Texas Takes Wing: A Century of Flight in the Lone Star State by Barbara Ganson (review)

Texans have been enamored with flight since the moment French aviator Louis Paulhan flew his Farman biplane near Houston in 1910. Barbara Ganson tells us that with its favorable flying weather, Texas boasts more airports than any of the contiguous states, is home to major airlines such as American, Southwest, and Continental (until its 2010 merger with United), and was the home to former airlines such as Braniff, Pioneer, Trans-Texas Airways, and Texas International. Texas is third in the country for licensed pilots, behind California and Florida. In 2010, the commercial aviation industry reported revenues as high as $44.9 billion to the state with 56,000 jobs and $3.1 billion in salaries, wages, and benefits (pp. 185–86). Rice, Texas A&M, and the University of Texas have renowned aerospace engineering programs, with the latter routinely ranking as one of the top ten in the country. Ganson adds to the history of flight by covering the first one hundred years of Texas flight from a regional, national, and international perspective. She argues that the common themes that connect Texas flight to the broader narrative of aviation/aerospace history are rugged individual pioneers with a “willingness to take risks, entrepreneurialism as well as the determination not to allow obstacles to stand in one’s way, whether they be race, gender, financial constraints, government regulations, or physical limitations” (p. 182).

Ganson divides the book into nine chronological/topical chapters spanning early pioneers, the world wars, design and manufacturing, and the space age. The author is able to give voice not only to the elites of flying such as Charles Lindbergh, Wiley Post, Howard Hughes, and Edward White Jr., but also to flight pioneers such as Matilde Moisant—the second female licensed pilot in the United States—the Stinson family, Bessie Coleman, and Major Benjamin D. Foulis—an early champion of military aviation who brought the Army Air Corps to Texas. Early on, Texans played crucial roles in demonstrating both the safety and dangers of flight. Barnstormers, aeronauts, and airmail led to the construction of airports. Airports and airlines provided jobs and connected and bolstered large urban centers such as Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, and Brownsville. Flight brought Texans to Chicago, Shreveport, and New York. During World War II, the Royal Air Force took to the streets of Sweetwater and Terrell to learn to fly P-17s and receive advanced training on the AT-6 Texan, and the Aguilas Aztecas (the 201st Squadron of the Mexican Expeditionary Air Force) landed in Greenville to train on P-47 Thunderbolts.

The book brilliantly demonstrates the evolution of flight technology as a harbinger of social change. Flight not only gave individuals freedom of movement, connecting ordinary people nationally and internationally, but also presented the freedom to consume new space and new identities. The middle class, poor farmers, women, and minorities exercised freedom through their ability to fly as flight attendants, passengers, inventors, and even pilots. Flight as a democratic technology is evident through discussion of the early aerobats, the Civilian Pilot Training Program, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), Tuskegee Airmen, and Southwest Airlines’ cheap fares and laid-back atmosphere. Individuals on the outskirts of American society and culture were, literally, given the chance to spread their wings and fly. Paradoxically, Ganson also explores how flight projected traditional gender and race roles through segregation of piloting, air shows, travel, and the military, or through the exploitation and containment of female sexuality.

The author makes great use of archives from museums, commercial airlines, and universities throughout Texas as well as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Air and Space Museum. Living in South Texas, I was hoping to see more on the naval airbases in Corpus Christi and Kingsville, but Ganson’s lack of research into their histories does not detract from the book’s appeal or argument. Not...