Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
A new airline, Windward Islands Airway (Winair), began operations in Sint Maarten in the northeast Caribbean. At the time, Sint Maarten – constituting most of the southern portion of the island of Saint Martin – was one of five Dutch island territories in the region that were collectively known as the Netherlands Antilles; Sint Maarten’s... Continue Reading →
The SS Savannah became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The ship was built in 1818 by the New York shipbuilding firm of Fickett & Crockett. During its construction, Captain Moses Rogers asked the Savannah-based shipping company, Scarborough & Isaacs, to convert it to a steamship with the goal of providing the world's... Continue Reading →
Henry Berliner, a Washington D.C. native, son of an inventor, and a technical genius in his own right demonstrated a prototype helicopter to the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics in College Park, Maryland. Berliner was the sixth son of Emile Berliner, and after a brief stint as an aerial photographer with the Army Air Service,... Continue Reading →
Manuel Ferreira and his family in 1926. Photo courtesy of Lighthouse Digest, via Coast Guard Compass, Official Blog of the U.S. Coast Guard. During most of the first half of the 20th century, Manuel Ferreira served as a lighthouse keeper in the then-U.S. territory of Hawaii. Ferreira’s dedication and achievements in this role earned him... Continue Reading →
Sarah Clark Kidder (c. 1839-1933) was the first woman in the world to run a railroad. Her husband John Flint Kidder, whom she married in 1870, became president of the California-based Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad (NCNGRR) in 1884. After he died in 1901, Sarah – who now found herself in control of three-fourths of... Continue Reading →
Kathleen “Kate” Moore devoted most of her long life serving at the Connecticut-based Black Rock Harbor Light during an era in which lighthouse duties in the United States were generally handled by men only. Her father Stephen Moore became the keeper at the lighthouse, located on Fayerweather Island (just south of Bridgeport), in 1817. Kate,... Continue Reading →
Anita King (1884-1963) was a silent-film star who achieved an additional measure of fame for establishing a transportation record. In 1915, King – at the time a Famous Players Film Company actress whose first film had been the Cecil B. De Mille western “The Virginian” – became the first woman to make a transcontinental solo... Continue Reading →
Ellen Church (1904-1965) was the first female flight attendant. The Iowa-born Church was a registered nurse and she also had a pilot’s license. While Boeing Air Transport (predecessor to United Airlines) would not give her a job as a pilot, it did hire her to serve as a flight attendant for the company’s planes. Church... Continue Reading →
During the late 19th century, Katherine T. “Kittie” Knox was a transportation pioneer who bravely confronted the era’s gender and racial barriers. Knox, who was born in 1874 to a white mother and African-American father, earned a living as a seamstress but found her passion in bicycling. Knox became a member of the Riverside Cycling... Continue Reading →
Olive Dennis (1885-1957) was an innovative and influential civil engineer in the U.S. railroad industry at a time when technical opportunities for women in that transportation sector were few and far between. Dennis, who was born in the Pennsylvania community of Thurlow and moved to Baltimore with her family when she was six, became only... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 