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HUM 4480 Chautauqua in the Park

A week-long learning event at the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center.

2023 Summer

American Aviation: Barnstorming to Mach-1

The summer Chautauqua focuses on five influential individuals.

The resources listed below are available at the J. W. Martin Library or online. Some works from the library collection will be available on-site during the Chautauqua.

Background Reading

These books offer background information and overviews of the subject.

Amelia Earhart

Elsa Wolff acting as Amelia Earhart.

Amelia Mary Earhart () was a writer, political activist, and aviatrix. In , she was selected by publisher (and her later husband) George Putnam to fly as a passenger across the Atlantic with pilot Wilmer Stultz. After the flight, she quickly gained celebrity status. In , she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set multiple records and, in , became an advisor to aeronautical engineering at Purdue University. During an attempted circumnavigational flight, she and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared on , while en route to Howland Island from Lae, New Guinea. She was presumed dead on . The cause of her disappearance has been the subject of both serious study and wild conjecture.

Books

Jacqueline Cochran

Karen Vuranch acting as Jacqueline Cochran.

Jacqueline Cochran () was a racing pilot and entrepreneur. She was born Bessie Lee Pittman in Pensacola, Florida, to a family of millwrights. In , she married Robert Cochran and had one son who died in early childhood. After a divorce, she moved to New York City and changed her first name, apparently to distance herself from her family. The wealthy Floyd Bostwick Odlum helped her found a cosmetics business, and she later married him in . Early in the 1930s, she obtained a commercial pilot’s license. She competed in races and by was considered the best aviatrix in the United States. During World War 2Ⅱ, she helped found and served as wartime head of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), for which she received a Distinguished Service Medal. On , she flew a Sabre 3 to become the first woman to break the sound barrier. She unsuccessfully ran for congress in . She died at the age of seventy-four in her home in California.

Books

Eula “Pearl” Carter Scott

Selene Phillips acting as Eula Pearl Carter Scott.

Eula “Pearl” Carter Scott () was a stunt pilot and later legislator. She was born in Marlow, Oklahoma, and later learned to fly under pilot Wiley Post. On

Books

Rose Cousins

Ilene Evans acting as Rose Cousins.

Rose Agnes Rolls Cousins () was the first black woman to become a solo pilot through the Civilian Pilot Training Program. She grew up in Fairmont, West Virginia, where she took an interest in flying from an early age. At sixteen, she attended West Virginia State College, where she was the only woman to enroll in the federally funded Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP). She received her license after successfully completing a cross-country solo flight. In , she successfully passed the trials to join the Tuskegee Airmen, an all-black group of pilots for the United States Army Air Forces. She was disallowed from a combat role and afterward was also rejected by the Women Airforce Service Pilots because of her race. That same year, she married Theodore W. Cousins, and they had two children before their divorce in . She was made an honorary member of the Tuskegee Airmen in the 1980s. She died at the age of eighty-six after a decade-long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Books

eBooks

Anyone can access eBooks from an NWOSU campus. However, at other locations, you must have a university account.

Chuck Yeager

Doug Mishler acting as Chuck Yeager.

Charles Elwood Yeager () was a United States Air Force officer and test pilot. He was born in Myra, West Virginia, and enlisted in the army in . He received flight training after the United States entered World War 2Ⅱ. Stationed in England, he was shot down over France and escaped to Spain, from which he returned to England. After the war, he became the first person to break the sound barrier in while flying an experimental Bell X-1 rocket plane. In , he became commandant of the Air Force’s Aerospace Research Pilot School, which trained astronauts for NASA. He commanded a fighter squadron during the Vietnam War and was made a brigadier general in . He continued in the Air Force until his retirement in . In 2012, at age eighty-nine, he broke the sound barrier again in an F-15. He died at age ninety-seven in Los Angeles.

Books

eBooks

Anyone can access eBooks from an NWOSU campus. However, at other locations, you must have a university account.