BERNETTA ADAMS MILLER 1886-1972

 

BURNETTA MILLER Photo from The Pioneers website Courtesy of Dr. Russell Naughton

 

EARLY BIRDS REUNION, 1964 Miss Bernetta Adams Miller, of New Hope, Pennyslvania, learned to fly on a Moisant Bleriot type monoplane equipped with a Gnome motor, at Garden City, Long Island, N. Y. FAI Certificate #173 was issued to her on Spetember 25, 1912. She served with the AEF in France, with the YMCA as a Canteen Worker at the front, with the 82nd Division and received the Croix de Guerre and American citations. Miss Miller later had extensive experience in the educational field, having served on the staff of Dickinson College, Colby College, the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton and for seven years between 1926 and the summer of 1933, was Bursar at The American College for Girls in Istanbul, Turkey. She was sent to College Park, Maryland by the Moisant Company to demonstrate the Moisant Bleriot- type monoplane to the U. S. Army Signal Corps. From The Early Birds of Aviation CHIRP December 1964, Number 71

 

ONLINE RESOURCES      If you search for "Bernetta Miller +aviation", using the Google search engine, (10-16-03), you will find about 22 links. Among the most helpful are the following.

BERNETTA MILLER BIOGRAPHY      You will find a fine biography, with several photos of Bernetta, on the National Air and Space website of the Smithsonian Institution. You can access the site by clicking on the title above.

BERNETTA MILLER      You will find a fine biography, with several photos of Bernetta, on The Pioneers website of Dr. Russell Naughton. You can access the site by clicking on the title above.

You may want to follow some of the other links, but you will find that they only brief glimpses of her career.

 

RECOMMENDED READING

BEFORE AMELIA Women Pilots in the Early Days of Aviation   Eileen F. Lebow   Product Details Cloth: 315 pages; 6x9 inches List Price: $26.95 Your Price: $21.56 ISBN: 1574884824

Description: Before Amelia is the remarkable story of the world's women pioneer aviators who braved the skies during the early days of flight. While most books have only examined the women aviators of a single country, Eileen Lebow looks at an international spectrum of pilots and their influence on each other. The story begins with Raymonde de Laroche, a French woman, who became the first licensed female pilot in 1909. De Laroche, Lydia Zvereva, Melli Beese, Hilda Hewlitt, Harriet Quimby, and the other women pilots profiled here rose above contemporary gender stereotypes and proved their ability to fly the temperamental heavier-than-air contraptions of the day. Lebow provides excellent descriptions of the dangers and challenges of early flight. Crashes and broken bones were common, and many of the pioneers lost their lives. But these women were adventurers at heart. In an era when women's professional options were severely limited and the mere sight of ladies wearing pants caused a sensation, these women succeeded as pilots, flight instructors, airplane designers, stunt performers, and promoters. This book fills a large void in the history of the first two decades of flight About The Author: Eileen F. Lebow is an author and former teacher. Her previous books include Cal Rodgers and the Vin Fiz: The First Transcontinental Flight and A Grandstand Seat: The Army Balloon Corps in World War I. She lives in Washington, D.C.      This book has almost six pages of information on Bernetta Miller and includes a nice photo of her with her plane. The coverage of the many other pioneer women aviators is excellent. It deserves to be in the library of anyone who is interested in these remarkable women. For more information and to order, go to the publisher's homepage by clicking on: Brassey's Inc.

 

Bernetta Adams Miller, the fifth woman in the United States to receive a pilot's license, just nine years after the first successful flight of the Wright Brothers, died peacefully in her sleep November 30, 1972. She had broken her hop from a fall a few days before, and was in the hospital at Doylestown, Pa.      Miss Miller was awarded FAI Certificate No. 173 September 25, 1912. In World War I she served with the Woman's Overseas Service League and received the Croix de Guerre from the French Government. From The Early Birds of Aviation CHIRP January 1973, Number 79

 

Back