My original article about the difficult road women wanting to become air traffic controllers (and commercial pilots…) faced in the early days seems to have struck a chord in several parts of the world. First there was Aminda’s lovely contribution from the Philippines then Evon Russel contacted me on Facebook with a link to an article at the Wings Over Kansas site which talks about whet they claimed was the first American female controller, Mary Van Scyoc.
Evon wrote something very interesting. She said that her mom, Marian McKenna Russel was also a controller in the 40s and that she had said to her that she believed she preceded Mary by a little bit. Unfortunately Marian has departed to the world where airports do not know delays and so it is not easy to verify the claim.
I did decide to follow this up and sent an email to the Kansas Aviation Museum where Mary van Scyoc could be reached according to the article quoted above. A day later while I was on the motorway in France the director of the museum called and explained that Mary was very sick and it is not possible to interview her any more. He did promise that the museum’s historians will help with my quest…
On learning Mary’s fate, Evon again helped by pointing me to a book Mary had written, entitled “A Lifetime of Chances”. She said the book should shed some light on Mary’s life as a controller.
I checked Amazon Germany but they were not aware of this title. Luckily, Amazon in the US did and I ordered a copy what I have just learned was mailed to me yesterday! I can hardly wait to get my hands on the book. Normal mail takes about 2-3 weeks to arrive here so I will need to exercise a little patience but when it arrives, I will throw away everything else and read it for sure. Stay tuned for a review of the book as a first step afterwards.
Evon has also promised to look around at home to see if she can find some of her mom’s ATC related stuff… It would be lovely if I could write about those gems!
So, what is this curious series of events telling us? Most importantly that time is flying (as if we needed to be reminded about that…) and a lot of the early memories of women in air traffic control will go unrecorded unless we get together, write up and share what is still to be found scattered around the aviation landscape. This would be a great pity because the particular perspective of the early pioneers entering that bastion of male exclusivity is something that you cannot compare to anything else. That perspective can form the basis for the more recent stories and show us how the world has changed… hopefully for the better when it comes for equal opportunities for women.
So ladies, start writing or look around for tidbits of information on the subject. Everything is welcome and I very much hope that Roger-Wilco’s new category, Women in Air Traffic Control, will become the premier clearing house for information on the subject.
I think it is misguided to put too much emphasis on who ‘exactly’ was the first female employed in the operation of guiding planes safely to earth. The important point is that a few, brave women entered a field that was a) quite new and b) mostly inhabited by men. They were heroes not as much with regard to aviation as they were in the arena of equal rights for women.
I’ve always been told that Mary Chance VanScyoc was the first female control tower operator. I have her book A Lifetime of Chances’ sitting before me as I write. She left from Wichita on June 1, 1042 to go to Denver and work at the airport there for the Airway Traffic Control Center. If that makes her the first then so be it. I really think, however, that it is counter-productive to get into a contest about who, exactly was first. This does nothing to advance aviation, advance the quest of women to obtain equal rights, or for the women in question. The only thing that is does is satisfy the egos of the decedents who seem to have an over-amped attachment to being first.
I recommend we put this to rest now and simply appreciate the achievements of these pioneering women as a whole and collectively.
It has certainly not been my intention to approach this subject as a contest about who was or was not first. It just so happened that people who had read the article came back with the information they had and this was shared with no intention to focus on who was first as such.
On the oher hand, we do see that a certain importance is being attached to who was first in this or that, not in order to claim fame but simply to view history as it is being told to-day.
The new category on Roger-Wilco is there to provide a place for women air traffic controllers to tell their story if they feel that it might be of interest to their peers and others in the world. From the blog’s perspective their is no focus on who was first or who was second. We would juts like to have our readers and ourselves enjoy the stories.
Steve,
I happened upon this blog today and am quite pleased to see a focus on women pioneers of the, once exclusively-male, field of Air Traffic Control.
Proudly, I also count myself among those pioneer women and later this weekend – when time permits – will add a note or two about my own experience as a female ATC beginning in 1969, ending in 1985.
So excited about this blog I had to at least send this short note.
Regards,
B. Marie
Marie,
I am very happy that you like this category of the blog and I hope you will find other pieces also that are of interest. I would be more than happy to post your contributions also. Of course you can use this comment facility but a real post works better. If you click on “Contribute” at the top of the blog page, you are taken to a page that describes in detail how you can add a full post of any size. It is really very simple and we do all the editorial work. Looking forward to your contribution,
Steve