Women in Aviation - Beech Aircraft Company - Parade of Champions

About the Project

Walter Beech, along with Clyde Cessna and Lloyd Stearman, founded the Travel Air Manufacturing Company in Wichita, Kansas in 1925. Travel Air was known for producing highly successful racing aircraft and several entrants in the 1929 Women's Air Derby flew Travel Airs, including the winner Louise Thaden. Shortly after Travel Air merged with Curtiss-Wright Corporation in 1929, Walter Beech left the larger company and founded Beech Aircraft Corporation with his wife Olive Ann Beech and three others in Wichita in 1932. The first aircraft produced by the company was the Beech 17 Staggerwing, designed to be a personal aircraft faster than military craft. Olive Ann Beech proposed that Beech Aircraft could increase sales of the aircraft by sponsoring a woman pilot, Louise Thaden with Blanche Noyes acting as co-pilot, to fly the Staggerwing in the 1936 Bendix Trophy Race. Thaden and Noyes won. Beech Aircraft continued to produce numerous successful civilian and military aircraft, and support women pilots, and Olive Ann Beech played an integral role in the company. In 1950, after the death of Walter Beech, she was named president of the company and remained in that role until Beech Aircraft was purchased by Raytheon in 1980 at which time she became a member of Raytheon's board of directors. Note: Please do not describe the images, photographs, or maps that appear in this project. We are only seeking transcriptions.

This scrapbook is a pictorial history of women in aviation, particularly the contributions of women with a connection to Beech Aircraft Company. The scrapbook is in a three-ring binder that measures approximately 11 by 11.5 by 3 inches and features many captioned photographs and some ephemera. Many of the photos were taken when various pilots visited the Beech Aircraft Company and many include Olive Ann Beech. Some photographs show pilots posed beside aircraft. Pilots shown in the scrapbook include Gladys O'Donnell; Iris Louise McPhetridge Thaden; Alma Arlene Palsgraff Davis; Ruth Rowland Nichols; Amy Mollison; Charlotte Frye; Lee Ya-Ching; Martha Ann Woodrum; Mildred Harshman; Joan Houbec; Mary Jane Sasala; Nadine Ramsey; Blanche Wilcox Noyes; Joan Fairfax; Mrs. G. S. Bustamente; Frances S. (Ceniceros) Bera; Lucile Wright; Edna Gardner Whyte; Janet Munkres; Peggy L. Pierce; Jacqueline Auriol; Viola Gentry; Jacqueline "Jackie" (Bessie Lee Pittman) Cochran; Gene Nora Jessen; Joyce Case; Patricia Z. McEwen; Edna D. Bower; Hideko Yokoyama; Grazia Sartori; Ann Roethlee; Mary Landis; Rachel Henry; Dorothy Magoffin; Margaret Ringenberg Grabill; Marion Rice Hart; Louise Sacchi; Velma Lee Copeland; Marilyn Copeland; Marion Dietrich; Jan Dietrich; Geraldine Lois Fredritz "Jerrie" Mock; Felicity Burnolli; Suzanne Beech; Toni LeVier; Jacqueline Cousins; and Joan Wallick. Aircraft shown in the scrapbook include the Travel Air Model B-4000 (J-5-C); Beech 17 Staggerwing; Beech Baron; Beech Queen Air A80; Beech Bonanza; and the Beech Musketeer.

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Completed!

Project Progress (details)

61 pages completed

Difficulty

2 out of 5

(details)

About Project Difficulty

Level 1 - BEGINNER

Content: all typed
Language: English
Format: letters, diaries, flyers, pamphlets, and one-page documents
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: none required

Level 2

Content: mostly typed, handwritten in print, or otherwise very clearly written/readable
Language: English
Format: memorabilia, advertisements, image captions, telegrams, diaries, letters, notes
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: none required

Level 3 - INTERMEDIATE

Content: typed and handwritten materials in cursive or print
Language: English
Format: newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, letters/diaries/notes that may include annotations or margin notes
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: experience reading cursive writing may be useful

Level 4

Content: handwritten materials, primarily in cursive or somewhat difficult to read (predominantly from the 19th and 20th centuries) , audio recordings that are relatively easy to hear/decipher, and scientific materials
Language: English and/or other languages that use Roman script but may require the use of diacritics (French, Spanish, German, Italian, etc.)
Format: audio recordings, letters, diaries, notes and other written materials, projects with templated fields and special instructions
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: some knowledge of non-English Roman-character/script languages and diacritics may be useful, as well as experience reading cursive handwriting. A general knowledge or familiarity with scientific terminology.

Level 5 - ADVANCED

Content: handwritten materials in cursive (from the 19th century or earlier) or in a non-Roman script language, audio recordings that are difficult to hear or are not in English, specialty materials/projects such as numismatics projects and the Project Phaedra notebooks
Language: foreign languages that use non-Roman characters (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Greek/Cyrillic, Native American and Indigenous languages, etc.) and English
Format: audio recordings, columned data/tables, manuscripts, letters, diaries, notes, currency sheets, coins
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: knowledge of a specific language and access to a keyboard with the characters in that language may be required for certain projects. Experience reading cursive handwriting and familiarity with 19th century (or prior) handwriting and conventions/abbreviations may be useful, as well as knowledge of scientific terminology, astrophysics data, or linguistics.

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