Early Life and Early Career
A historical marker has been erected near the remains of the farmhouse in Arcadia, Michigan where Quimby was born. After her family moved to San Francisco, California in the early 1900s, she became a journalist. She moved to New York City in 1903 to work as a theater critic for Leslie's Illustrated Weekly and more than 250 of her articles were published over a nine-year period.
She became interested in aviation in 1910, when she attended the Belmont Park International Aviation Tournament on Long Island, New York and met John Moisant, a well-known American aviator and operator of a flight school, and his sister Matilde Moisant.
On August 1, 1911, Quimby took her pilot's test and became the first U.S. woman to earn an Aero Club of America aviator's certificate. Matilde Moisant soon followed and became the nation's second certified female pilot.
Read more about this topic: Harriet Quimby
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