Clara Adams

Clara Adams (1884 – 1971), known as the "first flighter," was an aviatrix who set a variety of flying records. She was the first passenger on round trip commercial flights across the Pacific, between New York and Bermuda, and between San Francisco and New Zealand. However, she is remembered primarily as the first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a ticketed passenger aboard the Graf Zeppelin on its return flight from New York in October 1928. Grace Marguerite Hay Drummond-Hay was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, on the outbound flight of the same journey, as a journalist. Adams also was the first woman to fly aboard the Dornier DO-X between New York and Rio de Janeiro and she was one of 11 women aboard the maiden flight of the Hindenburg.[1] Despite the end of public interest of airships due to the Hindenburg disaster, Adams was still eager to fly on airships.

In 1939 Clara Adams set the unofficial record for passenger travel around the world via commercial air travel. The trip lasted sixteen days nineteen hours and covered 24, 609 miles.[2] She departed from New York on the first flight of the Dixie Clipper across the Atlantic. According to a New York Times reporter, she returned to Newark, NJ, "clad in a tan-plaid tailored suit, made of Chinese silk, purchased in Hong Kong, and wearing a tan Panama straw hat, purchased in Rangoon."[3] She described the journey around the globe as "beautiful beyond description and sublime beyond the most vivid imagination of the human mind."[3]

Although Adams was not a pilot her activities did much to popularize air travel. Her journey around the world she said had demonstrated that air travel was "perfectly safe."[4] She corresponded with the famous female pilot Alys McKey Bryant.

References

  1. ↑ UT Dallas collection of Mrs. Adam's estate, with biographical details
  2. ↑ Ganson, Barbara (2014). Texas Takes Wing : A Century of Flight in the Lone Star State. Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. 266–267. ISBN 9780292754089.
  3. 1 2 Oakes, Claudia M. (1985). United States Women in Aviation 1930-1939 (PDF). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. p. 32.
  4. ↑ World, Times Wide (1939-07-16). "Woman Air Passenger Sets Mark In 16-Day Flight Around World; Mrs. Clara Adams, Guest of Honor at Fair, Tells Story of Trip That Cost Her $1,935 --Plans New Zealand Hop". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-04-30.

External links

Archival holdings

The following collections contain documents relating to Clara Adams:


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