Harriet Quimby

A biography of the journalist who was the first American woman to gain a pilot’s license and the first woman to fly solo across the English Channel.

One of the first women to fly, the fashionable Harriet Quimby (1875–1912) came of age in the fading years of a gilded era, determined to have more than the life of a farmer’s wife. Beautiful, intelligent, and forever seeking the next adventure when her life ended tragically at age thirty-seven, this extraordinary pioneer had accomplished what most—women or men—only dream about. Here is the remarkable story of Quimby’s groundbreaking work in aviation, photojournalism, fashion design, script writing, and advertising. As a celebrity journalist in New York, she was also a mouthpiece for women, minorities, and social justice issues. “I think I shall do something someday,” she once remarked. This recognition of her legacy is long overdue.