Take Flight with an Aviation Themed Family Day on March 15th!

Join us in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building on Saturday, March 15, 2025 to celebrate Women’s History Month with a focus on pioneering female aviators.

Activities during the drop-in program (10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.) are primarily designed for kids and their families, but all ages are welcome. The event is free of charge, although you will need free building passes. A limited number of walk-up tickets are available on the day, but registering in advance is the best way to guarantee entry at your preferred time. Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at 202-707-6363 or by emailing [email protected].

During March’s Family Day we invite you to test out your aviation and engineering skills. Design and decorate a paper airplane, and then see how far it will fly in our runway test zone. Make notes on your own engineer’s journal worksheet as you try different materials, weights, and folding methods. As you create your paper airplanes, learn about some of the record-breaking female aviators represented in the Library’s collections, and admire space-bound poetry from Poet Laureate Ada Limón. Also, meet staff from the African and Middle Eastern Division and learn about trailblazing women represented in their collections.

Join in from Home

If you can’t make it to Family Day in person, you can still join in on the fun! There are many places to learn about pioneering aviators in the Library’s collections, from oral histories to photographs and newspaper articles. Keep reading to explore some of the many resources available.

The Library has a number of guides to help researchers dig deep into the newspapers preserved in Chronicling America. These resources share the early history of flight. Check out the guides on Harriet Quimby (the first woman to receive a pilot’s license), Katherine Stinson (an early stunt pilot), Bessie Coleman (the first African American to earn an international pilot’s license) and Nell Richardson and Alice Burke (the “Golden Flyer Suffragettes”). A research guide on Amelia Earhart also includes newspaper resources. For more general information, check out the research guides on Early Women in Aviation, competitive Stunt Fliers, and the launch of Airmail.

The Library also has a strong collection covering female aviators during World War II. Listen to oral histories in the Veterans History Project Collection  “The WASP: First in Flight” to hear the experiences of Women Airforce Service Pilots in their own words. The WASP was formed in 1943, combining two civilian organizations for women, the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) led by Nancy Harkness Love and the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) led by Jackie Cochran. WASP civilian pilots flew new planes from factories to Air Force bases, towed targets for gunnery practice, tested aircraft, and served as instrument instructors. You can learn about one woman’s experience in the Veterans on the Homefront: A Wasp Born to Fly blog post and about artists and aviators during World War II from this Veterans Day post.

Women didn’t just fly planes during World War II, they also built and maintained them. You can discover more about their vital work in research guides such as “Rosie the Riveter: Working Women and World War II.” The Prints & Photographs Division holds a treasure trove of images. Prints & Photographs librarians suggest using the search terms FSA/OWI classification number: 339157 and “world war, 1939 – 1945 women employment” to find additional images of female war workers.

Before you wrap up your research journey, make a brief visit to the stars with resources on astronauts. You might want to read this blog on the “Mercury 13,” or watch this recorded lecture about the women of NASA. Most recently, NASA and the Library collaborated to send Ada Limón’s poetry into space. Learn more about the initiative in this blog post.

We look forward to testing paper airplanes with you on March 15, if you’re in the neighborhood! Wherever you are, we hope you these resources inspire you to explore the collections and share your discoveries with others.