Jacqueline Cochran was a pioneer aviator and, by 1938, was considered the best female pilot in the U.S.
Photo Courtesy
Smithsonian Institute
Rumored to have learned how to fly an aircraft in just three weeks, Cochran was the first woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic. In September 1940, she wrote a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt proposing a women’s flying division for the Army Air Force, thus founding Women Airforce Service Pilots.
Cochran supervised the training of hundreds of women pilots and had an affinity for business.
Wings, her line of cosmetics, was widely endorsed, and she flew around the country to promote her products.
She became the first woman to break the sound barrier and, to this day, holds more distance and speed records than any pilot, male or female.
— Taylor Jensen
