FROM THE VAULT: Alabama’s First Ladies of Flight

The development of the airplane has been described as the single greatest cultural force since the invention of writing. During the first half of the twentieth century, the airplane would transform the world, evolving from a brief twelve-second flight by Orville Wright above the sand dunes of coastal North Carolina in December 1903—the first powered, controlled, and sustained flight of a heavier-than-air machine—into a mass transportation system capable of moving passengers and cargo across vast distances in a matter of hours.

One of the most remarkable events of this half-century of progress occurred in May 1927, when Charles Lindbergh captured the world’s attention by completing the first nonstop flight from New York to Paris. Like the first flight of Orville Wright at Kitty Hawk, Lindbergh’s amazing feat of individual daring and technological achievement created worldwide interest in aviation. Individually, these historic flights would inspire two Alabama women, Katherine Stinson and Ruth Elder, to pursue their own lofty dreams of flight and achieve world acclaim for their daring exploits during the Golden Age of Aviation.

Achieving success in the male-dominated aviation industry would prove to be especially challenging for women. Rigid social expectations prevalent during the early twentieth century branded aviation as not only an inappropriate activity but a physical impossibility for women. However, these constraints would not deter Stinson and Elder from establishing their equality as aviators and earning their rightful place in aviation history.

Topmost Photo Caption: Katherine Stinson with her Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” in Buffalo, New York, prior to her Red Cross fundraising flight to Washington, DC. The trip raised $2 million. [Library of Congress]

While visiting friends in Kansas City, the twenty-year-old Stinson learned that aeronaut Harry Eugene Honeywell would be performing exhibition flights over downtown in a hot air balloon. To demonstrate the safety and reliability of lighter-than-air flight, Honeywell advertised his plan to take four women passengers aloft. Randomly selected from an extensive list of volunteers, Stinson was amazed at the freedom she felt as she peered over the edge of the gondola at the city below. Her newly discovered fascination with flight was further stimulated the next year when she accompanied a local aviator on a flight in an airplane near her home in Hot Springs. The freedom she felt in the air, combined with her keen sense of adventure, convinced Stinson to abandon her musical prospects to pursue a future in the sky.

Initially, Stinson faced a seemingly insurmountable problem: finding a mentor willing to teach her to operate a flying machine. In 1912, less than a decade after the Wright Brothers first achieved success in mechanical flight, fewer than two hundred licensed aviators existed in the world. Of these, only three were women. Visiting flying schools in St. Louis, Missouri, and Hot Springs, Arkansas, Stinson was repeatedly advised to pursue a more appropriate profession. Refusing to concede, she traveled to Cicero Field in Chicago in May 1912, where she met Maximilian Theodore Liljestrand, a Swedish immigrant who had recently organized a flying school. Though Liljestrand, locally known as Max Lillie, initially refused to accept her as a student because of the widespread belief that women lacked the physical strength to manage a flying machine, Stinson used her powers of persuasion, and $250 in cash, to convince him to set aside his bias.

Confident and self-assured, Stinson proved an apt pupil. In July 1912, after four hours and ten minutes of instruction, she operated the Wright Model B airplane in flight alone for the first time. Three days later, Stinson performed a figure-eight maneuver and made an ascent to an altitude of five hundred feet to complete the requirements for a license issued by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, the international organization created to advance the science and sport of aeronautics prior to the establishment of a similar governing body in the United States. In achieving this milestone, Stinson became the fourth female aviator to receive a license to operate a flying machine. Tragically, two of the women aviators who preceded her perished in flying accidents within weeks of Stinson’s initial training.

After several weeks practicing her skills in the air, Stinson returned home to Pine Bluff, Arkansas. In April 1913, she and her mother invested $10,000 to incorporate the Stinson Aviation Company. The new firm was established to manufacture, sell, rent, and otherwise engage in the trade of aircraft. The new company’s first asset was a Wright Model B airplane obtained from Lillie to enable Stinson to earn money demonstrating her skills as an exhibition pilot at aviation meets, county fairs, and other public gatherings.

