Harriet Quimby
Encyclopedia
Aero Club of America
The Aero Club of America was a social club formed in 1905 by Charles Glidden and others to promote aviation in America. It was the parent organization of numerous state chapters, the first being the Aero Club of New England. It thrived until 1923, when it transformed into the National Aeronautic...
, becoming the first woman to gain a pilot's license in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. In 1912 she became the first woman to fly across the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
. Although Quimby lived only to the age of thirty-seven, she had a major influence upon the role of women in aviation.
Early life and early career
A historical marker has been erected near the remains of the farmhouse in Arcadia, Michigan where Quimby was born. After her family moved to San Francisco, CaliforniaSan Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
in the early 1900s, she became a journalist. She moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1903 to work as a theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
critic for Leslie's Illustrated Weekly and more than 250 of her articles were published over a nine-year period.
She became interested in aviation in 1910, when she attended the Belmont Park
Belmont Park
Belmont Park is a major thoroughbred horse-racing facility located in Elmont in the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County, New York, on Long Island adjoining New York City. It first opened on May 4, 1905...
International Aviation Tournament on Long Island, New York and met John Moisant, a well-known American aviator and operator of a flight school, and his sister Matilde Moisant
Matilde Moisant
Matilde E. Moisant was an American pioneer aviator. She was the second woman in the country to get a pilot's license.- Early life :...
.
On August 1, 1911, Quimby took her pilot's test and became the first U.S. woman to earn an Aero Club of America
Aero Club of America
The Aero Club of America was a social club formed in 1905 by Charles Glidden and others to promote aviation in America. It was the parent organization of numerous state chapters, the first being the Aero Club of New England. It thrived until 1923, when it transformed into the National Aeronautic...
aviator's certificate. Matilde Moisant soon followed and became the nation's second certified female pilot.
Hollywood
In 1911 Quimby authored seven screenplays or scenarios that were made into silent filmSilent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
shorts by Biograph Studios
Biograph Studios
Biograph Studios was a studio facility and film laboratory complex built in 1912 by the Biograph Company, formerly American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, at 807 E. 175th Street, in the Bronx, New York....
. All seven were directed by director D. W. Griffith
D. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
. Stars in her films included Florence La Badie
Florence La Badie
Florence La Badie was an American actress in the early days of the silent film era. Though little known today, she was a major star between 1911 and 1917, her career was at its height and climbing when she died unexpectedly due to injuries sustained during an automobile accident.-Early life:While...
, Wilfred Lucas
Wilfred Lucas
Wilfred Lucas was a Canadian stage and film actor, film director, and screenwriter.-Career:A native of Ontario, Canada, Lucas headed to New York City to work in the theater, making his Broadway acting debut in 1904 at the Savoy Theater in the production of The Superstition of Sue...
, and Blanche Sweet. Quimby had a small acting role in one movie.
Vin Fiz
The Vin Fiz Company, a division of Armour Meat PackingArmour and Company
Armour & Company was an American slaughterhouse and meatpacking company founded in Chicago, Illinois, in 1867 by the Armour brothers, led by Philip Danforth Armour. By 1880, the company was Chicago's most important business and helped make the city and its Union Stock Yards the center of the...
Plant of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, recruited Harriet as the spokesperson for the new grape soda, Vin Fiz, after the death of Calbraith Perry Rodgers
Calbraith Perry Rodgers
Calbraith Perry Rodgers was an American pioneer aviator. He made the first transcontinental airplane flight across the U.S. from September 17, 1911 to November 5, 1911, with dozens of stops, both intentional and accidental...
in April 1912. Her distinctive purple aviatrix uniform and image graced many of the advertising pieces of the day.
English Channel
On April 16, 1912, Quimby took off from Dover, England, en route to Calais, France and made the flight in 59 minutes, landing about 25 miles (40.2 km) from Calais on a beach in Hardelot-Plage, Pas-de-Calais. She had become the first woman to fly the English Channel.Her accomplishment received little media attention, however, as the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15 (the day before) consumed the interest of the public and filled newspapers.
Death
On July 1, 1912 Quimby flew in the Third Annual Boston Aviation Meet at Squantum, Massachusetts. Ironically, although she had obtained her ACA certificate to be allowed to participate in ACA events, the Boston meet was an unsanctioned contest. Quimby flew out to Boston LightBoston Light
Boston Light is a lighthouse located on Little Brewster Island in outer Boston Harbor, Massachusetts. The first lighthouse to be built on the site dates back to 1716, and was the first lighthouse to be built in what is now the United States...
in Boston Harbor
Boston Harbor
Boston Harbor is a natural harbor and estuary of Massachusetts Bay, and is located adjacent to the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Port of Boston, a major shipping facility in the northeast.-History:...
at about 3000 feet, and then returned and circled the airfield. William Willard, the organizer of the event, was a passenger in her brand-new two-seat Bleriot
Louis Blériot
Louis Charles Joseph Blériot was a French aviator, inventor and engineer. In 1909 he completed the first flight across a large body of water in a heavier-than-air craft, when he crossed the English Channel. For this achievement, he received a prize of £1,000...
monoplane
Monoplane
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with one main set of wing surfaces, in contrast to a biplane or triplane. Since the late 1930s it has been the most common form for a fixed wing aircraft.-Types of monoplane:...
