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Those Magnificent Men Or Their Flying Machines?: Tradition And Modernity In The 1928 National Air Races, Joshua James Waddle

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The history of aviation in the United States between 1920 and 1940 describes two phases--the dangerous aeronautic stunts and cross-country flights of the 1920s and the regulation of the 1930s—but does not analyze how the transition between the two occurred. The beginning of this transition occurred in the latter 1920s. First, American businesses, attempting to establish commercial air travel, downplayed the perceived danger as they marketed the flying experience to the general public. Second, women pilots showed that planes did not require mystical, unidentifiable masculine qualities in order to be flown and landed safely. The actual transition, however, took place …