#5: Marvel Crosson should be famous

I first wrote about Marvel Crosson in 2016 for the Anchorage Daily News. Ever since, I have thought about her death and how a lack of investigation resulted in absurd conclusions about the cause of her 1929 crash.

Born in 1900, Marvel and her brother, Alaska bush pilot Joe Crosson, convinced their parents to move the family to San Diego after they were able to fly there while on a family trip. They soon salvaged an N-9 WWI aircraft (the military answer to the Curtiss Jenny) and rebuilt it while Marvel worked to pay for Joe’s flying lessons. He was checked out in 1924, then taught her to fly in the N-9 and she was checked out in 1925. In 1926 Joe moved to Alaska for a job with the Fairbanks Airplane Company. Marvel stayed in California, pursuing her own career and often assisting Joe in obtaining aircraft parts that were nearly impossible to find in Alaska. In 1927 she moved to Fairbanks after Joe’s urging and became the first licensed female pilot in the Territory (there were less than 2,500 licensed pilots in the U.S. at that time).

She flew some commercial flights and then in August 1928 went with Joe to pick up a Lockheed Vega in Los Angeles and fly it to New York where he shipped out with it for the Wilkins-Hearst Expedition to Antarctica. Marvel returned to San Diego and obtained corporate sponsorship to pursue altitude records while also flying in regional air races. In May 1929 she set a new women’s altitude record reaching 23,996 feet and then, on August 18, she was one of twenty competitors for the first transcontinental Women’s Air Derby.

The Air Derby is famous today mostly because it was the first air race to highlight the achievements of women and because Amelia Earhart was in it. (She did not win nor was she expected to.)

Marvel was the favorite and flew a Travel Air Speedwing Chaparral which had the fastest airspeed of any aircraft in the competition: 160kts. There were a lot of concerns about sabotage throughout the race, especially after the first overnight in San Bernadino where the airport was unsecured and tens of thousands of people crowded the runway. (They actually had to land nearby on a field because of the crowds.) The next day, Claire Fahy made an emergency landing in Calexico and announced that acid had eaten through critical wing wires and compromised her aircraft. Bobby Trout was forced down with engine trouble near Algodones, Mexico, and claimed her "altitude meter" was tampered with. Thea Rasche was forced down near Holtville, California, and said foreign matter was found in her gas tank clogging the lines. Ruth Elder told reporters that the ground crew in San Bernardino put oil in her gas tank by mistake(?), delaying her departure.

You get the drift. There were problems with security, and likely some destructive actions taken by individuals who felt women should not fly. What happened to Marvel may have been due to sabotage or was a mechanical failure with the aircraft itself. Louise Thaden, who won the derby, was flying a different model Travel Air and suffered carbon monoxide poisoning enroute to Santa Monica for the race start. Her cockpit was quickly redesigned taking care of the problem. It could have been an issue for Marvel as well. We will never know however, because no one bothered to seriously inspect the wreckage.

Marvel crashed near Yuma, Arizona, on the second day. She came in low but apparently controlled before impacting with the ground; her body was found 100 feet from the wreckage, with its parachute on. The ripchord was pulled but the chute did not fully open. The perception was that she was too low when she bailed out to be saved by the parachute. News reports also stated she vomited on her flight suit which supported the idea that she suffered carbon monoxide poisoning.

In 1929, aviation regulation still fell under the Department of Commerce. (This had to do with airplanes flying the U.S. Mail.) There were very few inspectors in the Aeronautics Branch and they covered everything from approving aircraft design and engines to pilot licensing and accidents. (The 1931 death of Univ of Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne changed everything about aviation accident investigation.) The inspector assigned to Marvel’s crash, JW Noel, looked at the wreckage and, as reported at the time, announced he saw “nothing that would indicate either motor or plane failed before striking the ground”. He determined Marvel “became suddenly ill from the intense heat and lost control of the plane.” The local coroner’s jury looked at Marvel’s body and determined she died in the crash. (I’m not kidding, it reads like they just walked in, looked, and walked out.) No one tested her blood for carbon monoxide poisoning which could have been done even in 1929.

It’s bad enough that the official conclusion was that Marvel fainted and crashed, but hold on - it gets even worse.

In 1926 Dr. Louis Hopewell Bauer founded aviation medicine as part of the Aeronautics Branch of the Dept of Commerce and in 1930 he became the editor of the Journal of Aviation Medicine (now called the Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance Journal). He held that position for the next 25 years. Here is what Bauer said in 1930 about women pilots:

(This slide comes from a 2019 FAA presentation on the history of women aviators. That picture is of Marvel Crosson.)

Bauer’s published thoughts on the issue included: “Unquestionably, it [a women’s menstrual period] is the cause of a certain numbers of crashes. We found after the air races a year ago that in connection with one of the women who was killed it happened during her menstrual cycle.”

So, if you sit around wondering why women didn’t fly as much during the golden age of aviation as men did, or why they never seemed to pursue jobs in commercial aviation like men, well, consider the men who were deciding if women were fit to fly. Marvel Crosson, without a doubt one of the most accomplished female pilots of her era, either fainted or had cramps and that is why she crashed. It was decades before anyone revisited Marvel’s accident and considered carbon monoxide poisoning as the cause. In the meantime, Earhart became easily the most famous pilot in American history for, of course, getting lost. (I am not a big Earhart fan.)

As for Louise Thaden, (who won the 1929 derby), she went on to win the 1936 Bendix Trophy Race - the first time women were permitted to compete against men. Along with co-pilot Blanche Noyes, she set a new world record flying LA - NY; the second finisher was also a woman. I doubt you have ever heard of Louise Thaden.

If you have teenagers interested in aviation history, Steve Sheinken has a great book on the 1929 Women’s Air Derby: BORN TO FLY. (I recommend all of his books for kids and teens - he’s an excellent nonfiction author who doesn’t write “down” to his readers.) Of course they put Amelia Earhart on the cover of Steve’s book, but after reading my article on Marvel, he told me he successfully fought to get her on the cover, too!

Marvel has significant Alaskan aviation history, which is how I came to her story, (Joe is everywhere in Alaska aviation), but I wish she and the other participants of the 1929 race were more well known. They prove that women flying in that era were not uncommon, and when you see how many of them there were, and how good they were at it, it’s fair to ask just how much men like JW Noel and LH Bauer negatively impacted the advancement of women in aviation.

To my knowledge, no one ever asked Bauer how a menstrual period could cause a woman to crash an airplane. A scientific answer was unnecessary of course; it just took a man in a position of power to say it for it to be true.

Marvel Crosson, 1900-1929.

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