Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
Kayla Barron, whose passion for exploration has motivated her to both travel beneath the sea and fly into space, was born on September 19, 1987, in the city of Pocatello, Idaho. Her family eventually moved from the Gem State to the city of Richland, Washington. After graduating from Richland High School in 2006, Barron entered... Continue Reading →
Maria E. Beasley (c. 1836-1913), a pioneering female inventor who was born in North Carolina, is best known for creating machines and other industrial processes for the more efficient production of barrels. She also obtained patents for various other types of inventions, however, and some of those patents involved key improvements to transportation safety. ... Continue Reading →
Aviation pioneer and Olympic athlete Iris Cummings, who is also known by married name Iris Critchell, was on December 21, 1920, in Los Angeles. She attended the 1932 Summer Olympics in that city and shortly thereafter began swimming competitively. Cummings went on to win a large number of local and regional tournaments in this sport.... Continue Reading →
Grace Darling earned worldwide acclaim for her heroic efforts to help rescue survivors of a shipwreck off the coast of northeastern England’s ceremonial county of Northumberland in 1838. The seventh of nine children, Darling was born in Northumberland on November 24, 1815. Her father William was a lighthouse keeper. In 1826, William Darling became keeper... Continue Reading →
By the early 1920s, Seattle resident Carlia S. Westcott had become the first woman granted a license to work as a marine engineer in the United States. (Marine engineers design, operate, repair and/or maintain machinery and equipment on ships; quite a few of those engineers perform similar work on offshore installations.) The significance of Westcott’s... Continue Reading →
Aviation pioneer Helen Hodge was one of the first American women to earn a pilot’s license. She was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1892, and received her secondary school education at Brownell Hall (now Brownell-Talbot School) in that city. By 1909, Hodge and her family had moved to Oakland, California. Over time, both Hodge and... Continue Reading →
During the 1880s, Elsa von Blumen firmly established herself as a formidable contender in both walking and cycling competitions throughout the United States. Von Blumen, who was originally known as Caroline “Carrie” Kiner, was born to Prussian immigrants on October 6, 1859, and grew up in Oswego County, New York. As a child, Carrie was... Continue Reading →
Annie Belle Andrews, who was born in 1959, has served as a high-level and even trailblazing leader in both military and civilian capacities. She highlighted her approach to leadership in 2016 when she addressed the graduating class of the Women’s College of Brenau University of Georgia. “Not only as women do you have a voice... Continue Reading →
Elizabeth Whitney Williams was one of the longest-serving lighthouse keepers in American history. In 1904, the Detroit Free Press underscored both the challenges and significance of Williams’ lifesaving role on behalf of maritime transportation. This article stated, “For more than three decades she has been in charge of one of Uncle Sam’s lighthouses on the... Continue Reading →
JoAnn Hardin Morgan made history as the first female engineer at NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on Merritt Island in Florida. She was also the first woman to serve as a senior executive at KSC. Morgan was born on December 4, 1940, in the city of Huntsville, Alabama. Her father, Don Hardin, was... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 