Last featured in the 03-04-2016 Scout Report, this online exhibition from the Digital Public Library of America reminds women that the sky is no longer the limit.
Created by Pratt University Library and Information Science (LIS) students Megan DeArmond, Diana Moronta, and Laurin Paradise in March of 2015, this online exhibition mines the resources of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) to present the history of some of the American women who flew. The Development of Aviation, the opening section of the site, makes clear that although women were not terribly involved with the "trial-and-error filled beginnings of aviation" in the early 1900s, increasing numbers of women entered the field during World War I and between the Wars, with a big uptick during WWII. The First Aviatrixes section includes short illustrated biographies of Harriet Quimby, Matilde Moisant, Blanche Stuart Scott, Ruth Bancroft Law, and Katherine Stinson, all of whom broke barriers and were accomplished in the aviation field. The parallel Daredevils section includes women stunt flyers and wing walkers: Marie Meyer, Bessie Coleman, The Powder Puff Derby, and Amelia Earhart. The remaining sections of the site are Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs) and Legacy. As the latter notes, women make up about 19 percent of the Air Force today, and there are estimated to be about 4,000 women commercial airline pilots (a small fraction of the total worldwide).
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