Jeannette Ridlon Piccard was born in Chicago, Illinois, one of nine children. From an early age, she showed interest in both science and religion, and at the age of 11, she declared that she wanted to become a priest, an unimaginable ambition in those days. She attended Bryn Mawr College, and after receiving her bachelor’s degree in philosophy and psychology, she continued to study organic chemistry at the University of Chicago. In 1919, at 24, she met Jean Felix Piccard, who became her scientific partner and collaborator. After their wedding, they moved to Switzerland for several years, where her husband taught at the University of Lausanne. During this period, Piccard’s brother-in-law, a physics professor, worked on a balloon, researching the upper atmosphere. In 1926, on their return to the US, her husband began to work as director of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and joined his brother’s balloon project. In 1933, he designed a balloon for the Chicago ‘Century of Progress’ trade show, and Thomas G. W. Settle piloted it. When the balloon returned to the Piccards, the couple decided to fly into the stratosphere. He was in charge of the science, and she of the piloting. The first step to complete the mission was for her to have a piloting license, and on October 23rd, 1934, at the age of 39, Piccard became the first licensed woman balloonist in the US and one of the first in the world. The second step for reaching their goal was to gain financial support, which turned out to be a difficult task for a woman pilot, rejected several times because “it was too risky for a woman and a mother.” Eventually, the Piccards raised enough funding, and on October 23rd, 1934, the couple accented from Dearborn, Michigan, and landed in Cadiz, Ohio, after an eight hours flight, in which they achieved an altitude of 57,579 feet, and she made history as the first woman in the stratosphere. She kept her record for 29 years until 1963, when the Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space. After the flight, she received publicity for her achievement, and the Piccards began to give lectures on their adventure, promoting women in aviation. In 1936, they moved to Minnesota, where her husband received a teaching post, and she continued her education, earning a doctorate in 1942, at the age of 47. In 1963, her husband died, and Piccard was offered a position as consultant to the Director of NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center, overseeing the moon landing in 1969. Over time, her interest shifted from space to religion, and her childhood dream of becoming a priest was rekindled. In 1971, only one year after the Episcopal Church began to admit female deacons, she was ordained a deacon. Three years later, at the age of 79, she was ordained as an Episcopal priest at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, alongside ten other women who became known as the Philadelphia Eleven. Afterward, she served as an assistant pastor at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church and volunteered as a chaplain at St. Luke’s Hospital in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She died from cancer at 86, after a lifetime of challenging the conventions of what a respectable lady could and should do. Read more...

Marie Félicie Élisabeth Marvingt was born in Aurillac, France, and grew up in Metz. When she was 14 years old, her mother died, and she took custody of the household and her younger brother. Soon after, the family moved to Nancy. Her father was an enthusiastic sports fan and encouraged her to practice various sports, including swimming, mountaineering, horse-riding, ice skating, skiing, gymnastics, tennis, fencing, football, hockey, golf, and martial arts. At the age of four, she could swim 4 kilometers, and at 15, she canoed more than 400 kilometers from Nancy to Koblenz, Germany. Throughout her teens and early 20s, she won awards for different sports, such as swimming, riflery, fencing, speed skating, and bobsledding. In 1905, at 30, Marvingt became the first Frenchwoman to swim the length of the river Seine through Paris. Two years later, she won an international military shooting competition and was awarded the Palms du Premier Tireur by a French Minister of War, the only woman who has ever received the honor. In 1910, at 35, she became the first woman to ascend most of the peaks in the French and Swiss Alps. In that same year, after dominating the winter sports seasons for three consecutive years, she received a gold medal “for all sports” from the French Academy of Sports, the only multi-sport medal ever awarded in France. In 1901, 26 years old Marvingt took her first balloon ride and loved it. In 1907, she became the first French woman to obtain a balloon pilot license, and after two years, she became the first woman to pilot a balloon from the Continent to England over the English Channel. She participated in ballooning competitions, often taking first place. Her next challenge was to obtain a pilot license, and on June 10, 1910, she once again made history as the third woman to earn a fixed-wing pilot license and the only one to do so in less than a year. Less than six months later, she insisted on being measured and including women in the official record books. Then she became the first woman officially holding a flying record. When WW1 started, Marvingt disguised herself as a man and fought with the French infantry on the front lines. After a few months, she was discovered and sent home but returned to the battle when Marshall Foch asked her to join the alpine regiment in the Italian Dolomites. Later, she served as a Red Cross Nurse and a war correspondent. In 1915, her aviator skills were in need, and she was asked to fly in aerial bombing missions over German-held territory, becoming the first woman in the world to fly combat missions. For her actions during the war, she received the Croix de Guerre. After the war, Marvingt worked as a journalist and a medical officer with the French Forces in North Africa. She spent most of her time and effort developing an idea she had before the war – using airplanes for aerial ambulance services. She even had a practical design and donations to execute the initiative, but WW1 happened, and the factory that was supposed to build the plain went into bankruptcy, interrupting her idea execution. She continued to improve her original design for the airplane ambulance and advocated for its production. She gave about 3000 seminars and conferences on the subject, co-founded the Les Amies De L’Aviation Sanitaire (Friends of Medical Aviation), headed the First International Congress on Medical Aviation, and in 1934, she established civil air ambulances in Morocco, for which she received the Medal of Peace of Morocco. Marvingt recognized the need for nurses to serve in the airplane ambulance, so she helped to create the first training program for aerial medical personnel and became the first certified Flight Nurse. The new occupation allured many young women, and when WW2 erupted, more than 500 nurses joined the corps of flying nurses. During the war, Marvingt was in her 60s. She fought with the French Resistance and volunteered as a nurse for the Red Cross. In her last decades, she continued promoting airplane ambulances and wrote poetry. At the age of 80, she earned a helicopter pilot license and became the only woman to simultaneously hold four pilot’s licenses – balloon, airplane, hydroplane, helicopter. She died at the age of 88. Read more...

