I suppose you might think she was just a model – I did - an image without a reality. But she was a self made woman, and her own invention - a latter day Maria Sharapova, in high button shoes; intelligent, talented, ambitious, an author, a dare devil, an adrenaline junkie and a hustler par excellence. You have to remember that she was a hustler to understand how she came to be the personification for a grape flavored syrup that, mixed with soda water, processed “a certain laxative effect”, and had a taste “You have to sneak up on, to get it down,”, She was the official “Vin Fiz” girl, and at the age of 36. And if that were her only claim to fame, hers’ would be a mundane tale indeed, because she was so much more than just a girl on a poster. She was Harriet Quimby, theatre critic, photojournalist, screenwriter, film actor, first licensed female pilot in America, the first woman to fly across the English Channel, and yes, she was even sexier in person than the girl on the poster. But who was she really? 
The sexy leather outfit was born out of necessity. The Wright Brothers were Midwestern stick-in-the-muds who did not approve of teaching women to fly and who strongly disapproved of anybody who did. And there were darn few people in the flying business in 1911 who did not pay attention to what the Wright brothers disapproved of. So when Harriet Quimby convinced John Moisant to give her flight lessons, he insisted on secrecy. Whenever they took off she wore a hooded leather suit to hide her femininity. 
The sexy leather outfit was born out of necessity. The Wright Brothers were Midwestern stick-in-the-muds who did not approve of teaching women to fly and who strongly disapproved of anybody who did. And there were darn few people in the flying business in 1911 who did not pay attention to what the Wright brothers disapproved of. So when Harriet Quimby convinced John Moisant to give her flight lessons, he insisted on secrecy. Whenever they took off she wore a hooded leather suit to hide her femininity. It didn’t, of course. There was no way to hide that. But when the secret was out, instead of discarding the suit, the usually penurious Harriet turned it into a custom-made icon; “…thick wool-backed satin, without lining. It is all of one piece, including the hood”, as she described it. Or as a friend noted, “She had the most beautiful blue eyes, and when she wore that long cape over her satin, plum-colored flying suit, she was a real head-turner.” Plumb colored, then; but who was Harriet Quimby, really?
Her family had owned a rock farm in upper Michigan in the 1870’s, and her mother, Ursula, had supplemented their income by selling “Quimby’s Liver Invigorator” by mail, complete with imaginary testimonials. In the 1880’s the farm went bust and the family moved to the central coast of California, and then in the 1890’s they had moved again to San Francisco. There her father, William, dispensed herbs and twenty-something Harriet invented herself as an “actress”, in the nineteenth century definition of that term, as a beautiful bobble on the arm of men who could afford her. People asked. Her mother said she had been college educated "back east". But no college ever had a record of her attending. Still people wanted to know because she was famous. Her nude portrait even hung in the sophisticated “Bohemian Club”, until it was destroyed in the earthquake of 1906. But by then Harriet had reinvented her self again; writing articles for the “San Francisco Bulletin”, and, in 1903, moving east to New York City to become the theatre critic, feature writer and photojournalist for “Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly”. But who was Harriet Quimby, really?
She wrote the odd and off-beat stories; “A Woman’s Moose Hunt” and “Hints to Stage Struck Girls”, “Household Hints”, the habits of Chinatown, the life of acrobats and comics and the evils of childhood labor. In a decade she wrote more than 250 stories, many under nom de plumes. She even wrote screenplay melodrama shorts for D.W. Griffith’s “Biograph Studios” in New Jersey; “Sunshine Through the Dark” (a blind princess has her sight restored by a poet’s kiss), “His Mother’s Scarf” (Two brothers battle over a girl), “The Broken Cross” (boy finds girl, tramp tricks boy, boy goes back to girl) and “Fisher Folks” (a crippled girl marries a fisherman, and heartache ensues.) None of these were cinema masterpieces, or would make film history. But they paid the bills. And they gave Harriet a taste of the movie business. She even acted in one film for D.W. But who was Harriet Quimby, really? 
She was vivacious, ambitious, alive and enchanting. Bonnie Ginger, a friend and fan wrote, “Miss Quimby has…a low voice and a brilliant smile and she runs strongly to overhung bonnets and antique ornaments…She probably wears this sort of thing because she can do it so well”. Harriet lived in a suite at the Victoria Hotel, and kept a suite for her parents there as well. She bought a powerful yellow sports car (her one ostentatious purchase) and sped around town in it. When she completed her flight training, Harriet wrote that she “…walked over to one of the officials, looked him in the eye, and said ‘Well, I guess I get my license”. She did, Number 37. It was, she said, “Easier than voting”, which was quite a joke since women did not yet have the vote. “Was it worth the effort?”, she would write for Leslies, “Absolutely. I didn’t want to make myself conspicuous, I just wanted to be first, that’s all, and I am honestly and frankly delighted.” Was this who Harriet Quimby really was? 