By the summer of 1913, Stinson’s career as an exhibition pilot had taken off with appearances across Ohio and Illinois. With long black hair cascading down her back, the curls adorned with colorful ribbons, Stinson charmed crowds wherever she performed. A reporter for a Kansas City newspaper described the slight, five-foot Stinson as a young woman who looked like a sophomore in high school. Because of her youthful and dainty appearance, event organizers began to promote her as the “Flying Schoolgirl.”

As an exhibition pilot, Stinson became the first woman to perform several difficult and dangerous aerial maneuvers. In July 1915, over Cecil Field in Chicago, she became the first woman to perform a loop in an airplane. However, a majority of Stinson’s pioneering flights were made to advance the science of aviation. In September 1913, she became the first woman authorized by the United States Postal Service to transport mail by airplane while appearing at the Montana State Fair in Helena. Prior to her flight, local postmaster George Landstrun administered the oath required of postal employees, in which Stinson pledged to support the Constitution and defend the mail. Flying from a temporary office established on the fairgrounds, she made daily flights to Helena’s federal building, delivering 1,333 letters and postcards during the four-day exhibition. In November 1914, Stinson became the first aviator in Alabama to successfully deliver mail by airplane when the postmaster of Troy authorized aerial service from the Pike County Fair. Stinson flew from the fairgrounds to a spot near the post office, where she dropped a mail bag to a postal employee stationed below.

In December 1916, Stinson earned a reputation as a world-renowned aviator as she sailed for Asia to fulfill a six-month contract to perform in Japan and China. Initially appearing before twenty-five thousand spectators for a night aerial exhibition at the Aoyama Parade Grounds in Tokyo, she became the first female aviator to appear in the skies over Japan. Hailed as the “Air Queen,” Stinson drew large crowds during performances at Yokohama, Nagasaki, Osaka, and Nagoya. Her presence as a female aviator in a society that restricted women to subservient roles created great enthusiasm. Stinson later wrote, “The women have simply overwhelmed me with attention and seem to regard me as their emancipator.” Between appearances, she visited model airplane meets, receptions, and newly formed Stinson Clubs created in her honor, often wearing a kimono.

Leaving Japan, Stinson performed in Peking, China, during a private premiere for Pres. Li Yung Hung at the Sacred Temple of Agriculture. Her performance so impressed the president that he bestowed upon her the title “Granddaughter of Heaven.” Her aerial tour of China included demonstration flights in Canton, Hong Kong, Tientsin, Nanking, and Shanghai. In April 1917, Stinson’s Asian tour ended two months early as the United States Congress adopted a resolution of war against the Imperial German government, elevating the conflict in Europe into a world war.

Returning to America, Stinson immediately began to lobby representatives of the armed forces to allow her to participate in the war effort by volunteering for the Air Service, the aviation section of the United States Army. The response was polite but firm: no women would be accepted for combat service. Undaunted, Stinson sought other opportunities to do her part. She volunteered to raise financial contributions for the American Red Cross by making a publicity flight from Buffalo to Washington, D.C., with appearances in New York and Philadelphia. Departing on June 24, 1917, Stinson used railroad maps to navigate, bombarding towns along the route with pamphlets urging local citizens to contribute to the Red Cross One Million Dollar Fund. Her airplane for the flight, a Curtiss Jenny military trainer, was equipped with a small mirror in the cockpit to allow her to present a clean face, free of oil and engine grime, before greeting crowds at each stop.

At the completion of her flight, Stinson circled the Washington Monument before performing a series of aerial maneuvers for the crowd of five thousand spectators. After landing at the nearby Polo Grounds, she was escorted to the front steps of the Capitol building to deliver the proceeds of her tour, $2 million in pledges, to Secretary of the Treasury William McAdoo.

Unable to convince military officials to allow her to use her aviation skills in the war, Stinson continued to demonstrate her flying ability in the United States. During the early morning hours of December 11, 1917, Stinson departed the airfield at North Island near San Diego, California. After flying 610 miles nonstop in nine hours and ten minutes, she set a national record for distance and duration before landing in San Francisco. During a subsequent newspaper interview, Stinson stated that because she had neglected to carry food on the flight, she was the first person to travel from San Diego to San Francisco between meals.