Mary Anita Snook was born in Mount Carroll, Illinois. From an early age, she showed interest in machinery, making automobile and sailboats toys. When she was 16, her family moved to Ames, Iowa, where she attended Iowa State College (today Iowa State University), studying mechanical drawing, combustion engines, and maintenance of farm tractors. She spent her free time in the library, reading everything she found about aviation and government aircraft divisions. She decided to become a pilot, and in her second year in college, she applied to the Curtiss-Wright Aviation School but got rejected because of her gender. In 1917, at the age of 21, Snook was accepted to the new flying school in Davenport, Iowa, and became its first female student. The school closed soon after she began her training, and Snook applied and accepted to the Curtiss-Wright Aviation School. She put as many hours on air as she could but was not able to complete the course before civilian flights were canceled due to WW1. Until the war ended, Snook contributed her knowledge to the war effort, working as an expeditor for the British Air Ministry in Elmira, testing engines and aircraft parts before been sent to Europe. When the war ended, Snook purchased a wrecked Canuck, a Canadian training plane, and shipped it to her home in Iowa. She spent the next two years rebuilding it in her parents’ backyard. In 1920, her plane was ready, and at 24, Snook finished her solo flying training, becoming the first woman to graduate from the Curtiss-Wright Aviation School. Soon after, she was admitted into the Aero Club of America and the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI). With her new pilot’s license, she took passengers on flights over the town, charging them 15$ for a 15-minute ride, did aerial advertising and air-stunts. When winter arrived, Snook realized that Iowa weather wouldn’t enable her from flying year-round, so she dismantled the plane and shipped it to Los Angeles, California. On her arrival, she went to Bert Kinner and offered him to work as an instructor and a plane tester in his new airport, Kinner Field in LA, in return for full commercial use of the airfield. After a short trial period, she became the first woman to run a commercial airfield and the first to run her own aviation business. In her business, Snook offered aerial advertising, passenger-carrying, and flight instruction. In January 1921, a new student came to Snook, asking her to learn to fly. The student’s name was Amelia Earhart, and they flew together for more than a year. At 25, Snook married Bill Southern and gave up flying when she became pregnant, selling her business and dedicating herself to her family. In 1937, after Earhart disappeared, Snook began lecturing about her life, career, and relationship with Earhart. She died in California at age 95. Read more...

Katherine Stinson was born in Fort Payne, Alabama. While growing up, her inspiration was to study music in Europe, and at the age of 20, after riding a balloon, she figured that becoming a stunt pilot is the best way to earn money for her traveling. She started taking flying lessons, first with Tony Jannus, who allowed her to join him only as a passenger, and then with Max Lillie, one of the Wright brothers pilots. At first, he refused to teach her because of her gender, but after a trial lesson, and within four hours, she was flying alone. Later on, he taught her stunt flying lessons, and in the following year, the 21 years old Stinson became the fourth woman in the US to obtain a pilot certificate. Stinson began exhibition flying, abandoning her pianist inspiration and focusing on her new career. She moved with her family to San Antonio, Texas, where she and her mother opened an aviation school, the Stinson School, and she and her sister, Marjorie, taught children to fly. Stinson gained national recognition for performing exhibition flights across the US, and in 1915, she became the first woman and fourth pilot in the US to master the “loop to loop” stunt. Flying a plane she built herself, Stinson became known as a daredevil and was asked by men pilots to teach her stunts. In 1916, Stinson was the first woman to fly to China and Japan, where the people formed a Stinson fan club, referring to her as “Air Queen.” During that period, the US Post Office started an air-mail service, and Stinson became the first woman authorized as a mail pilot, flying the first air-mail route in Texas. At 26, Stinson set a non-stop distance record, flying 606 miles from San Diego to San Francisco in 9 hours and 10 minutes. When the US joined WW1 in 1917, the government declined her request to serve as a combat pilot. Refusing not to use her skill and contribute to the war effort, she performed exhibition flights for the American Red Cross, raising $2 million. After receiving a second denial, Stinson volunteered to the Red Cross as an ambulance driver in Paris, where she contracted tuberculosis that damaged her lungs and affected her ability to fly. She returned to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she met her future husband, a fellow airman called Miguel Antonio Otero, Jr. After retiring from flying at the age of 29, she became an architect. She passed away at the age of 86. Read more...