As for the romance of flight, Harriet was brutally honest in describing the experience to her Lesilie’s readers… “Not only the chassis of the machine, but all the fixtures are slippery with lubricating oil, and when the engine is speeded a shower of this oil is thrown back directly into the driver’s face.” She plotted carefully to be the first woman to fly the channel, but on the morning after her flight word of the Titanic sinking drove her adventure out of the headlines. So she came home to participate in an air show in Boston, and it was there she took a passenger for a ride in her new French built two seat monoplane. 
Her family had owned a rock farm in upper Michigan in the 1870’s, and her mother, Ursula, had supplemented their income by selling “Quimby’s Liver Invigorator” by mail, complete with imaginary testimonials. In the 1880’s the farm went bust and the family moved to the central coast of California, and then in the 1890’s they had moved again to San Francisco. There her father, William, dispensed herbs and twenty-something Harriet invented herself as an “actress”, in the nineteenth century definition of that term, as a beautiful bobble on the arm of men who could afford her. People asked. Her mother said she had been college educated "back east". But no college ever had a record of her attending. Still people wanted to know because she was famous. Her nude portrait even hung in the sophisticated “Bohemian Club”, until it was destroyed in the earthquake of 1906. But by then Harriet had reinvented her self again; writing articles for the “San Francisco Bulletin”, and, in 1903, moving east to New York City to become the theatre critic, feature writer and photojournalist for “Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly”. But who was Harriet Quimby, really?She wrote the odd and off-beat stories; “A Woman’s Moose Hunt” and “Hints to Stage Struck Girls”, “Household Hints”, the habits of Chinatown, the life of acrobats and comics and the evils of childhood labor. In a decade she wrote more than 250 stories, many under nom de plumes. She even wrote screenplay melodrama shorts for D.W. Griffith’s “Biograph Studios” in New Jersey; “Sunshine Through the Dark” (a blind princess has her sight restored by a poet’s kiss), “His Mother’s Scarf” (Two brothers battle over a girl), “The Broken Cross” (boy finds girl, tramp tricks boy, boy goes back to girl) and “Fisher Folks” (a crippled girl marries a fisherman, and heartache ensues.) None of these were cinema masterpieces, or would make film history. But they paid the bills. And they gave Harriet a taste of the movie business. She even acted in one film for D.W. But who was Harriet Quimby, really? She was vivacious, ambitious, alive and enchanting. Bonnie Ginger, a friend and fan wrote, “Miss Quimby has…a low voice and a brilliant smile and she runs strongly to overhung bonnets and antique ornaments…She probably wears this sort of thing because she can do it so well”. Harriet lived in a suite at the Victoria Hotel, and kept a suite for her parents there as well. She bought a powerful yellow sports car (her one ostentatious purchase) and sped around town in it. When she completed her flight training, Harriet wrote that she “…walked over to one of the officials, looked him in the eye, and said ‘Well, I guess I get my license”. She did, Number 37. It was, she said, “Easier than voting”, which was quite a joke since women did not yet have the vote. “Was it worth the effort?”, she would write for Leslies, “Absolutely. I didn’t want to make myself conspicuous, I just wanted to be first, that’s all, and I am honestly and frankly delighted.” Was this who Harriet Quimby really was? As for the romance of flight, Harriet was brutally honest in describing the experience to her Lesilie’s readers… “Not only the chassis of the machine, but all the fixtures are slippery with lubricating oil, and when the engine is speeded a shower of this oil is thrown back directly into the driver’s face.” She plotted carefully to be the first woman to fly the channel, but on the morning after her flight word of the Titanic sinking drove her adventure out of the headlines. So she came home to participate in an air show in Boston, and it was there she took a passenger for a ride in her new French built two seat monoplane. Near the end if their flight for some reason he stood up and leaned forward in his seat (seat belts being frowned upon as too restrictive). The plane hit an air pocket and he was pitched out of the plane. Harriet, unaware of this as he was sitting behind her, suddenly found the planes’ center of gravity had been drastically altered. She fought for control for a few seconds before she too was pitched out of the plane. The horrified crowd watched as the two bodies tumbled into the mudflats of Dorchester Bay, one in a plum colored flying suit. The passenger died of drowning. Harriet died on impact; July 1, 1912. 
The Vin Fiz girl was dead, five months after the plane ended its endeavor. But who had she been, really? 
The Vin Fiz girl was dead, five months after the plane ended its endeavor. But who had she been, really? We will probably never know. She and her mother had concocted so many stories over so many years that they left the real Harriet in their shadow. And that seems to have been the way that the real Harriet Quimby wanted it.