Though she continued to maintain an active flying schedule, Stinson remained eager to participate in the war effort. She eventually volunteered to drive an ambulance for the American Red Cross. Her tour of duty in France was brief because of the November 1918 armistice. An article in the New York Times later reported that before leaving Europe, Stinson had been delegated to transport the mail by air for the American forces in France but was forced to give up aviation because of a heavy cold contracted while driving an ambulance. The cold would later be diagnosed as tuberculosis, an infectious disease that would do what early-twentieth-century societal standards and a male-dominated aviation industry could not, permanently clipping the wings of the “Flying Schoolgirl” and relegating her to a life on the ground.

After graduating from high school, eighteen-year-old Elder left Anniston seeking the excitement of the city. Moving to Birmingham, she began working as a department store clerk. Elder soon wed Anniston school teacher Claude Moody in what would be the first of six marriages to five husbands. Filing for divorce after only two years, Elder subsequently met and married Pennsylvania entrepreneur Lyle Womack. The newlyweds left Birmingham for Lakeland, Florida, where Elder worked as a receptionist. Elder soon realized, however, that a domestic life did not suit her adventurous personality, and she began to have second thoughts about her future.

During the decade now known as the Roaring Twenties, even small communities like Lakeland were affected by the social and political changes sweeping across the nation. Perhaps the most significant of these changes occurred in the lives of women who gained unprecedented freedoms, including the right to vote. One of the most familiar symbols of the Roaring Twenties, flappers, were young women with bobbed hair and short skirts who drank, smoked, and used words not considered ladylike, a persona that Elder soon adopted.

The era of the Roaring Twenties also represents the pinnacle of the Golden Age of Aviation, a period in which an aviator who achieved a noteworthy milestone such as setting a speed, distance, altitude, or endurance record became an overnight celebrity and media sensation. The sense of excitement and adventure associated with aviation immediately appealed to Elder. Swept up in the perceived romance and glamour of aviators and their exploits, twenty-three-year-old Elder visited the local airport, where she attempted to convince flying instructor George Haldeman to teach her to operate an aircraft. Haldeman immediately rejected the idea, believing women to be unsuitable as aviators. After enduring weeks of persuasion, Haldeman finally relented and accepted Elder as a student. For the next two years, Elder continued her training as time and money permitted, though she could not afford the luxury of flying as frequently as she desired.

In May 1927, twenty-five-year-old Lindbergh astounded the world with a nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris. The thirty-three-hour flight served as a catalyst for an emerging aviation industry and also impacted Elder’s life: before Lindbergh returned to a hero’s welcome in New York, Elder decided to become the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by airplane.

In the weeks following her decision to replicate Lindbergh’s epic flight, Elder’s dream received unexpected support. A group of West Virginia businessmen, recognizing an opportunity to take advantage of the publicity surrounding Lindbergh, decided to sponsor an attempt by a female aviator to be the first to cross the Atlantic Ocean by airplane. Reasoning that a profit could be realized from the venture by marketing the publicity rights to motion picture companies and through product endorsements, the investor group faced two important decisions: purchasing an airplane capable of the flight and selecting the perfect female aviator to capture the hearts and attention of an air-minded media and public.

Elder provided the perfect face for the venture. Allen Churchill, a reporter for the New York Times, wrote, “With her wide smile, she looked exactly like the Pepsodent advertisements in contemporary magazines.” Other publications described Elder as the “fairest of the brave and the bravest of the fair.” When asked why she would want to attempt such a dangerous flight, Elder responded, “I’ve lived for a while without amounting to a plugged nickel. I want to do something that will make people notice me, that may give me an opportunity to get somewhere in the world.” Because of her limited flying experience, Elder recruited Haldeman as a crewmember to accompany her on the flight. Coincidentally, the investment
group backing the flight selected a Stinson Detroiter aircraft for the transatlantic attempt, a design created by Eddie Stinson, brother of Alabama aviator Katherine Stinson.

In September 1927, just two years after making her first flight in an airplane, Elder arrived at Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York, to begin preparations for her highly publicized flight to Paris. According to newspaper reports, “Elder breezed into Long Island with the subtlety of a gale. Her… brown hair [was] bobbed in the latest style. The Alabama native almost never appeared without a rainbow-hued scarf wrapped around her head, pinning back her wild curls.”