Bessie Coleman was born in Atlanta, Texas. Her father was of Cherokee descent, and her mother was African-American. When she was 2 years old, her family moved to Waxahachie, Texas, where her parents worked as sharecroppers. At the age of 6, she started to attend segregated, one-room school, walking 4 miles every day. At the age of 9, her father left home, and in addition to attending school, she helped to support the family by harvesting cotton and washing laundry. At 12, Coleman was granted a scholarship to the Missionary Baptist Church School, which later allowed her to enroll in the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University in Langston, Oklahoma. After a semester, her money ran out, and she had to leave and return home. At the age of 23, Coleman moved to Chicago to live with her brothers. She attended Burnham School of Beauty Culture and worked as a manicurist. Her brothers, who served in WW1, told stories from their France experiences, where women fly airplanes. Inspired by their stories, Coleman took a second job and received sponsorship from the newspaper editor Robert S. Abbott and the banker Jesse Binga, to have enough money for aviation classes. No school in the US would receive her application, both because of her race and gender, so she learned French and moved to Paris, where she studied at the Caudron Brothers’ School of Aviation. After seven months, 29 years old Coleman became the first African-American woman and first Native- American to earn a pilot’s license as well as the first black person and first Native-America to earn an international aviation license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.   On her return to the US, Coleman received media attention but realized that she would have to become a stunt flier to earn money. Once again, she did not find any school to accept her, so she traveled to Europe, learning stunts flying and parachuting in France, the Netherland, and Germany. When she came back to the US, her popularity grew, and she became known as “Queen Bess.” She flew Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” biplanes, performing daredevil maneuvers such as loops, eights figures, and near-ground dips. Her goal was to encourage people to pursue their dreams, while her dream was to own a plane and open a flight school for African-Americans. She gave speeches throughout the country, presenting films of her tricks, and promoting aviation within the community. She refused to speak or to perform in segregated events. During a speaking tour in Orlando, Florida, she met community activists Rev. Hezakiah and Viola Hill, who invited her to live with them. She moved in and opened a beauty shop to earn enough money to buy a plane. On April 30th, 1926, Coleman took a test flight with her mechanic, William Wills. She sat in the passenger seat while he was piloting the plane. Ten minutes into the flight, it went into an unexpected dive and a spin at 3,000 feet. Coleman, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was thrown out of the plane and died immediately when hitting the ground. The plane crashed right next to her. More than 10,000 mourners attended her funeral ceremonies, led by Ida B. Wells. Although she did not achieve her dream to establish her aviation school, her pioneering achievements were the inspiration for a generation of African-Americans to become pilots. Read more...

Born and raised in Atchison, Kansas, in 1897. From a young age she broke gender conventions: climbing trees which was seen as boyish behavior and collecting articles about female pioneers in male-dominated fields. She left college to work as a nurse in a military hospital during World War I and later worked as a social worker. After a $10 ride in an airplane at the age of 23, she found her calling within aviation. Earhart took classes with a female instructor, and six months later bought her first plane, painted yellow and nicknamed “The Canary.” She was active in the movement for equal rights for women and was determined to use aviation to make a point that women can do anything they want. Her breakthrough was initiated by publicist George Putnam, whom she later married. He presented her with the opportunity to be the first female to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, which won her worldwide recognition, a New York parade, and a reception at the White House. Fond of “first” achievements and aware of their publicity value, Earhart set and broke several records of destination, speed, and altitude. She wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world, and in her attempt, she vanished with her navigator in 1937. Despite a $4 Million search, the most extensive one in naval history, no clear trace of her was ever found. Amelia Earhart was around the age of 40 at the time of the accident, and in 1939, the pioneering pilot declared dead. This turned her into a mystery that occupies generations, with a wide range of theories and speculations as to her fate. Read more...