Amelia Earhart's Daughters : The Wild and Glorious Story of American Women Aviators from World War II to the Dawn of the Space Age [Hardcover]

David M. Toomey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1998

This is the dramatic account of two generations of female flyers who broke out of traditional gender roles while breaking the sound barrier.'

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The first American woman to fly a plane ignored the orders of her flight instructor and unblocked the throttle he had rigged to prevent her takeoff. She lifted above where he stood on the tarmac for a few moments before returning, triumphant, to the ground. From that moment, the history of America's airwomen has been one such high-flying rebellion after another. In chapters that intercut profiles of the most important (and forgotten) American women aviators with a more general history of aviation, Amelia Earhart's Daughters revives this fascinating and underdocumented slice of American women's history.

As Haynsworth and Toomey explain, female aviators in the U.S. earned their way as "barnstormers" in the first two decades of the 20th century, performing airborne stunts for the enthralled masses at county fairs and exhibitions. When America's role in World War II deepened after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, enterprising women pilots pushed for and finally found work as Women's Airforce Service Pilots, delivering military planes for combat around the country and overseas. Finally, women demanded and, after much disappointment, gained a role in the U.S. aerospace program. Although the authors' desire for completeness sometimes leads to digression, these terrific, adventurous women are well worth knowing. Read and be inspired! --Maria Dolan

From Publishers Weekly

During WWII, a group of American women pilots under the leadership of the legendary Jacqueline Cochran shattered the aviation gender barrier by performing feats that, until then, women supposedly could not do. Under the auspices of the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), a division of the U.S. Air Force, Cochran's aviators flew some of the fastest and most dangerous aircraft of the day, including the P-51 Mustang fighter, notorious for taxing the strength and skill of its pilots. Because the story of the WASPs is already well known, Haynsworth, an advertising copywriter, and Toomey, who teaches English at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg), to their credit, use the Cochran/WASPs tale as a springboard for a series of lively chronicles of unsung female heroics. One of their best anecdotes involves a Chinese-American woman who crash-lands in a Texas field in 1943 while in training for the Air Force. The terrorized locals insist she's a Japanese invader until the pilot and her fellow soldiers stage a mock surrender. The authors present freshly angled details on a number of familiar episodes from other historical eras such as the U.S.-Soviet space race. The pioneering voyage of Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, is related with wit and drama so that, 35 years later, we're still relieved to read that her prolonged silence in orbit resulted not from death, as Soviet engineers feared, but because she'd fallen into a deep and weightless sleep. Informative, often gripping, this is a must-read for those who would understand the indelible contrail women in aviation and space flight have left in their wake since the invention of the airplane. Editor, Claire Wachtel; agent, David Hendin.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 322 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co; 1st edition (August 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688152333
• ISBN-13: 978-0688152338
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,136,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Daughters delivers verve, wit, and spellbinding history, September 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Amelia Earhart's Daughters : The Wild and Glorious Story of American Women Aviators from World War II to the Dawn of the Space Age (Hardcover)

I picked up this book on a friend's recommendation and with few expectations. I had had no interest in aviation, am a tremulous airplane passenger, and when my fourth grade class assembled to watch the histoic moon landing, I had more interest in one small boy next to me than I did in one small step for man. Not anymore. Haynsworth's and Toomey's gripping narrative style and rigorous scholarship provide what few history books do, page-turning excitement. This book conveys the miraculous wonder that spectators must have experienced at early barn-storming events: breathless amazement at mankind flying high and fast beyond the clouds and straight into the impossible. From contraptions of wood and wire, barely recognizable as planes, to 6.2 million pound machines hurtling through the air at speeds of 6,000 miles an hour, Amelia Earhart's Daughters presents the great scope of the history of women in aviation. Walk, run, hell, fly to your nearest bookstore and pick up this book, you'll be glad you did and grateful to these pioneer women aviators and the authors for letting you share the ride.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes Me Feel A Mile-High, September 2, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Amelia Earhart's Daughters : The Wild and Glorious Story of American Women Aviators from World War II to the Dawn of the Space Age (Hardcover)

The stories of women innovators always excite, but the story told by Haynsworth and Toomey is inspirational. More than a feel-good book, however, this book ranks as the best historical text I've read since "The Rape of Europa." Amelia Earhart's Daughters should make its way into all high-school reading lists. The stories of these unknown angels are vital components of the story of women in the 20th Century.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From WASPS To MERCURY, August 3, 2000

By 

E. T. Clark (Traverse City, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Amelia Earhart's Daughters: The Wild And Glorious Story Of American Women Aviators From World War II To The Dawn Of The Space Age (Paperback)

Hainsworth and Toomey have done an excellent job in creating an overview of women as pilots and the special challenges they met in WWII through the Mercury Astronaut testing program. Their research is sound, the writing is easy to digest. They do credit to two groups of women who have been often kept from the history books.