From Birdwomen to Skygirls: American Girls' Aviation Stories

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments T he idea for this study arose during my 2002-2003 year as Charles A. Lindbergh Chair of Aerospace History at the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution. My project at that time was focused on boys’ aviation books, and my discovery of the analogous girls’ stories was eyeopening . The Smithsonian year also provided the greater part of the technical materials offered here. Research into the girls’ books themselves was done principally at the Children’s Literature Research Collections (CLRC), University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and in the Special Collections section of the Mary Couts Burnet Library, Texas Christian University. Both depositories have impressive holdings, but the CLRC ranks among the best in the world. For suggestions, encouragement, and general all-around help, I am indebted to these individuals: —at the National Air and Space Museum: Dorothy Cochrane, Peter L. Jakab, Russ Lee, and Dominick A. Pisano of the Aeronautics Division; and Valerie Neal, Michael Neufeld, and David Devorkin of the Division of Space History. —at the CLRC: Karen Nelson Hoyle, Curator, and her unfailingly professional staff. —at Texas Christian University: Roger Rainwater, Head of Special Collections, Mary Couts Burnet Library; Kay Edmonson and the entire Interlibrary Loan staff; Judy Alter and Susan R. Petty of the TCU Press; and my colleague Linda K. Hughes, whose tutoring heightened my understanding of feminism and women’s history. —at home: my wife, Patricia L. Erisman. Despite having endured the gestation and birthing of one book, she encouraged me to pursue a second. She listened patiently and kept the coffee coming.  From B I R D W O M E N to S K Y G I R L S ...