Oklahoma City 99s Museum of Women Pilots pays tribute to Amelia Earhart, other female fliers
A cutout of Amelia Earhart stands in front of one of the exhibits on the pioneering aviatrix at the 99s Museum of Women Pilots in Oklahoma City. (Photos by David McDaniel/The Oklahoman)
A version of this story appears in Wednesday’s Life section of The Oklahoman.
99s museum, film celebrate life of “Amelia,” female pilots
Nestled among a lock of hair, a silver cigarette case and a pair of goggles, a russet bracelet studded with silver nuggets gleams behind glass.
The elephant hide bangle is more than just a lovely old bauble. It is a memento left behind by famed aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, the subject of the new film, “Amelia.”
“She considered it her favorite or her lucky bracelet,” said Carolyn Smith, chairwoman of the board of trustees for the 99s Museum of Women Pilots in Oklahoma City “If you look in real-life photos of Amelia, you see it on her wrist a lot. She wore it a lot, and in the movie she’s always wearing the bracelet.”
The aviatrix didn’t take it with her on her final voyage in 1937, — “there’s all sorts of rumors about it: you know, did she leave it behind because she had a premonition that she might not make it, did she leave it behind and then didn’t want to fly because she didn’t have it” — but while watching the film, Smith noticed that Earhart, as played by two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank, can be seen wearing the unusual bangle on her ill-fated around-the-world attempt.
“But we have the real one here. It didn’t go down with her,” Smith said with a smile.
Despite the bracelet bobble, Smith hopes that “Amelia” focuses attention not just to Earhart but to the 99s Museum of Women Pilots.
The museum is owned and operated The Ninety-Nines Inc., an international organization of licensed women pilots from 35 countries. It was founded in 1929 by 99 female fliers, including Earhart, who became the group’s first elected president in 1931.
The organization’s headquarters and the Museum of Women Pilots are on the grounds of Will Rogers World Airport. Fittingly, the unassuming building is located on Amelia Earhart Road.
The founding of The Ninety-Nines is depicted in the movie, and an entire wall of the museum chronicles the establishment of what has become one of the world’s oldest aviation organizations.
Another wall is devoted to the First Women’s Air Derby, a famed 1929 race in which 20 women flew from Santa Monica, Calif., to Cleveland, Ohio. The landmark contest, dubbed the Powder Puff Derby by Oklahoma humorist Will Rogers, also is portrayed in “Amelia,” since Earhart placed third.
“It ended at the time of the Cleveland Air Races, which were a big thing back then. These women competed. One did lose her life, some did have mechanical problems, but many more finished than in many of the men’s races,” said Susan Larson, president of The Ninety-Nines. “Louise Thaden came in first. And The Ninety-Nines honor Louise Thaden very highly also.”
Besides Earhart, the 99s Museum of Women Pilots features photographs, uniforms and personal effects from many other trailblazing female fliers.
“People get in there and don’t get out for an hour or two,” Larson said. “It focuses on all those other 98 women, and so many since then, that make up this wonderful history of The Ninety-Nines.”
The collection includes photos, news clips and a helmet from Thaden, along with a copy of her book “High, Wide and Frightened.” The organization also owns the aviatrix’s blue Travel Air biplane, which is displayed at Science Museum Oklahoma.
The Ninety-Nines museum features several World War II uniforms from Women Airforce Service Pilots, gloves and photos from Jackie Cochran, the first woman to break the sound barrier in 1953, and a typewriter and flight suit from Fay Gillis Wells, a foreign correspondent and flier who helped Oklahoman Wiley Post with fuel dumps on his solo round-the-world flight.
Spears and pottery share space with a helmet and goggles from Norman native Jerrie Cobb, who was one of the Mercury 13, women pilots who underwent the same testing as the Mercury Seven astronauts but were denied the chance to train for the space program. Cobb later flew humanitarian missions in Brazil.
Exhibits range from part of the shrapnel-dotted fuselage from an A-10 Warthog then-Capt. Kim “Killer Chick” Campbell was able to successfully land after being attacked over Bagdad in 2003 to a replica of the purple satin flight suits favored by Harriet Quimby, who in 1911 became the first licensed woman pilot in the U.S.
“The ladies actually had a very difficult time finding stuff to wear,” Smith said. “We’re working on a new display called ‘Pilots En Vogue’ about some of the various flying costumes women have had to come up with over the years to be socially acceptable but comfortable to fly.”
The museum also owns several of Earhart’s trademark scarves, including one on loan to astronaut Randy Bresnik, who plans to take it along next month on Space Shuttle Atlantis’ mission to the International Space Station.
“She was one of the outstanding pilots of her time. … She was very charismatic,” Smith said of Earhart. “But part of it is that she disappeared. There’s always a mystery and people love a mystery.”
Oklahoma attraction
The 99s Museum of Women Pilots
Where: 4300 Amelia Earhart Road at Will Rogers World Airport.
Hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Visitors are encouraged to call ahead.
Price: $5 for adults and children ages 10 and older; $4 for seniors; $3 for children ages 4-10; and free for children 3 and younger.
Information: 685-9990, www.museumofwomenpilots.com or www.ninety-nines.org.
-BAM
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“Spears and pottery share space with a helmet and goggles from Norman native Jerrie Cobb, who was one of the Mercury 13, women pilots who underwent the same testing as the Mercury Seven astronauts but were denied the chance to train for the space program.”
This whine is out of place with the catalog of genuine achievers and pioneers who made real human history. The women who were privately tested by a space doctor were never part of the NASA program because, for separate reasons that did have unintended gender implications, astronauts were only selected from experienced test pilots (who had also undergone casualty attrition levels the women never encountered). Cobb and others wanted those standards set aside for a symbolic propaganda mission, but the Russians would have beaten them anyway with their stunt with Tereshkova. Today, women have a full role in the Western human spaceflight programs — US, Canada, France, Japan, and other nations — while they have always been marginalized (and usually totally absent) in the Russian program.
Stunt or substance, which choice ultimately was best for women and for all of us? It’s sad to see the nostalgia for dead-ended stuntsmanship still lingering.