Rather than looking at the people, events, and machines of aviation history in great detail, and focusing instead on a phenomenon that was almost religious in nature during the first quarter of the twentieth century; a “winged gospel,” as historian Joseph Corn calls it emerged in the United States.    In its time, this “gospel” carried “the messianic expectations” and progressive ideals of two generations of Americans, who looked to aviation as the cure for the historic inequities inherent in all societies.

By using universally held interpretations relating to flight, it is easy to understand how early twentieth-century Americans perceived the wonder of flight as something no less than a “miracle.”  From about 1910 to the 1930s, its advocates nation-wide saw in it, a “grand design for future life.”

Flight has universally and commonly been associated with things angelic or god-like in quality by different peoples worldwide throughout history; such ancient notions were readily translated to aviation in the 1920s.  This perception was destroyed by the realities of World War II, however, and by 1950, the magic of aviation was gone; when the airplane was reduced from an pseudo-religious icon to “simply a weapon or a vehicle,” the mystique and wonder of flying ceased, and the winged gospel was no more.
 

The "Miracle” of the Airplane.

Beginning with Orville and Wilbur Wright and their Flyer, the American public embraced the declaration that flying was miraculous.  Nevertheless there were persistent doubters; after all, flying was impossible as far as most Americans were concerned.

Between the time of their first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in December 1903 and continuing through 1905, most people remained incredulous upon hearing the accounts of the Wright brothers’ flights, declaring them as a “fantasy” on the part of newspaper writers (note the widely-held distrust of the media even back then!).  By 1909, after many public demonstrations by the Wright brothers, et al., the “miracle” of flight was widely accepted, and the following year, the brothers took on students.  For the next decade, a series of flying “firsts” were attempted and accomplished, with corporate sponsors offering large rewards for those persons who achieved success over various challenges of flight.

By 1912, airplanes were first used in combat, as part of the Balkan War, but despite this new role, airplanes still maintained their angelic status in the United States; “air war was [perceived] as purer than ground war;” its warriors were nothing short of being noble and daring knights of the sky.  After World War I, Hollywood glorified the presumed knightly status of combat pilots in its many “aerial epics.” The public’s enthusiasm for aviation as “air mindedness,” an aspect of American society that was encouraged by model plane building and barnstorming, especially in rural regions, swept the nation.

Charles Augustus Lindbergh (1902–74) began his spectacular career as a barnstormer, later to become the first pilot to successfully cross the Atlantic non-stop from New York to Paris on May 21, 1927, a feat that took a total of 33.5 hours to accomplish.  Other “firsts” included a non-stop flight across the United States, taking 27 hours to complete.  Pilots like Lindbergh, achieved hero status in American culture; clergy, lay people, and military men alike, all claimed that there was a divine hand in the creation of the airplane.

Such advocates of the winged gospel, according to proudly proclaimed prophecies about the future of humankind (discussed below), based their ideas on notions about the miracle of flight that they had recently harnessed.
 

The “prophets” of America’s future through aviation predicted a democratic, utopian image of the future, without discrimination.  Indeed, women held relatively equal status to men in the field of aviation, and several women held title for having achieved “firsts” in flight.  Women excelled in air races as well.  Aviation did not, however, change the subordinate status of non-white races.  African-Americans, for example, were seen by the prophets of the winged gospel as maintaining their lesser social status by serving whites as their pilots, transporting them to their destinations.  According to the prophets of the winged gospel, nations would be brought together through aviation, war would end, and a “healthier and sturdier race” of people would emerge, all for the great benefit of human kind.  One of these “prophets,” Alfred W. Lawson, predicted that by 10,000 AD, humans would evolve into “Alti-man,” having by that time adapted to flying.   Contrary to such Americans predictions, British observers (including the writer H.G. Wells) held great anxiety about the airplane, correctly predicting its importance to warfare, and its danger to the stability of the state.
 

Aviation evangelization:  selling the image of flight

Advocates of aviation actively sold the “holy cause” of flight though gimmicks and advertising; many pilots thought of themselves as missionaries, in their attempt to get people to experience flight for themselves.  Elaborate rituals often accompanied fairs and other aviation events (for example: spreading “sacred sand” from the Kitty Hawk dunes on runways – such as before the take-off and landing of the first commercial fight across the North American continent).