Her airplane, christened the American Girl, was equally bold: the single-engine monoplane was painted in a brilliant shade of orange. The color had less to do with the flair of its pilot than practicality. In the wide expanse of the blue-gray waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the floating wreckage of an orange airplane would be easier to locate than typical aircraft color schemes of the period. In recognition of her West Virginia financial supporters, Wheeling, USA, was painted on the exterior fuselage.

Even considering Lindbergh’s success, attempting to navigate across the Atlantic Ocean by airplane in 1927 was extremely dangerous. In August alone, sixteen people died attempting oceanic flights. Because of the increasing number of fatalities, officials in both the United States and Canada began pressuring lawmakers to ban or regulate ocean flights. Even Lindbergh began to publicly oppose flights he felt were
conducted solely for purposes of publicity.

Through weeks of delays, Elder refused to give up. She endured reporters’ questions, ignored critics, and submitted to every test that officials required, including obtaining her pilot license, completing a physical examination, and demonstrating her proficiency as a pilot in the American Girl in the presence of huge crowds of spectators. Finally, on October 11, 1925, Elder and Haldeman received official clearance for their New York–Paris flight.

On the morning of departure, Elder boarded the aircraft with a food basket on her arm, appearing as though she was on her way to a picnic. Inside the basket, she carried basic rations for the trip: twelve sandwiches, six bars of chocolate, four dill pickles, two quarts of coffee, and one quart of beef tea. Elder was dressed in tan knickers, a green-and-red plaid sweater with golf stockings to match, and her trademark rainbow-colored ribbon around her head, an accessory that had become known in New York fashion circles as a Ruth Ribbon. Her pocket held a complete vanity case with lipstick, rouge, and other cosmetics. Elder explained, “I want to get out of the airplane in Paris as cool and neat as I did at the start. I’ll powder my nose whenever I feel like it, flying or not flying.” Two rubber suits purportedly capable of keeping Elder and Haldeman afloat for up to seventy-two hours in the frigid Atlantic Ocean were also stored in the aircraft should an emergency landing become necessary.

Just before five o’clock that evening, Elder and Haldeman applied engine power for takeoff, and the American Girl began its historic journey across the Atlantic Ocean from the same runway that Lindbergh used four months earlier as he departed on his successful transatlantic flight. The assembled crowd of more than five hundred spectators cheered as the huge aircraft lifted off with only six hundred feet of runway remaining. The Anniston Star printed an extra edition announcing, “Ruth Elder Off to Paris.”

Throughout the first night of the flight, Elder and Haldeman took turns at the controls of the aircraft, singing songs to pass the time as the American Girl traversed the darkness. The following morning, after fifteen hours aloft but less than halfway to its destination, the flight began to encounter problems. The airplane had been flying into a steady headwind since leaving New York, causing fuel consumption to be greater than anticipated. More troubling, the American Girl began leaking lubricating oil, the lifeblood of the engine.

By the second morning, thirty-two hours after takeoff but still eight hours from landfall along the coast of England, Elder and Haldeman were faced with a potentially life-threatening decision: continue to fly until the loss of oil caused a failure of the engine, or attempt an immediate landing on the surface of the ocean in the hope of being rescued by a passing ship. As they prepared for the worst, they spotted a Dutch oil tanker, the Barendrecht, that appeared like a miracle on the surface of the ocean. It was the first ship they had seen in more than twelve hours.

After dropping a note onto the deck of the ship to advise the crew of their intentions, Elder and Haldeman steered their aircraft to a touchdown on the surface of the ocean. Wet and fatigued, they were quickly hoisted onboard the Dutch tanker. Shortly after they abandoned their aircraft, the American Girl burst into flames and began to slowly slip into the sea, sinking to a watery grave in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. Elder would later recall, “It was like watching an old friend drown.”

