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Women's Work: Harriet Quimby first woman to pilot an aircraft across the English Channel 16 April 1912
Now, That's a Big Smile
...Quimby became interested in aviation about 1910, and, following a visit to an air show at Belmont Park in October of that year, she determined to learn to fly. She took lessons at the Moisant School of Aviation at Hempstead, Long Island, in the spring of 1911, and on August 1 she became the first woman to qualify for a license (number 37) from the Aero Club of America...She was the second licensed woman pilot in the world, following the baroness de la Roche of France...
On April 16, 1912, after nearly a month of preparation, Quimby became the first woman to pilot an aircraft across the English Channel, guiding her French Blériot monoplane from Dover, England, through heavy overcast to Hardelot, France. She was widely celebrated for her feat. In the summer, after participating in several other air meets, she flew to Boston to take part in the Harvard-Boston Aviation Meet. On July 1, 1912, while piloting her Blériot over Dorchester Bay, Quimby lost control; she and a passenger both fell from the rolling craft and were killed.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Harriet-Quimby
On April 16, 1912, after nearly a month of preparation, Quimby became the first woman to pilot an aircraft across the English Channel, guiding her French Blériot monoplane from Dover, England, through heavy overcast to Hardelot, France. She was widely celebrated for her feat. In the summer, after participating in several other air meets, she flew to Boston to take part in the Harvard-Boston Aviation Meet. On July 1, 1912, while piloting her Blériot over Dorchester Bay, Quimby lost control; she and a passenger both fell from the rolling craft and were killed.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Harriet-Quimby
The above photograph (taken in 1911) shows her in her Blériot plane. She was about 35 at the time. The image is (for the moment) in the Bain Collection of many early news pictures archived in the US Library of Congress.
As this collection does, in passing, cover such things as Women's Suffrage, labor strikes, child labor protests and anti-war demonstrations it may soon be disappeared.
German actress Hedwig Reicher wearing costume of "Columbia" with other suffrage pageant participants standing in background in front of the Treasury Building, March 3, 1913, Washington, D.C.
Looking at "old" pictures, it is easy to forget that, when taken, these images were of the present. As it has turned out, many may prove to have been of our future.
Strikes - Messenger boys, N.Y.--At 6th Ave. & 32nd St. Nov. 1916