It was fitting that one of prettiest of the Gibson Girl era, Harriet Quimby, was selected for an American stamp. She was well ahead of her time. She was a writer in California and wrote some articles on early aviation. She was offered a job on a New York magazine and somewhere on the train between California and New York, she cleverly managed to lose 10 years off her age -- something many people would enjoy doing.

She was the first licensed female pilot in the U.S. This was about 1910 or so. She later joined the Moisant flying exhibition team. She had style and grace, was very outspoken, a good promoter of aviation, and she always had a clever quote for the press -- and she had a smile that could stop a fellow in his tracks.

The second woman to be licensed was Matilde Moisant. She was just a wisp of a little girl, wore glasses, and just danged cute! She was the sister of two brothers who were noted exhibition pilots.

Petite Matilde Moisant. The swastika pin on her pocket was a gift and is the good luck symbol that was very common in those years and many before.

On left is Harriet Quimby with Matilde  Moisant. (I need to point out that the flight suits were purple satin!)

Just after Christmas 1910, one of Matilde’s brothers, John, was flying his Bleriot in preparation for an attempted flight for a prize. He had raced his plane against a Packard automobile in an exhibition in New Orleans the day before.  He was preparing to land at a flying field in Kenner, Louisiana, and got an unexpected gust of wind. The airplane became unstable and he was thrown from the plane. Landing on his head, he was killed.

Matilde quit flying when she had a horrible accident at an air-show in Wichita Falls, Texas. The plane had caught fire but fortunately, she was in a rather heavy, tweed flying suit. She still received burns on exposed skin but had she been in her satin suit, she would have most likely died.

This was the same day the Titanic sank...bad news for many.

The timing of all this is interesting...

The Titanic sank on April 14, 1912.

Matilde had the accident on April 14, 1912.

Two days later, her friend, Harriet, took off in England and flew to France; the first woman to do so. But the news of the Titanic over-shadowed her flight and she got little attention for doing it. (Bleriot, himself, had been the first to do it and this was only 3 years before.) Harriet posing starting her Bleriot Anzani engine. She was quite a sight for the early 1900's.

Less that three months later, Harriet was flying at the 3^rd Annual Boston Aviation Meet. The organizer of the meet, William Willard, was flying as a passenger in her new, two-seated Bleriot. They circled the Boston Lighthouse and suddenly, at 1,500 feet, the plane pitched forward, ejecting Willard. Harriet was ejected a moment later. This was in view of hundreds of spectators, as well as another female pilot, Blanche Scott, who was flying her own plane near them.  The plane glided to a landing in some mud and flipped over, doing little damage.  (Seat belts were not in aircraft for another year. They were the invention of a Frenchman -- the first who attempted to "loop-the-loop." Good planning...finally.)

Harriet Quimby’s piloting career did not last a year yet she inspired many... one of whom was Amelia Earhart.

New Orleans named its airport Moisant Airfield after Matilde’s brother John, and it held that name until 2001 when it was renamed after Louis Armstrong.

Ken Cashion