The First Female Pilots of the 1920s: Bessie Coleman and Amelia Earhart
The 1920s saw the first generation of women pilots in American history. The decade opened with barnstorming, racing, and the establishment of female aviation records, and closed with the founding of the Ninety-Nines, the international organization of women pilots. The women who flew in the 1920s were pioneers in a still-masculine field, and their stories — of training in France because American schools would not admit them, of parachute jumps and barnstorming, of transatlantic flights and speed records — defined the era.
For the broader context, see the parent cluster aviation in the 1920s. For Lindbergh’s 1927 flight, For the air shows and stunt culture, For 1920s women’s culture more broadly, see the flapper movement, and for the everyday lives of women in the decade,
Bessie Coleman (1892–1926)
Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman was born in Atlanta, Texas, on January 26, 1892, the daughter of sharecroppers of African American and Cherokee descent. She picked cotton as a child, attended a one-room school, and saved enough money to attend one year of the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University in Langston, Oklahoma. In 1915 she moved to Chicago, where two of her brothers had served in World War I France. They teased her about the opportunities that French women had compared with American women, and Coleman resolved to learn to fly.
She applied to American flight schools, but was rejected because she was a Black woman. She saved her money, learned French, and on November 20, 1920, sailed for France. She was admitted to the Caudron Brothers’ flight school at Le Crotoy, completed her training in 1921, and on June 15, 1921, received an international pilot’s license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale — the first African American woman, and the first Native American, to hold a pilot’s license. She returned to the United States in 1922 and began a career as a barnstormer, calling herself “Queen Bess” and refusing to perform at segregated venues or before segregated audiences.
Coleman’s career was cut short on April 30, 1926, when she was killed in a crash in Jacksonville, Florida. She had been preparing for an air show in Houston and was riding as a passenger in a borrowed Jenny piloted by her mechanic, William Wills. Wills lost control, Coleman fell from the plane at about 2,000 feet, and she died on impact at 34. Her funeral in Chicago was attended by thousands, and she was buried at Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois. Her legacy was honored in 2023 when she became the first African American and the first woman with Native American heritage to appear on a U.S. quarter.
Harriet Quimby (1875–1912)
Harriet Quimby was born in Coldwater, Michigan, on May 11, 1875, and grew up in Arroyo Grande, California. After a writing career, she became the first American woman to earn a pilot’s license, in 1911, and on April 16, 1912, she became the first woman to fly across the English Channel — 22 minutes, a day after the Titanic sank, so her accomplishment was lost in the news. She was killed in a flying accident at the Harvard-Boston Aviation Meet on July 1, 1912, at 37. Her career was brief, but her achievement inspired the women who followed.
Ruth Elder (1902–1977)
Ruth Elder was born in Duluth, Minnesota, on September 8, 1902, and was known as the “Miss America of Aviation.” On October 11, 1927, just five months after Lindbergh’s flight, she attempted to fly across the Atlantic with her copilot, George Haldeman. Their plane ran out of fuel off the Azores and they were rescued at sea. The press dubbed her “Lady Lindy,” and the 1928 movie The Air Circus was partly based on her story. She retired from aviation in the 1930s and died on May 23, 1977.
Amelia Earhart (1897–1937)
Amelia Mary Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas, on July 24, 1897, the daughter of a lawyer and a daughter of a prominent local family. She took her first flying lesson on January 3, 1921, in Long Beach, California, and bought her first plane, a yellow Kinner Airster she called “The Canary,” in 1922. In 1928 she was chosen to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic — as a passenger, not as the pilot, in the Fokker Friendship piloted by Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon with Charles K. Ulm as mechanic. The flight, from Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland, to Burry Port, Wales, in June 1928, made her famous. Her 1929 entry in the Powder Puff Derby (the first Women’s Air Derby, from Santa Monica to Cleveland, won by Louise Thaden) established her in the public mind as America’s leading woman pilot.
In November 1929, Earhart and Fay Gillis Wells organized the first meeting of the Ninety-Nines, the international organization of women pilots. Earhart served as its first president. In February 1931, she married the publisher George Palmer Putnam. On May 20–21, 1932, the fifth anniversary of Lindbergh’s flight, Earhart flew solo across the Atlantic, from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, to a pasture near Londonderry, Northern Ireland, in about 15 hours. In January 1935, she became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California.
In 1937, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, attempted to fly around the world. On July 2, 1937, their Lockheed Electra disappeared over the Pacific near Howland Island. A massive air-and-sea search, the most expensive in history up to that point, found nothing. Earhart was officially declared dead on January 5, 1939. The various theories about her fate — that she died at sea, that she was captured by the Japanese, that she returned to the United States under a different name — have continued to fascinate investigators and the public for nearly a century.
Marjorie Stinson (1896–1975)
Marjorie Stinson was born in Buffalo, New York, in May 1896, and learned to fly in 1915. She was one of the first women in the United States to earn a pilot’s license, and in 1920 she became the first woman to fly U.S. Mail, a cargo of about 2,000 letters from Vernon, Texas, to Quanah, Texas. She was famous as the “Flying Schoolmarm” for her flight instruction in San Antonio in the 1920s, where she trained about 50 pilots. She died on April 12, 1975, in Fresno, California.
Florence “Pancho” Barnes (1901–1975)
Florence Leontine Lowe was born in Los Angeles, California, on July 22, 1901, the daughter of a wealthy real estate investor. In 1928 she earned a pilot’s license and began a career as a Hollywood stunt pilot and speed racer. She flew as a movie pilot, set a women’s speed record in 1930, and was a charter member of the Ninety-Nines. In the 1930s she ran the Happy Bottom Riding Club, a ranch and guest house near Edwards Air Force Base that was a favorite of test pilots. She was the model for the character “Pancho” in the 1983 movie The Right Stuff, in which she was played by Tracy Reiner. She died on March 29, 1975, in Borrego Springs, California.
Phoebe Omlie (1902–1970)
Phoebe Jane Mooers was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on November 14, 1902. In 1920 she became the first woman to hold an airplane mechanic’s license in the United States, and in 1922 she was the first woman to fly a U.S. Mail plane. In 1927 she was the first woman to enter the National Air Races, and in 1929 she entered the Women’s Air Derby. Her husband, Vernon Omlie, was a test pilot, and she flew as a charter pilot in Memphis, Tennessee. She died on May 17, 1970, in Clarksville, Tennessee.
The Ninety-Nines
The Ninety-Nines is the international organization of women pilots, founded on November 2, 1933, at Curtiss Field in Valley Stream, Long Island, by 99 licensed women pilots. The name refers to the 99 charter members (out of 117 women who had pilot’s licenses at the time). Amelia Earhart was elected the first president. The organization continues today as a network of women pilots in 44 countries, dedicated to the advancement of women in aviation.