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N.Y. Journal —May 16 — 1936
'Angel Ruth' Now Reaches For The Moon

While men talk about high-flying, the veteran Miss Law proposes to do something about it, and do it first!

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"Angel Ruth" Law today—a portrait study made for this magazine.

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The photo above shows Ruth Law making aviation history over Chicago more than 20 years ago.

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Ruth Law in one of her earlier flights, back in 1917.

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"All aboard for the moon," announces Ruth Law, who is willing to lead the way for men in getting a better closeup of the planet than this, just as she did in doing the first skywriting and night-flying.

By OPERA H. RAWLES.
INTERPLANETARY travel! Not a futile dream, but the destination aeronautical developers will reach, says Ruth Law.
It is the project to which the woman the whole nation one idolized as "Angel Ruth" now gives her attention. The woman who pioneered in more directions than any other flier of her sex and risked her life in daring stunts a greater number of times, probably, than any aviator of either sex, is willing to lead the way again if the opportunity rises.
She is certain that ships capable of making heavenly passages between planets will be developed eventually.
"The stratosphere flights have given us a mere suggestion of the potentialities of aircraft. By continuing to conquer speed and altitude at the present rate, man will reach his goal, interplanetary communication.
'"Today, the science of constructing a good and safe airplane has outstripped human ability to fly it. I think this is responsible for many recent fatalities. In other words, man has built a machine which he cannot quite master. When he is complete master of his flying machine, then the real possibilities of aviation will be realized.
"If interplanetary flying seems impossible now, just remember that the Wright Brothers, in early days, didn't think that transatlantic flights would ever be made."
Today, as Mrs. Charles Oliver, "Angel Ruth" lives in quiet retirement in a typical California home in Beverly Hills. Instead of flying, she now golfs for recreation. Like Katharine Stinson, another pioneer aviatrix who now is a homebody in Santa Fe. N. Mex., she gave up sky-stunting in obedience to her husband's wishes after having established a long list of records in speed, distance, altitude and flying for both men and women. Twenty years ago this year she made headlines with a nonstop flight of 590 miles, which was regarded as an astounding feat. That same year she received a medal for looping-the-loop 15 consecutive times, something no man had ever done. Later she made the first long night flight ever attempted.
Miss Law brought a Wright biplane in 1912 and taught herself to fly.
"Orville Wright was glad enough to sell me one of his planes," she recalls with a smile, "but he offered me no encouragement in learning to fly it. He didn't think a woman could handle one of the machines.
"I wore a parachute, and I was strapped in, although on the first planes we sat out in front of the machine in a little seat much like a bicycle seat. Then, the flier's weight was supposed to balance the machine. I was so light that I often bounced a foot or two in landing."
Miss law and her equally famous brother, Rodman, who made the first parachute jump from a plane, conducted some of the experiments with rocket flights. They had ocean flights and interplanetary flights in mind war back in 1913. They were preparing for a hop across the Atlantic from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1914, for the $150,000 prize offered by Lord Northcliffe, when the war intervened.
"I've always regretted that I didn't attempt the flight later," Miss Law says. "I could have been the first to do it.
"Aviation holds as much for women as for men. This has been proved, of course, by Amelia Earhart.
"The greatest essential to good flying is good judgment. Even a woman can't change her mind in the air. The real aviator also lacks nerves. What is called bravery is simply lack of nerves."