*
TOMORROW; THE WINDY CITY
- 30 -
Part of the problem was that when Cal had taken off from Booklyn he learned to fly just four months before. He had less than 60 hours of flying experience. He knew nothing about navigation by air, and there was no one to teach him. The longest flight so far in the United States had been one from St. Louis to New York City, completed just a month before, by somebody else. In short, Cal was at the very edge of human experience in flight, both physically and mechanically.
It took two days to repair the Vin Fiz after the crash at Middletown (on September 17), and Cal did not get back into the race until the twenty-first of September. His first leg that day was to be a hop to Hancock, New York, (40 miles east of Binghamton). But half way there Cal noticed his radiator had sprung a leak. He kept an eye on the precious fluid dripping from his engine and then, just as he was over the town “…plop! Out flew a defective spark plug” Making the plug adjustable had also made it prone to vibrating itself right out of the engine! Cal suddenly found himself heading for the ground. He managed to steer for an open field, pulling the "Vin Fiz's" nose up at just the last second. After the repair and the excitement, Cal continued on. But while making a normal landing at Binghamton, as Cal would later say, “…There was a snap of breaking timber and my right skid had gone". Again, there was nothing to do but wait for the his service train", the "Vin Fiz Special".
It would prove to be a difficult two weeks, as California receded farther and farther into the distance and in time. The broken skid was easily replaced over night, from the supplies carried on board the “Vin Fiz Special”, the 3 car train that followed and led Cal across the countryside. It carried parts, aviation fuel, a rolling repair shop, Cal’s wife, Mable, his mother Maude (ne Rogers) Sweitzer, his chief mechanic Charley Tailor, his second mechanic, Charles (Wiggie) Wiggen, three assistants, assorted newspaper reporters and photographers. With such lavious support, Cal was airborne again on the morning of the twenty-second. But as he approached a landing at Elmira that afternoon he snagged telegraph wires and damaged the “Vin Fiz" yet again. More repairs were required. 
As Cal traversed the border lands between Pennsylvania and western New York State, he hit a patch of good weather and made up time, at least until he reached Salamanca, New York high up on the Allegheny River. Late that afternoon of September 24th , just after taking off from Salamanca, another spark plug vibrated its way out of the engine. But this time Cal coolly reached behind his back, grabbed the hot plug in his glove and held it in place as he made a perfect landing (with one hand) on the Allegheny Indian reservation outside of Red House, N.Y. Cal screwed the sparkplug firmly back in and with help of a couple of men, turned the plane around for take off. But he couldn’t work up enough speed and had to abort and try again. A second attempt also had to be aborted. Each time the two helpful locals tried to warn Cal that he was aiming at a barbed wire fence, which he evidently did see in the gathering dark. But either because he didn’t understand what they were saying (he was deaf,) or because he was in such a rush, Cal ignored their warnings and the third time proved to be the charm. Cal taxied directly into the barbed wire fench, ripping the fabric covering the wings to shreds, and wrapping the prickly wire around the frame. It would take two days of yet more work to free the “Vin Fiz”.
The next morning, October 2nd, the winds were still gusting and again Cal had a hard time working up speed on his 35 horsepower Wright four cylander engine. Just as he felt his skids leave the ground he realized he was heading for a crowd of people. He yanked the stick to the left, passed under telegraph wires, and bounced his left wing off a bump in the ground. Cal was thrown out of his seat and scrapped his forehead, the left wing of the “Vin Fizz” was crumpled and folded up. Cal was mostly uninjured. And the “lucky” bottle of soda dangling from the strut was unbroken, yet again. But it would take two days to repair the “Vin Fiz”, essentially its third complete rebuild since takeoff.
On October 4th Cal flew to Hammond, Indiana, where he landed just before 6 P.M., on a plowed field on the Jarnecke Farm. He slept that night in the comfort of the Majestic Hotel. But high winds kept him grounded for another two days. 
NEXT TIME; OLD MAN RIVER.
The world’s 49th licensed pilot was a shy, cocky, 6’4” thirty-something, cigar smoking, playboy and adrenaline freak with a hearing loss named Calbraith Perry Rogers. He was a romantic who favored action over words, as proven by the way he met his wife, 20 something Mabel Groves. He saw her drowning, jumped in, pulled her to safety and later married her, despite the hat. He approached flying with the same spontaneity. Having seen his first airplane on a visit to Dayton, Ohio, in June of 1911, Cal took the full Wright Brother’s flight course, all 90 minutes of it. Then he talked his mother Maria, into loaning him $5,000 so he could buy a Wright Model B Flyer “EX”; the "EX" was for experimental – which was a joke because every “aeroplane” was experimental in 1911. But Cal may also have been the origin of the phrase to “take a flyer”, because just two months later, in August, he entered his Wright Flyer in an air show in Chicago and took home third prize, worth $11,285. Not bad: Cal had been a pilot for 60 days and already he had made eleven grand. He suspected there might be money in this flying thing. 
