The Magnificent Moisants; Champions of Early Flight

Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. x, [2], 248, [2] pages. Illustrations. Includes Acknowledgments, Epilogue, Notes, Bibliography, and Index. Topics covered include The Surrogate Father; The Buccaneer; A Troubled Paradise; The Aviator; World Record; For America!; "The Greatest Race of Modern Times;" The Moisant Bird Men; Beginners' Luck; When It's Wintertime Down South; More Than Any Man; Circus Soldiers; Show and Sell; A New St. Edilia; Angels in the Air; Mixed Reviews for a Box Office Flop; Big Plans and Bad Luck; Resigning, Regrouping, Replacing; Rising Stars; Matilde at the Controls; Matilde's Finale; The Crossing; and The Bottom Line. In 1982, Rich returned to the U.S. permanently and decided to mark her homecoming by researching the life of an American and writing a biography. After a week of thought she chose Earhart, her childhood heroine, as her subject. To investigate her subject, Rich traveled extensively, culled material from university archive sources, and interviewed members of the Ninety-Nines Inc., a female aviator corps founded by Earhart. She also read New York Times back issues for every day from 1928 to the time of the aviator's disappearance in 1937. She told Azizian: "I worked out a calendar for every day where she went for nine years. I had to check and doublecheck newspaper accounts. Rich focuses on Earhart's personality, her career as an aviator, and the people in her life. Such attention to her person prompted Tribune Books reviewer Lynn Van Matre to acknowledge that "Earhart emerges as a complex, controversial and fascinating flesh-and-blood woman of many facets." Between the first Kitty Hawk flight and World War 1, a small group of flyers risked their lives and fortunes to convince a skeptical public that the airplane was destined to become safe, practical, and commonplace. Among the most flamboyant of aviation's pioneers were Alfred, John, and Matilde Moisant, a family of fervent believers in aviation who built and tested planes, ran a flight school, set and broke records, and staged air exhibitions seen by thousands in the United States, Cuba, and Mexico. Famed for their bravado and charm, the Moisant siblings ardently promoted the cause of commercial aviation, predicting trans-atlantic crossings, scheduled flights between cities, and air deliveries of mail decades before the fact. Derived from a Kirkus review: Between the first Kitty Hawk flight and World War I, a small group of flyers risked their lives and fortunes to convince a skeptical public that the airplane was destined to become safe, practical, and commonplace. Among the most flamboyant of aviation's pioneers were Alfred, John, and Matilde Moisant, a family of fervent believers in aviation who built and tested planes, ran a flight school, set and broke records, and staged air exhibitions seen by thousands in the United States, Cuba, and Mexico. Explaining how the Moisants contributed to the transformation of flight from a sport into a business, Doris L. Rich charts the rise of their popular air circus and chronicles the tumultuous careers of the flyers - including future World War I ace Roland Garros and America's first licensed woman pilot, Harriet Quimby. Captivated by the possibilities of aviation, Alfred Moisant used the fortune he had amassed from his sugar plantation in El Salvador to finance ambitious demonstration tours promoting his planes. John Moisant set three world's records in a flight from Paris to London in 1910 and further enhanced his reputation with a series of exploits that culminated in a tragic, fatal crash only five months after he had learned to fly. Marilde Moisant, the second American woman to earn a pilot's license, broke an altitude record in 1911 and performed stunts that rivaled her brother's in daredevilry. Drawing on family interviews and records long buried in the National Archives, Rich details the Moisants' forays into Central American political intrigue as well as their adventures in the air.