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...

Born in Benton Township, Iowa, and after her father died in a mining accident in California, the family moved to Mount Pleasant, so that Arabella and her brother will get a better education. Only 16 years old, Mansfield started her studies at Iowa Wesleyan College, where she graduated as valedictorian. After college, she taught for a year at the Des Moines Conference Seminary before returning to Mount Pleasant to get married. With the encouragement of her husband, she started law studies while working as an apprentice at her brother’s law firm. Although Iowa law allowed only white male to take the bar exam, when she was only 23 years old, Mansfield took the test and passed it with high scores. She became the proof that women can qualify for the practice of law, and a year later the Iowa legislature opened the profession to women. By swearing-in, Arabella Mansfield became the first female lawyer in the USA. Eventually she decided not to practice law, but to focus on her academic career and activist work. At the age of 47, she got nominated as the Dean of the School of Art at DePauw, and a year later as the Dean of the School of Music. Mansfield was active in the Women’s Suffrage Movement and gave public lectures on women’s rights, was a member of the National League of Women Lawyers, served as an officer in the Iowa Peace Society, and chaired the Iowa Women’s Suffrage Convention in 1870. Read more...