4 Marjorie Stinson – flying instructor of the Royal Canadian Flying Corps

Marjorie Stinson (1896-1975) and her sister Kathrine came from a family of aviators. Her brother Edward Stinson was the founder of the Stinson Aircraft Company and her Sister Kathrine attracted her to aviation. She was the ninth women who received a flying license in the United States. While her sister achieved record results in long distance flights, Marjorie tried to be a pilot for the airmail with little success. 1915 she was the first female to join the U.S. Aviation Reserve Corps and in her flying school, founded in 1916, over 100 cadets of the Royal Canadian Air Corps have been trained, who enlisted voluntarily in the British Royal Flying Corps.
Furthermore she appeared in flight shows in Canada and Japan since 1916. Watched by an impressed audience she threw fake bombs in trenches an performed the same maneuvers as the pilots on the western front. The Stinsons remained absent from the War – even though in 1917 they volunteered to the flying corps (as the female pilot Ruth Law did) but weren’t accepted despite their qualification. The large number of male pilots who entered commercial aviation after the end of the war made the economic survival of the Stinsons difficult. After she had been infected with tuberculosis Katherine had to quit flying, while Marjorie stayed in the service of the military – and worked as a draftsman for the U.S. Navy until 1945.
 
Questions:
1) Why did the military had such huge reservations concerning experienced female pilots, even though they were capable to perform the same maneuvers? Is this a problem of the First World War?
2) Compare the verdict from the beginning of the 21th Century that opened the career of fighter pilots to women with the situation in the First World War. What advantages and disadvantages can you name concerning the military service of women?

Literature:
Lebow, Eilen F.: Before Amelia. Women Pilots in the Early Days of Aviation . Dulles (Virginia) 2002, p. 233ff.
Marck, Bernard: Frauen erobern die Lüfte, Paris 2009, p. 47ff. 
Probst, Ernst: Königinnen der Lüfte . Biographien berühmter Fliegerinnen. Probst, Mainz 2002, p. 383ff.

Compiled by Christian Taube.