. At an altitude of 1500 feet (457.2 m) the aircraft unexpectedly pitched forward for reasons still unknown. Both Willard and Quimby were ejected from their seats and fell to their deaths, while the plane "glided down and lodged itself in the mud".
Harriet Quimby was buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery
Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx
Woodlawn Cemetery is one of the largest cemeteries in New York City and is a designated National Historic Landmark.A rural cemetery located in the Bronx, it opened in 1863, in what was then southern Westchester County, in an area that was annexed to New York City in 1874.The cemetery covers more...
in The Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. The following year her remains were moved to the Kensico Cemetery
Kensico Cemetery
Kensico Cemetery, located in Valhalla, Westchester County, New York, was founded in 1889, when many New York City cemeteries were becoming full, and rural cemeteries were being created near the railroads which served the city...
in Valhalla, New York
Valhalla, New York
Valhalla is an unincorporated hamlet and census-designated place that is located within the town of Mount Pleasant, New York, in Westchester County. Its population was 3,162 at the 2010 U.S. Census...
Legacy
The Old Rhinebeck AerodromeOld Rhinebeck Aerodrome
The Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome is a museum of World War I aircraft and antique automobiles that is located in Red Hook, New York, USA.-History:The aerodrome was the creation of Cole Palen, who was partially inspired by the Shuttleworth Collection in England. He regularly flew many of the aircraft...
's restored and flyable Anzani-powered Blériot XI, which bears the Blériot factory's serial number 56, and the still-current registration number
Aircraft registration
An aircraft registration is a unique alphanumeric string that identifies a civil aircraft, in similar fashion to a licence plate on an automobile...
N60094, could be the aircraft that Quimby was flying in 1912 during the Boston Aviation Meet.
The previously wrecked aircraft that now is flown at Old Rhinebeck was found stored in a barn in Laconia, New Hampshire
Laconia, New Hampshire
As of the census of 2000, there were 16,411 people, 6,724 households, and 4,168 families residing in the city. The population density was 809.3 people per square mile . There were 8,554 housing units at an average density of 421.8 per square mile...
in the 1960s and fully restored to flying condition, most likely by Cole Palen, ORA's founder.
A 1991 United States airmail
Airmails of the United States
Airmails of the United States or U.S. Air Mail relates to the servicing of flown mails by the U.S. postal system within the United States, its possessions, and/or territories, marked as "Via Air Mail" , appropriately franked, and afforded any then existing class or sub-class of U.S...
postage stamp featured Quimby. She is memorialized in two official Michigan historical markers, one in Coldwater
Coldwater, Michigan
Coldwater is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 10,945. It is the county seat of Branch County....
, and one at her birthplace in Manistee County, Michigan
Manistee County, Michigan
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 24,527 people, 9,860 households, and 6,714 families residing in the county. The population density was 45 people per square mile . There were 14,272 housing units at an average density of 26 per square mile...
.
In the paranormal adventure novel He Who Shall Remain Shameless (2011), the ghost of Harriet Quimby is the first encountered by the narrator.
Selected coverage in The New York Times
- The New York Times, May 11, 1911, page 6, "Woman in trousers daring aviator; Long Island folk discover that miss Harriet Quimby is making flights at Garden City"
- The New York Times, August 2, 1911, page 7, "Miss Quimby wins air pilot license"
- The New York Times, September 5, 1911, page 5, "Girl flies by night at Richmond fair; Harriet Quimby darts about in the moonshine above an admiring crowd"
- The New York Times, September 18, 1911, page 7, "Women aviators to race; the Misses Moisant, Quimby, Scott, and Dutrieu at Nassau meet"
- The New York Times, September 28, 1911, page 2, "Miss Quimby's flight"
- The New York Times, April 17, 1912, page 15, "Quimby flies English Channel"
- The New York Times, June 21, 1912, page 14, "Woman to fly with mail; Miss Quimby Plans Air Trip from Boston to New York"
- The New York Times, July 2, 1912, page 1, "Miss Quimby dies in airship fall"
- The New York Times, July 3, 1912, page 7, "Quimby tragedy unexplained"
- The New York Times, July 4, 1912, page 7, "Services for Harriet Quimby to-night"
- The New York Times, July 5, 1912, page 13, "Eulogizes Harriet Quimby"
- The New York Times, July 7, 1912, magazine, "When aviation becomes not only dangerous but foolhardy"
See also
- Raymonde de LarocheRaymonde de LaRocheRaymonde de Laroche , born Elise Raymonde Deroche, was a French aviatrix and the first woman in the world to receive an aeroplane pilot's licence.-Early life:...
, first woman to be issued a pilot's license - List of firsts in aviation