This week while visiting “Space Center Houston” I came upon a space suit labeled Collins and said, “Oh, Eileen!” My son Josh said, “Look again.” Peeking at the other side of the exhibit case, I realized that people from the Finger Lakes are likely to hear about astronaut Collins and think “Eileen” instead of “Mike.”
*More about Lieutenant Colonel Collins in a future blog! But that experience got me thinking about four women, all with strong local ties, who have advanced the cause of women AND the course of aerospace.
*Each one will have her own blog (or two), and this week we’ll start with Blanche Stuart Scott.
*By the age of 13 Blanche was terrifying fellow turn-of-the-century Rochestrians with her father’s one-cylinder Cadillac, and attracting the grumpy attention of the city fathers. She went to finishing school but never got finished, and with a decline in the family’s fortunes suddenly (1910) had to make her own way in the world.
*Blending boldness and automotives with a flair for publicity, she sold the Overland car company on a scheme by which she –a mere girl! – would drive “Overland in an Overland” from coast to coast, proving that ANYBODY could drive.
*This was in fact a staggering challenge, as American roads were dreadful (worse than Siberia’s, according to international drivers), and no road at all linked Denver with Omaha. But off Blanche set, accompanied by a woman reporter and stopping at Overland dealerships along the way. (They also called on Elbert Hubbard at East Aurora. He said, “We believe in women’s work here. You are teaching the American girl courage and independence.”)
*She completed her trip, possibly the first woman to do so, and was at loose ends until Glenn Curtiss’s publicity man swept down, inviting her to Hammondsport to learn to fly.
*Once there, though, she hit an obstacle in Glenn himself. Having grown up surrounded by strong women, he wasn’t scared by them, but he saw the other side of the P.R. coin. A woman being killed in a Curtiss airplane would probably take his business to the grave with her.
*Moreover, Glenn and Lena Curtiss took Overland’s publicity at face value, and assumed that Blanche was only 18 (she was probably 23). They insisted that she live at their house, and supervised her closely.
*She still used a Curtiss motorcycle to get from his house on the hill to the flying ground down near on the lake near the current school. Since she was short she had trouble getting off, so she’d aim the thing at the hangar, cut the engine, coast in, and jump off, letting the motorcycle come to rest upright against the wall.
*Glenn was one of several instructors she worked with, and legends abound about how he put governors on her airplane’s engine to prevent her from taking off, until one day they were mysteriously omitted and she took to the skies, after which Curtiss tossed in the towel.
*The truth is more prosaic. EVERYBODY used an underpowered biplane for “grass cutting,” trundling up and down the field to get the feel of the controls. Now and then, even with the underpowered machines, pilots would unexpectedly “hop” into the air when conditions were right, and Blanche had this experience too.
*Blanche Scott was never shy about publicity, but even late in life she made clear that she did NOT consider those to be actual flights. Her big day came on September 2, 1910, when she made her planned solo, taking off from the flats near Keuka Lake in controlled flight. Blanche Stuart Scott was the first woman pilot in America. Hammondsport was the birthplace of women’s aviation, and Glenn Curtiss was its godfather.