It all started with a social media post I saw about a whimsical flight around Baltimore. Eleanor Roosevelt, as part one of her husband’s first state dinners, invited the newly minted “Lady Lindy” Amelia Earhart to the White House. Half way through dinner, Eleanor expressed her eagerness to experience the skies and Amelia, ever gracious, exclaimed, “Why not now?” The duo then hopped into Amelia’s plane and took a little tour around Baltimore. How whimsical and impromptu?

What really transpired was gorilla marketing in its infancy. The aviatrix yearned for women to take to the skies, both as a pilot and as a passenger. The first lady yearned for her sex to advance beyond what had been given to them. She had long realized that the traditional roles of wife and mother did not fulfill her; nor did those tasks make her husband any less prone to fits of infidelity.

But this event was anything but improvised. How else could members from Roosevelt’s newly minted all female press corp be mysteriously there to commemorate the spur of the moment event? 

I’m now knee deep in research to make this event into a musical. Trying to make a work of historical fiction is always a fickle dance between wanting to tell these womens’ stories accurately while also telling the story I want to tell.

One thing I am trying to juggle in my research is the role I want the early aviation organization “The 99s” to have. Founded as a result of the 1929 Women’s Air Derby (which men condescendingly referred to as the Powderpuff Derby) by 99 female pilots, including Amelia, whom they elected as their first president in 1930. In my mind this group would be a perfect juxtaposition to Eleanor’s press corp. Two choruses reminiscent of West Side Story’s “America” with one group thinking that brains will set women free, while the other thinking bravery key above all. 

In my 21st century mind it seemed obvious that both of these groups would be integrated, as I knew both Eleanor and Amelia were very liberal and driven toward equality of all women. But that was not necessarily the case. Though my preliminary research shows that Katherine Sui Fun Cheung was the first Chinese-American recipient of a pilot’s license (pictured left) and was, indeed, a member of the 99s. However, they did not readily accept Black members, and my cursory research has had some conflicting information on what date the first Black member was actually admitted. On Eleanor’s side, while Mary McLeod Bethune (pictured right) had an unprecedented friendship with both Eleanor and her husband and was a founding member of the president’s “Black Cabinet, ” Mary was relegated to “Colored” organizations and not widely included in larger groups of white women. Making sure that I don’t discredit and ignore the experiences of women of color during this time while not presenting a rosy idealized view that they were welcomed into integrated circles easily is a challenge for most historical retellings, and mine will not be any different. 

Stay tuned as this piece takes shape and follow for more updates!