Women in Arizona Aviation: A Brief History, with a focus on the
Phoenix/Mesa area

Women have been involved in the aviation industry in Arizona since its very beginning. Female aviators have generally been a minority in a heavily male dominated industry, with only eight percent of pilots being female nationally in 2019. Despite this extremely disproportionate underrepresentation, women have played a significant role in shaping aviation in Arizona. Perhaps the best example of this is during WWII, when airfield groundcrews were upwards of 40% or more female. These women did not just hold office positions or play the role of “Rosie the riveter.” They were mechanics, flight instructors and military pilots. Before and after WWII, innumerable other women played a role in shaping the aviation industry.

History has often paid little attention to female aviators, not just in Arizona, but around the world. A foundational book on the history of aviation in Arizona, Sky Pioneering: Arizona in Aviation History, only hints at the role played by women. This in spite of the fact that the work itself was written by an influential female pilot from Arizona. Ruth Reinhold was one of Arizona’s first female pilots, as well as an author. Her aviation career spans over four decades and counts among the most accomplished of any of Arizona’s female aviators. Ruth Reinhold flew the venerated late Senator Barry Goldwater as his personal pilot for 20 years, including during his famous 1964 presidential campaign. Goldwater held Reinhold in such high regard, he personally encouraged her to write Sky Pioneering. He also wrote an introduction for the book. In spite of Reinhold’s many aviation accomplishments, which undoubtedly made her aware of women being under-represented in aviation and the struggles of a women flyer, she only passingly mentions women in her book. Sky Pioneering is an excellent work, in terms of narrating the early years of Arizona aviation, but it fails to fully account for women’s role in that story.

The first woman to take flight within the territory of Arizona did so on July 4, 1890. An unknown woman, dressed in a red, white and blue star-spangled jumpsuit ascended in a hot air balloon. She then, to the amazement of the audience, jumped out of the balloon and descended to the ground by parachute. Her decent made her both the first woman to fly in Arizona and the first woman to parachute in the then territory. This occasion also made her one of the first people to fly in Arizona at all, with the first flight having been accomplished by a “Professor LeRoy” on May 31 of the previous year. A similar exhibition was carried out by Mille B. Ozola in Phoenix in 1892, making her the first women to fly in central Arizona. Neither the star spangled woman or “Mademoiselle Ozola’s” ships were based in Arizona, which makes it highly likely that neither were Arizona residents. More than likely, both were traveling aeronauts who made a living performing such stunts. Whether they were Arizona residents or not, these pioneering women made their mark on Arizona aviation history. Within a year of the first flight in Arizona, women were taking to the skies. These pioneers established a legacy of female aviators that lives on today.

Katherine Stinson, a famous female pilot from the Southern United States, likely became the first woman to fly a plane in the young state of Arizona in 1914. She was the first female pilot licensed to fly airmail by the United States Postal Service. The Tucson Chamber of Commerce contracted her to make several airmail demonstrations and perform flying exhibitions. Stinson’s flights were meant to demonstrate the feasibility of airmail in sparsely populated Arizona and boost the prestige . . .