“Heroines of Air and Space” is a forthcoming Discovery Station highlighting accomplishments of women in aviation and spaceflight through interactives, visual aids, and storytelling. One subject covered in the Discovery Station is the 1929 Women’s Air Derby and the stories of the pilots who participated. Three of the Museum’s Explainers—a cohort of high school and college student interpreters—are working together to create an original set of “trading cards” featuring images of the contestants and details about their participation. By inviting visitors to engage with these trading cards at the Discovery Station, these Explainers hope to inspire genuine, lasting personal connections with the rich, but often unsung, history of women’s active participation in aviation and space.
On August 18, 1929, 19 young women aviators lined up their planes at an airfield in Santa Monica, California, for the very first all-women air race. Some, like Amelia Earhart and Louise Thaden, were already seasoned pilots. Others, like Florence “Pancho” Barnes, were fresh on the aviation scene. Despite emerging from an era in which the “New Woman” challenged many long-held gender norms, the contestants of the Women’s Air Derby were not initially taken seriously as pilots by their male peers. While the women successfully opposed a requirement that they fly with male mechanics for the duration of the transcontinental race, the organizers of the event were adamant that the contestants fly “appropriate” aircraft for their gender—they did not fly the fastest or most powerful aircraft of the era.
At every stop along the route from southern California to Cleveland, Ohio, the Women’s Air Derby contestants were met by crowds of onlookers and journalists. But the Derby was not without risks: several women experienced equipment issues that put them out of the race, and tragically Marvel Crosson fatally crashed early in the route. Many of the women would become charter members of the Ninety-Nines, an organization that champions equal opportunities for female pilots through education, scholarships, and mutual support.
Museum visitors can learn about the big-picture story of the 1929 Women’s Air Derby at the Thomas W. Haas We All Fly gallery at the Museum in DC, and see a Ninety-Nines insignia pin, which shares a display case with one of Amelia Earhart’s flight suits, at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia. These artifacts provide a tangible jumping-off point for expanding our interpretation of the 1929 Women’s Air Derby to include individual stories.
Enter: the Discovery Stations. These are portable carts with hands-on activities and demonstrations facilitated both by Explainers and the Museum’s dedicated volunteer corps. These carts are placed strategically near relevant artifacts with the goal of enhancing the visitor experience in galleries—visitors can pop by for thirty seconds to examine a model airplane, or they can stay for 10 minutes or more exploring the full range of content. In short, Discovery Stations serve as a perfect venue for discovering personal connections to air and space history through stories.
A new Discovery Station, “Heroines of Air and Space”, will illuminate the accomplishments of women throughout the history of aviation and space exploration. The heroines featured will include the stories of barnstormers and stuntwomen, from Bessie Coleman to Patty Wagstaff, the human computers or “hidden figures” of NASA’s Langley Research Center, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), and more. The 1929 Women’s Air Derby is a particularly effective entry point for visitors who may be unfamiliar with this broader history. Many visitors are familiar with Derby contestant Amelia Earhart, so telling the story of the 1929 race allows us to better meet visitors “where they are” before introducing new content.
In order to illuminate the stories of the 1929 Women’s Air Derby contestants, Explainers Faith Baylor (junior, George Mason University), India Futterman (master’s candidate, Cooperstown Graduate Program), and Holland Schmitz (junior, University of Maryland) are collaborating on a set of original “trading cards” featuring historical photographs of the pilots, the specific aircraft they flew in the Derby, and other details. Even though baseball card collecting has fallen out of vogue since its boom in the 1950s, trading cards themselves remain iconic. Trading cards are also tactile, which allows for enhanced engagement—visitors can freely handle them, pick them up, flip them over, or group them in new ways. The ultimate goal is to print quantities of these trading cards, enabling visitors to choose their preferred card to take home—a tangible reminder of their experience at the Museum.
Many richly-detailed written accounts of the Derby can be found at both the Museum’s Archives and the website of the Ninety-Nines, whose members continue to celebrate the legacy of the Derby. The layout of the cards—placement of pictures, margin width, text formatting—referenced designs from both official sports cards and trading card games to offer a familiar look and feel. Through their research (and many lively discussions), the Explainers have discovered the stories that resonate with them the most:
Claire Fahy
My favorite story from researching the Derby is Claire Fahy’s possible case of sabotage. Throughout the race, there were many instances of pushback from male pilots — from harassment in the air to an ominous telegram that stated “BEWARE OF SABOTAGE”. While mid-flight, the wing wires on Fahy’s plane snapped into two pieces and were dangling in the wind. She believed the wires had been eaten through by acid and that because wing wires wouldn’t break on their own, someone must have sabotaged her. - Faith Baylor
Pancho Barnes
Florence “Pancho” Barnes of Pasadena, California, led a remarkably colorful life, impossible to summarize in just a few sentences. Unfortunately, Barnes wasn’t able to complete the Women’s Air Derby after colliding with an automobile during a landing (she was unharmed, but her plane was out of commission). Following the Derby, Barnes dedicated her life to aviation, both as a pilot herself and as an advocate for her fellow aviators. She eventually founded the Associated Motion Picture Stunt Pilots union, the first of its kind. - India Futterman
Ruth Elder
My favorite story from researching the 1929 Women’s Air Derby is about Ruth Elder. She was an aviator and an actress, who made huge strides in both pursuits. Elder was the first woman to attempt a transatlantic flight. After this attempt did not go as planned, Elder began working on her acting career. She landed roles in two films: Moran of the Marines (1928) and The Winged Horseman (1929). Later in 1929, the morning of the Santa Monica takeoff, Elder was proposed to by her boyfriend Walter Camp Jr. and she said yes! Camp Jr. was the son of Walter Chauncy Camp, the “Father of American Football.” This new engagement must have motivated her to get back home to Camp quickly, because she took fifth place in the race! Though Ruth Elder would be married six times throughout her life, this was perhaps her most memorable engagement story. -Holland Schmitz
Baylor, Futterman, and Schmitz hope that by engaging with the 1929 Women’s Air Derby trading cards, visitors will also identify a story that touches their personal experience in some way. Ultimately, these stories are meant to serve as a catalyst for learning about other achievements by women throughout the history of aviation and space travel, and the ways in which gender discrimination in the field was, and continues to be, actively confronted.
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