SUMMARY

In his book Fly Girls, author and journalist Keith O’Brien brings to life the almost-forgotten, inspiring true stories of female aviators. Danger and discrimination were only two of the many obstacles they faced as they fought for their right to compete in air races popular during the 1920s and ‘30s. By following a small thread in The Astronaut Wives Club, O’Brien now weaves together Fly Girls, the unique history of “Five Brave Women Who Defied the Odds and Made Aviation History.”

KEY POINTS

• In 1928, just eight years after the women's suffrage amendment passed, 30 million women were registered to vote. That same year, less than a dozen American women held pilot licenses.
• Women learning to fly had to put up with catcalls, odd looks, and snide remarks repeatedly.
• Most flight instructors were men who complained or wrote openly about how much they disliked teaching women how to fly.
• Air races (not air shows) were a real sport with winners and losers, lots of money for the victors, and enormous crowds—like the Super Bowl of our time.
• Sexism revealed in the nicknames given to female pilots: “ladybirds,” “sweethearts of the air,” “petticoat pilots,” and “powder puff girls.”
• Department of Commerce (predating the FAA) created a regulation that women could not fly a plane within three days of menstruating.
• Sabotage of women’s planes, though unproven, presented yet another obstacle to those wanting to participate in the air races.
• Women exerting freedoms, such as wearing pants and cutting hair short, went against the norms for the times.
• Aviation was potentially a very lucrative hobby or career.
• Radio communication was spotty and weather reports unreliable in the 1920s and ‘30s, and people were making planes “in their backyards.”

QUOTES FROM O'BRIEN

• “Before they even got in a plane, they had to weather discrimination on the ground.”
• “To be a woman walking across an airfield in 1928…would have put you into one of the rarest of categories.”
• “These women were true radicals, true renegades who were pushing the envelope of what society expected of a woman.”
• “These women had to be better pilots than the men…When the women crashed, they were questioned at every turn.”
• “They came from different backgrounds…but there was a commonality in how they were raised…At a time when parents—in particular, a father—could tell a teenage girl whom she would or would not date or marry…these parents either turned the other way and allowed their daughter to pursue this unusual interest in aviation, or they actively encourage it.”
• “Many died in the air races—sometimes right in front of the crowd—and still the races would go on! They had an appetite for death and disaster that we simply would not tolerate today.”

BUY Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History

BUY Fly Girls Young Readers’ Edition: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History

RECOMMENDATIONS

BUY The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story

 

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade's trailer advertising Fly Girls (with live footage)

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