Elder’s attempt to be the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean has been termed a glorious failure. Though the flight did not reach its destination, it did represent an overwater endurance record of 2,623 miles, the longest flight ever made by a woman. Arriving in Europe by ship instead of airplane, Elder was nevertheless feted by an adoring public. For publicity purposes, United Press International leased an airplane to allow Elder to make a landing at Le Bourget airdrome in Paris, her flight’s intended destination.

Upon her return to New York City, her ship was met by adoring crowds, news reporters, and a ticker-tape parade. Two days later, she attended a Washington luncheon hosted by Pres. Calvin Coolidge, joining Lindbergh, Richard E. Byrd, and Amelia Earhart. Elder was also invited to return to Anniston for Ruth Elder Day. Most enticing were the numerous offers from Hollywood producers, supposedly offering as much as $400,000 for her story, an amount equivalent to more than $6 million today. For twenty-five-year-old Elder, the dream of a wider world that began on Noble Street in Anniston now led to the romantic appeal of Hollywood.

Two months later, Elder assisted in organizing the first association of female aviators. Ninety-nine of the country’s 117 licensed female pilots agreed to join the organization. Consequently, the group became known as the Ninety-Nines. Today, its membership consists of more than 150 chapters across the globe. Elder continued her membership in the Ninety-Nines until her death.

Elder’s financial net worth soon exceeded the average lifetime earnings of workers like her father, who toiled in factories and other nonprofessional occupations. Flying an airplane, however, was the one aspect of her life that Elder seemed able to control. Years later, she would confess, “The money slipped through my fingers, and soon there was nothing.” In 1955, Clarence Shoop, Flight Test Division manager for the Hughes Aircraft Company in Los Angeles, received an unusual employment application to fill a vacant secretarial position. Though no one in the Flight Test Division recognized the name of the applicant, the notation YWH (you will hire) appeared on the form. Howard Hughes, the reclusive billionaire and owner of Hughes Aircraft, had become aware of Elder’s financial difficulties. Because he had a particular affinity for individuals who had achieved notable firsts in aviation, he convinced Elder to work for him. In a sense, Elder’s life had come full circle, beginning as an unknown stenographer from a small Alabama town and ending up as an unrecognized secretary in a large aerospace firm.

Elder would never reclaim the flamboyant and exciting life that she so desperately sought early in her life. Struggling with alcohol addiction, a string of failed marriages, and financial problems, Elder finally found peace in her sixth and final marriage to Ralph King, a retired Hollywood camera operator. In one of her last interviews, Elder said that “flying in the sky is nice, but the earth has so many wonderful things in it to make people happy, the cool Northern California summers, walks along the beach and the view of the sailboats on the bay. We are living a lovely life.” On October 9, 1977, two days before the fiftieth anniversary of her historic flight, Ruth Elder died peacefully in her sleep. Fittingly, her ashes were scattered from the cockpit of an airplane over the Pacific Ocean that she loved.

Only three months earlier, on July 8, 1977, Alabama’s first lady of aviation, Katherine Stinson, had passed away at her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. After her return from Europe following the end of the First World War, Stinson moved west seeking a recuperative climate to alleviate the symptoms of tuberculosis. She dedicated her remaining years to designing beautiful structures, becoming a prominent architect with an office in Santa Fe. Because of her recurring health problems, Stinson never again piloted an airplane.

Amelia Earhart once wrote, “Some of us have great runways already built for us. If you have one, take off . But if you don’t have one, realize it is your responsibility to grab a shovel and build one for yourself and for those who will follow.” Alabama’s first ladies of flight, Katherine Stinson and Ruth Elder, not only built runways to fulfill their dreams but also used those runways to create opportunities and to pursue equality in the sky for future generations of women who shared their self-reliance, sense of adventure, and love of flight.

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This article first appeared in Alabama Heritage magazine, Issue 146, Fall 2022.

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About the Author

Billy J. Singleton has been involved in the aviation industry for more than four decades. A native of Alabama, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Troy University and a Master of Aeronautical Science degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Singleton has served as chair of the board of directors of the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame and the Southern Museum of Flight. He is the author of five books and has published articles relating to aviation history and safety for several national publications. A resident of Clanton in Chilton County, Alabama, he serves as a member of the Clanton City Council and the Chilton County Airport Authority.