Amelia Earhart and Sally Ride often come to mind when people think of female pioneers in flight, but few seem to remember Harriet Quimby.
I remember hearing that Harriet was an early aviatrix, but I didn't know that the first woman in the country to earn her pilot's license and the first female to pilot an airplane across the English Channel was born in northern Michigan.
We turned off of the main highway after spotting a small sign that said "historical marker" and drove for a couple of miles before finding this one in the middle of nowhere along a dirt road.
The sinking of the Titanic in April of 1912 blew news of Harriet's historic flight from England to France that same week off of the newspapers' front pages, plus there are few records of Harriet's years in Michigan. It's no surprise then that few people know of her today, let alone know of her Michigan background.
Two Michigan historical markers, 240 miles apart, claim to mark Harriet's birthplace.
Many believed that Kinderhook Township, in southern Michigan near Coldwater and just a few miles north of the Indiana border, was Harriet's birthplace.
Bonnie Hughes of Arcadia found evidence like census records, land abstracts, and financial papers placing Harriet's family in northern Michigan before her birth and during her childhood.
Michigan erected the marker near Arcadia in 2000.
The Coldwater marker, erected in 1988, still stands near Branch County Memorial Airport according a Michigan marker list.
Harriet's parents, William and Ursula, married at Ovid in 1859. Ursula also gave birth to the couple's first two children (a boy and a girl) in Branch County.
The Quimbys left Ovid in 1867 when William, a Civil War veteran, applied for 160 acres near Arcadia under the Homestead Act. Life was difficult in the sparsely settled area, and two of the couple's young children, Willie and Kate, died during the family's first years there.
Harriet was born in May of 1875. She had no birth certificate because an 1871 fire in Manistee destroyed the lighthouse, county courthouse, and much of the town. No one kept regular records of vital stats like births from then until Manistee County's rebuilt courthouse opened in 1880.
The Quimbys took out two mortgages on the farm: one for $300 that they paid off and one for $2,000 in 1887 that led to losing the farm to foreclosure and public auction.
The family moved to Arroyo Grande, California, in the late 1880s, then to San Francisco in 1893.
Harriet tried acting in San Francisco, meeting legendary silent film director D.W. Griffith, who later hired her to write screenplays for the Biograph movie company.
Harriet's journalism career began in San Francisco. She moved to New York City in 1903 to write for Leslie's Illustrated Weekly about subjects including theater, travel, household tips, and aviation.
In 1910, Harriet attended an aviation show on Long Island. Aviator John Moisant's performance there and a friendship with his sister Matilde inspired Harriet's ambition to fly.
Moisant and other aviators owned one of two flight schools in the country. The other school, run by Wilbur and Orville Wright, did not admit females. John Moisant died in a plane accident before the end of 1910, but Harriet and Matilde convinced his flight school to admit them.
Harriet became the first woman in the United States to earn her pilot's license on August 1, 1911. Matilde Moisant became the second licensed female pilot in United States on August 13, 1911.
Both women performed at shows in the United States and Mexico with the Moisant International Aviators.
Harriet, who had a dramatic flair, designed a hooded, purple-satin flight suit that became her trademark.
Matilde Moisant, born in 1878 in Indiana, soon announced her retirement from flying and scheduled her last flight for April 14, 1912, in Wichita Falls, Texas. A fuel leak caused her plane to catch fire upon landing. Rescuers pulled her from the wreck, and she recovered from her injuries. She died in 1964, and her grave is in North Hollywood, California.
Harriet, meanwhile, wanted to become the first woman to fly across the English Channel. The 59-minute, cross-channel flight on April 16, 1912 was a great moment for her, but her accomplishment got little attention from the press.
Harriet recorded one last first, becoming the first woman to die in an aviation meet.
On July 1, 1912, organizer of the Boston show William Willard joined Harriet in her two-passenger plane for a short flight before a crowd of 5,000 spectators. The plane suddenly dipped forward during the flight, and Willard fell out. Harriet appeared to be regaining control when the plane tipped again, and she also plummeted to her death.
Harriet Quimby's grave is in Valhalla, New York.
Want to learn more? Check out Harriet Quimby: America's First Lady of the Air by Anita P. Davis and Ed Y. Hall, The Magnificent Moisants: Champions of Early Flight by Doris L. Rich, or The Harriet Quimby Scrapbook: The Life of America's First Birdwoman by Giacinta Bradley Koontz, which includes samples of Harriet's writing and vintage newspaper stories about Harriet's flights.
© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved
I can't say how much I loved this post. And isn't it wonderful that you came about learning of her because you noticed that small sign on the road. Good thing you took that turn!
Posted by: gypsyscarlett | March 06, 2011 at 07:18 AM
Gypsy-This turned out to be a really fascinating story for me...although I had to cut about 2,000 words out of it to make it a reasonable length!
Aren't these little roadside surprises fun to find? That's one of my favorite things about road trips.
Posted by: Dominique King | March 06, 2011 at 07:54 AM
Wow -- fascinating woman, and a very good post today! I didn't know about Harriet, so I truly appreciate this introduction to a wonderful slice of Michigan history. We drive through Coldwater on our way to St. Joe, so I will stop to see this area sometime soon. Thank you.
Posted by: Cindy La Ferle | March 06, 2011 at 11:25 AM
Cindy-Thanks! I really wish that I felt I could spend more time talking about Harriet's movie career, as I've always been a real fan of silent films and some of the people she worked with at Biograph...and the story of Matilde Moissant is one I wish I had more time to explore as well.
Harriet's story is one I held on to until now to post (Women's History Month and all!), but I was pretty excited when we stumbled over this marker just driving around near Manistee last summer.
I'm hoping to get back out to Coldwater one of these days to see if the Quimby marker by the Branch County Airport is still there. There was enough evidence to erect that marker at one point, but subsequent research in Arcadia really does place her and her family in northern Michigan during her early childhood and school career.
Posted by: Dominique King | March 06, 2011 at 01:32 PM
I didn't know about Harriet! I love how fabulous she looks like. Thanks for sharing her story with us.
Posted by: Grace | March 07, 2011 at 08:04 PM
Grace-Thanks for stopping by! I loved how Harriet found such a great trademark in that purple flight suit, too :)
Posted by: Dominique King | March 08, 2011 at 05:41 AM