With the opening of World War II, these rituals ceased, and the harsh reality of the destructive role that warplanes played broke their earlier image “as a messiah, as an unalloyed blessing and panacea” for the ills of the world; military aircraft dominated the images of aviation.  By 1949, the annual Kitty Hawk ceremonies and aerial displays (circling over important shrines where wreaths had been placed) were performed by military airplanes only, having completely replaced civilian aircraft.
 

Women in aviation

Women emerged early on the flight scene, and participated alongside men as aviation pioneers.  During the 1920s through the 1930s, one out of every thirteen pilots was a woman, more so than other shared fields of pursuit.  Women played an important part in spreading the enchantment of flight to the American public.  In addition to successfully competing with men in aerial races where they often won, women also rose to ranks of leadership and management in commercial aviation, where they worked as flight instructors, salespeople, stunt pilots, test pilots, and aerial photographers.  Aviation interests in turn valued women for their traditional domestic image; the fact that they were present in the field offset the public’s view of the “intrepid birdman stereotype” who risk-taking and daring verged on folly.

Moreover, the budding commercial air travel industry wanted to attract a fearful public to this new mode of transportation, and women were able to do that, based on general public perceptions about women.  Female pilots (especially Amelia Earhart (the first woman to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean non-stop in 1932 and the first person ever to fly solo from Hawaii to California in 1935) and Anne Spencer Morrow Lindbergh,  the wife of Charles Lindbergh) complied to the demands of the industry, and “posited a kind of aerial domesticity seemingly at odds with their daring work” (Corn, 1983: p. 81).  In the end, however, the success of women in conveying that message proved to be their downfall;

“[o]nce flying became thinkable, once Americans . . .felt comfortable about using them, . . .[women] were no longer in demand . . .[and] in effect had worked themselves out of a job” (Corn, 1983: p. 88).

During the 1930s and 1940s, airlines began hiring women as “stewardesses,” preferring nurses for the jobs, again emphasizing a domestic role for women in aviation.  Using nurses backfired however, as the public figured that the presence of nurses on flights was an indication that flying was indeed dangerous.
 

The prospects of an airplane for everyone

Helicopters emerged, and airplanes were made simpler with the idea that either mode of transportation would become available to everyone (this idea had mostly a rural appeal).  Car manufacturer Henry Ford promoted his “air lizzies,” the airplane version of the Model T automobile.

Henry Ford (1863–1947) built his first automobile in 1892 and launched the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899.  Caught in a dispute with his partners, he formed the Ford Motor Company in 1903 and innovated the super-efficient conveyor belt and assembly line mode of production, involving workers using specialized, simple repetitive functions to yield rapidly-produced, inexpensive cars.  Ford introduced the Model T in 1908, which was replaced by the Model A in 1928 (after selling more than 15 million “T”s).

Hybrid car-planes were also designed to meet the needs of business travelers.  In 1945, immediately after the end of World War II, personal airplane ownership skyrocketed.  Nevertheless, interest in individual air flight soon waned.  Three years later, in 1948, private airplane ownership was only one-eighth of what it had been in 1945, as aviation lost its popular cultural meanings.
 

The hoped-for promise of aviation: a lost cause

In post-World War II America, model airplane clubs and “Junior Birdmen” groups formed as a vestige of the fading winged gospel.  Nevertheless, the magic of aviation had a continuing impact on education, by tying aviation to the study of cultural geography and allowing girls access to shop classes not offered to them in the public schools.  But, the image of the airplane in American culture had changed; whereas the figure of a child holding a model airplane had, in an earlier decade, been a portent of future progress through aviation, in 1950, it was simply “a kid with a toy.”

To the American people of the first one-half of the twentieth century, aviation was all-important.  This importance reflected the mythological and heroic status that flying universally held in human culture throughout history.  The fact that humans could fly somehow meant that they could accomplish great feats for the benefit of everyone.
 

Aviation lost its magic and wonder in the post-modern world of the United States when it was finally understood that an airplane was simply one of two things only; it was either a weapon or a vehicle, and nothing more.