Elder's note to "Mother" Tusch echoes the appeal of female aviators from the era to be treated just as the "boys." Mary Elizabeth Tusch was a combination aeronautical saint and guardian angel, primarily to military airmen in the interwar years. Her Berkeley, California cottage was a shrine that inspired "pilgrimages" of aviators who would leave relics of their aeronautical feats. Elder's entreaty to be Tusch's "little girl" is tinged with the frustration that she and her peers experienced in trying to enter the male dominated aeronautical community.
Caption:
Elder's note to "Mother" Tusch echoes the appeal of female aviators from the era to be treated just as the "boys."
Type: Photograph
Credit: National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
