Powder Puff Derby
In August 1929, the first Women's Air Derby was held. Of the 20 entrants in the Women's Air Derby, otherwise known as "the Powder Puff Derby", seven flew Travel Airs and it was Louise Thaden who won the Santa Monica, Calif., to Cleveland race. Opal Kunz finished eighth. The other five Travel Airs were flown by Pancho Barnes, Claire Fahy, Marvel Crosson, Mary von Mack and Blanche Noyes.
That there was overt sexism shown against this group of women was obvious from the first. One of the odd qualifications was that the aircraft would have to have horsepower “appropriate for a woman.” Opal Kunz was told her airplane was too fast for a woman to handle, and had to get another aircraft or stay out of the race. “…Though Opal Kunz owned and flew her own 300 horse power Travel Air, it was disallowed since it was deemed by the judges to be “too fast for a woman to fly.” With $25,000.00 in prize money at stake, she bought a lower powered Travel Air to race with.”
Read more about this topic: Travel Air
Famous quotes containing the words powder and/or puff:
“We are powerless,
dust and powder fill our lungs
our bodies blunder
through doors twisted on hinges.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“A puff of wind, a puff faint and tepid and laden with strange odours of blossoms, of aromatic wood, comes out the still night—the first sigh of the East on my face. That I can never forget. It was impalpable and enslaving, like a charm, like a whispered promise of mysterious delight.... The mysterious East faced me, perfumed like a flower, silent like death, dark like a grave.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)