12. Name That Aviatrix – Assembling Knowledge From Many Sources

This image from the San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives is visually arresting but lacks details that would let someone know more about this aviatrix. It’s in a collection that has a few images about the history of women in aviation. But who are they?

SmithTrudy_006 Dorothy Worwick

The file name implies that this woman’s name may be ‘Dorothy Worwick’ but searching under that name didn’t get any results.

Similarly this historical photo from the same small collection clearly shows flying legend Amelia Earhart, but who are those other women?

SmithTrudy_004

Though two different avenues, we got confirmation of everyone’s identity. Google Lens, interestingly enough, could find many other pictures of various people + planes + dogs one of which showed a different view of the same woman and her dog, perhaps by the same photographer, and also on Flickr!

From there, we have her name and that unlocks the door to a website with many other photos of early aviators, possibly from the same photographer, possibly not.

The women in the other group photo were identified by a Flickr user, TVL1970. They identified not just the people in the photograph but linked a YouTube video of the event they were at, from 1929!

I was personally curious about the last woman in the row, a woman in trousers. Her name, identified by TVL1970, was Pancho Barnes. Thanks to SDASM putting tag son their photos, a single click got me twenty-one more photos of this fascinating woman.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/panchobarnes

Barnes, Florence Pancho

18_000110 SDASM Image

Barnes, Florence Pancho

Pancho Barnes with Female aviators