In October of 1910 the Hearst newspaper chain had offered $50,000 to the first pilot to make it across the continent in 30 days or less. The offer was set to expire on October 10th , so with his self supplied confidence, Cal decided to shoot for it. What he needed, as any NASCAR driver can tell you, was a sponsor. He found his ‘sticker sucker’ in a new soft drink, “VIN FIZ”. Allegedly it was grape favored soda water but one critic noted that it tasted like “…a fine blend of river sludge and horse slop” With a product like that the Amour Meat Company, proud owners of Vin Fiz, were going to need a heck of an advertising campaign. Enter Cal and his flying bill board.
First off, from Golden Gate Park, in San Francisco, was motorcycle racer Bob Fowler. There were 10,000 cheering people there at 1:35 P.M., on September 11th to see Bob off. Like Cal, Bob was piloting a Wright “B” Flyer, except his sponsor was the Cole Motor Company, of Indianapolis, Indiana, and they had supplied him with one of their engines. It was more powerful than the Wright engine, but it was also 200 lbs heavier. Plus they were only paying Bob $7,500.00 for the whole trip. Making an average speed of about 55 miles an hour, Bob reached Sacramento in just under 2 hours, and after spending a couple of hours schmoozing with Governor Hiram Johnson, Bob flew on to Auburn; for a total distance on the first day of 126 miles. On September 12th he reached Alta, California, where he crashed into some trees. Bob was now out of the race until repair parts could be rushed out from Frisco.
Second to start was James J. (Jimmy) Ward, pilot's license #52, and previously a jockey. He was flying a Curtis Model D. James took off from Governor’s Island in New York harbor on September 13th. He immediately got lost over New Jersey, and made only twenty miles before crash landing. Then he too had to wait for repairs. The basic tone of the entire race for everybody had thus been set right away; take off, crash, wait for repairs, take off, crash, wait for repairs, and repeat as necessary. It was going to be very hard to finish this race, let alone win it.
Before starting himself, Cal Rogers tied a bottle Vin Fiz to one of his wing struts (white circle), “for luck”. For reality, he tied a pair of crutches to another strut. Before a paying crowd of 2,000, a chorus girl poured a bottle of grape soda over the landing skids and proclaimed, “I dub thee “Vin Fiz Flyer””. Cal actually called his plane “Betsy” but he recognized the value of naming fees even back then. 
That night the reporters claimed that Cal claimed he would be in Chicago in four days. But Cal was shy, because of his bad hearing, the byproduct of a scarlet fever attack in his childhood. So he didn't like talking to reporters because he often barely heard their questions. So the reporters just made up heroic quotes for Cal. They invented more heroic quotes for him the next morning when the "Vin Fiz" hit a tree and ended up in a chicken coop. The bottle of Vin Fiz was miraculaously undamaged but now it was Cal’s turn to wait for repairs.
Two hours later, after avoiding crowds at other landing fields, James touched down on a farm outside of Owego, N.Y. Here James hitched a ride into town, where he ate a quick dinner while a local mechanic refueled his plane. He wanted to make Corning, N.Y. before dark, so he hurried his take off. But as James Ward lifted into the air his engine coughed, his wheels snagged a fence and he was yanked to an abrupt halt. His lower left wing was bent, his wheels destroyed. James Ward was unhurt, physically, but it would take a crew from Curtiss Airplane almost two days to repair the damage. 
Back out in California, bright and early on the September 24th , Bob Fowler tried again to get over the Sierra. This time he got as high as 7,500 feet, as high as Emigrant Gap just below the Donner Pass, before the headwinds again forced him to retreat to Colfax. 
Back in Owego, the repaired James Ward’s Curitss airplane managed to limp into Corning and then on to the village of Addison, N.Y. (above) late on September 25th. He was now 300 miles and 10 long days out of New York City. At this rate it could take him the better part of a year to reach California. Anxious to make up for lost time, at 7:18 A.M. on the twenty-sixth, James took off from Addison. And about five miles west of town he crashed. He had to walk almost the entire way back to town. This was getting really hard.
Later, Jimmy Ward would explain his problems in pragmatic terms. “…it was a plain case of a jinx” he said. And then he went on to prognosticate. “Rodgers is a mighty fine fellow, " said Jimmy, "and I wish him all kinds of luck, but he won't reach the coast within the specified time. To win that $50,000 he's got to complete his journey by Oct. 10. He can't do it. He'll get through all right, but not by that date.” 
Give this skill at foretelling the future I am surprised that James Ward seemed to have no inkling that just seven months later Maude Mae would have him arrested in Chatanooga and charged with bigamy. So did his powers of prophecy tell him that she would then file for an annulment of their marriage. She had discovered that James had never been legally divorced from his first wife. And I would have thought that James could have easily predicted she would find that out, eventually. And she did.
TOMORROW: THE WINDY CITY
