PHOTOGRAPHS: Collection of female aviators.
(Women Aviators: Clara Adams, Amelia Earhart, and others). PHOTOGRAPHS PERTAINING TO WOMEN WHO PLAYED PIONEERING ROLES IN THE HISTORY OF FLIGHT. Five photographs, various sizes, in fine condition. With accompanying letter identifying each. 1930'S. $500.00
A small but choice photo-archive featuring images, first, of Clara Adams (1884-1971,) who pioneered in commercial aviation, not as a pilot, but as a passenger. A wealthy socialite, she did all within her power to publicize her many feats: as a passenger on the first flight of the Graf Zeppelin across the Atlantic in 1928; on the maiden voyage of the Hindenburg to the U.S. in 1936; on the inaugural flights of the Pan Am Clipper; on the first passenger flight across the Pacific in 1936. She also set a record in 1939 for the first round-the-world flight solely on scheduled passenger airlines. With all this publicity she did as much as anyone to promote public acceptance of commercial air travel. Here she is, in a striking photo (18 x 24 cm) looking confident and proud, holding a copy of Skyward by Admiral Byrd; signed at the bottom, "Very sincerely Clara Adams." Also included is a photo (11 x 17 cm) of "her round the world PAA aircraft."
Another photo shows Clara Adams posing with Thea Rasche (1899-1971), one of Germany's first women pilots, and its first stunt pilot, who became world famous as an aerobatics champion. She is shown here with Adams, alongside her aircraft, an Udet Flamingo(?) D1229, taken "at the old Berlin Airdrome." Their names written (in another hand) in pencil on the verso.
Amelia Earhart (a.k.a. Mrs. George Palmer Putnam) is seen in another photo (18.5 x 23 cm, identified on verso) sitting on the lawn "outside the Putnam home in Burbank, California," with Jacqueline Cochran. Little needs to be said about Amelia Earhart, who looks splendid in this photo. Jacqueline Cochran (1910-1980) was the first woman pilot to break the sound barrier, in 1953. She began as a pioneering aviatrix, a champion racing pilot who worked with Amelia Earhart to open the field to women. And she was the first woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic.
The four women are joined by one man, in a fifth, small but historically important photo (9 x 11.5 cm) that shows Amelia Earhart sitting on the ground "inside the hanger (sic) where Earhart's Lockheed was being prepared for her round the world and her final flight." With her, seated, is Paul Mantz (1903-1965), a champion air racing pilot and Hollywood's most renowned stunt pilot. A third person in the photograph identifies herself on the verso only as "Margot." She also identifies Earhart and Mantz and dates this "May 30/37 Union Air, Burbank, Cal."
These photos are fully identified in an accompanying typewritten letter (from which we quote,) dated 3 May 1976, in which William B. Greeley, of Newport, N.H. offers to sell this material to Linda Sampe, of Worcester.
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