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Her family did move to California, and there in 1902 Harriet took a job as a writer for the "Dramatic Review" in San Francisco also doing some features for the "Call" and the "Chronicle". In 1903 she began writing for "Leslie's Weekly," a popular magazine of the time, and moved to New York as the publication's drama critic.

In New York her circle of friends included many of the day's most interesting people, among them those of the small but well-known aviation community such as the Moisant brothers, John and Albert, and their sister Mathilde. Harriet's interest in aviation was really whetted into enthusiasm when she attended the 1910 Belmont Park Aviation Meet, October 22-31. she was so inspired, especially by John Moisant's performance, that when she happened to see him that evening having dinner at the Hotel Astor, she asked him to teach her to fly. He agreed, perhaps really not taking her seriously. But Harriet refused to abandon the idea, even after John Moisant was killed while performing in New Orleans on December 31, 1910.

The Moisant School of Aviation was opened at Hempstead, Long Island, in April 1911, and Harriet began taking lessons there from André Houpert, in a Bleriot-type 30 hp monoplane.