safety Second “Safety second is my motto,” Ronnie, Locklear, 9.
The Skywayman On the accident, see Ronnie, 243–278. The lights blinded the pilots; they may have melted the control wires as well.
Eternity Street Eternity Street is the road to the cemetery on the Ord map of Los Angeles.
Wedding in the Air Ground flying: talking about flying while on the ground. On the circus, see Bill Rhode, Baling Wire, Chewing Gum, and Guts: The Story of the Gates Flying Circus (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1970), and Carl M. Cleveland, “Upside-Down”Pangborn, King of the Barnstormers (Glendale, CA: Aviation Book Company, 1978).
White Gate Blues Robert Abbott, publisher of the Chicago Defender, helped support Coleman when she went to France for flying lessons. See Doris L. Rich, Queen Bess: Daredevil Aviator (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993), 94–95 on the gates. In Waxahachie, Coleman insisted on one shared gate but blacks and whites were still seated separately.
Flying Lesson: Stunt Pilots’ Price List Adapted from Bon McDougall, 13 Black Cats, quoted in O’Neil, Barnstormers, 53.
Tomboy Stories Blanche Scott, “Tomboy of the Air,” poster from 1912, Lebow, Before Amelia, 43. “. . . yellow hair . . .” and “There’s too little money for the risk,” Lebow, Before Amelia, 201. For Law’s ten-year career, Lebow, Before Amelia, 201–224. Women pilots eventually organized as the Ninety-Nines in 1929. Louise Thaden won the Bendix Trophy air race in 1936; Jacqueline Cochran won it in 1938.
Attack on Lower Manhattan Colonel Billy Mitchell campaigned for more military funding to support fliers in future air wars and was court-martialed for speaking out too strongly.
Flying Cars Glenn Curtiss developed an experimental flying car as well as the Curtiss N-9, a successful flying boat. Later designs for flying cars were more effective and prototypes performed well, though none achieved mass production. For flying boats, cars, skyburbs, and futuristic airports, see Corn, Winged Gospel, 58 and 91–111, and www.roadabletimes.com.
Red Airplane According to some dance historians, the Lindy hop was named for Charles A. “Slim” Lindbergh (also called “Lindy”), after he flew the Atlantic. Cutting weight saved fuel. Lindbergh cut out the parts of charts he did not need; Pangborn ditched the landing gear and left his shoes behind.
Exuberance “But how do we know . . .” is from a speech by Alan Greenspan, quoted by Robert J. Shiller, Irrational Exuberance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).