 |
| Image courtesy womenofthehall.org |
1910 was a big year
for Blanche. In the first part of the year she became the second woman in
America to drive a car from coast to coast. The trip was sponsored by the Willys-Overland
Company, later known for its design of Jeeps for the military, and intended to
show that a woman could not only travel from New York City to San Francisco,
but could make all the necessary repairs to her car herself. Blanche’s only
travelling companion was a reporter, Gertrude Phillips. It isn't clear what needed to be done to the car on the trip (or whether Blanche fixed things herself) but the two women did arrive unscathed in San Francisco 68 days after leaving New York. Why did it take so long? Maybe because outside of cities, America only had a grand total of 218 miles of paved roads at the time.
Significantly, Blanche's cross country route went through Ohio, where she got to see the Wright Brothers and their flying machine in action outside of Dayton. If that wasn't thrilling enough, she accepted an offer in California to actually ride in an airplane. By the time she got back to New York, Blanche knew exactly what her next challenge was going to be: training as a pilot. The publicity from her car exploits was enough to catch the attention of Glenn Curtis, one of the country's pioneers in aviation. He reluctantly agreed to teach Blanche how to fly a plane. In August 1910, the lessons began. To basically keep her grounded until she knew what she was doing, a block of wood was installed under the gas pedal. Theoretically, that meant the plane would never get enough speed to take off. It's unclear what happened on September 2, but Blanche was alone in the plane when it soared to a height of about 40 feet. After a few moments in the sky, she brought the aircraft in for a gentle landing. It was the first time, albeit entirely unintentional, that a woman had solo flown an aircraft. That is also an unofficial first because of dubious reporting issues. Because it isn't possible to pinpoint whether Blanche took her solo hop on September 2 or September 9 or somewhere in between, the Aeronautical Society of America officially credits Bessica Medler Raische with the first female solo flight on September 16 of the same year. Since they don't deny that Blanche took a hop, the just object to the lack of an exact date, I think it's a moot point. All of the dates that Blanche may have done it on precede Bessica's date, so she wins.
What isn't in dispute is that Blanche became the first woman to pilot an airplane in a public event. Impressed with her skills, Curtis offered her a position in his flying exhibition team. Her first event took place just weeks after her lessons in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Dubbed the Tomboy of the Air (a nickname I'm sure mortified her parents), Blanche became quite the stunt flyer, perfecting the "death dive" maneuver which involved soaring to 4000 feet, plummeting to 200 feet and pulling up at the last possible moment. She didn't relegate herself to just air shows though. She also began setting distance records for women, flying 10 miles in July 1911 and then 25 miles less than a month later. In 1912 she signed on with another aviation pioneer, Glenn Martin, becoming the first female test pilot for him. She flew most of his prototypes that year, many of them before the blueprints were even close to being finalized. By 1916, amid a growing concern over the public's appetite for plane crashes (she'd had one herself in 1913 that kept her out of the air for several months) and disgust with the lack of positions available in the industry for women, Blanche exited the pilot's seat for the last time. Not that she was done with firsts by a long shot.
What does a girl do when she's done flying planes? She turns to screenwriting, of course. It's not as far fetched as it seems because she'd already starred in the first film about flying, The Aviator's Success, and a second flying movie, The Aviator and the Autoist Race for a Bride, both in 1912. Reaching out to her Hollywood contacts, she began writing scripts for RKO Pictures, Warner Brothers and Universal. During the early Twenties, she was the studio manager for an outfit in Long Island, New York. Throughout the Thirties, she also starred in, wrote and produced various radio shows that aired on networks in California and her native Rochester. Then she decided to get back into aviation, sort of.
On September 6, 1948, Blanche chalked up another first when she became the first female to ride in a jet plane (and it was piloted by none other that Chuck Yeager to boot). Following that historic flight, the accolade period of her life began. The Aeronautics Association of the United States honored her in 1953. A year later, she was hired on as a consultant to the United States Air Force Museum, eventually helping them gather together over $1,000,000 worth of early aviation memorabilia. And in 1960, the Antique Airplane Association honored her on the fiftieth anniversary of her first flight (they clearly agreed with me about her and Bessica). Blanche passed away at Genesee Hospital in the same city she entered life, Rochester, New York, on January 12, 1970. Since her passing she has continued to rack up accolades including a United States postage stamp (air mail of course) issued on December 30, 1980 and induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2005.
Also on this day, in Disney history: Lucille Martin
 |
| Image courtesy airandspace.si.edu |
 |
| Image courtesy wikipedia.org |
 |
| Image courtesy imdb.com |
 |
| Image courtesy mysticstamp.com |
Also on this day, in Disney history: Lucille Martin
No comments:
Post a Comment