Photo: Corbis

1911: America’s First
Licensed Woman Pilot

In 1911, a time when women rarely even drove cars, Harriet Quimby became America’s first licensed woman pilot and the world's second. She trained at the Moisant School of Aviation in Mineola after meeting aviator John Moisant at the Belmont Park International Aviation Tournament at Belmont Race Track. She took her licensing exam on July 31, 1911 after 33 flying lessons. She soon became the first American woman to fly at night, the first to fly over Mexico City, and the first to fly across the English Channel. .An exceptional beauty, Quimby was already a well-known New York theater critic and photojournalist. One of the first female screenwriters, she wrote seven films for Hollywood legend D.W. Griffith. On July 1, 1912, Quimby died after being thrown from a plane in Massachusetts. Quimby is shown here in her Bleriot XI in a 1912 photo.

–Cynthia Blair