Ruth Law Oliver

She was born Ruth Bancroft Law on May 21, 1887, to Sarah Bancroft Breed and Frederick Henry Law in Lynn, Massachusetts.^[1]

She was inspired to take up flying by her brother, parachutist and pioneer movie stuntman Rodman Law,^[4] with whom she challenged herself to physically keep up during their childhood.^[5]

She was instructed by Harry Atwood and Arch Freeman at Atwood Park in Saugus, Massachusetts,^[6] having been refused lessons by Orville Wright because, according to Law, he believed that women weren't mechanically inclined, but this only made her more determined, later saying "The surest way to make me do a thing is to tell me I can't do it." She was an adept mechanic.^[5] She received her pilot's license in November 1912, and in 1915 gave a demonstration of aerobatics at Daytona Beach, Florida, before a large crowd. She announced that she was going to "loop the loop" for the first time, and proceeded to do so, not once but twice, to the consternation of her husband, Charles Oliver.

 

In 1915 she participated in a publicity stunt for baseball's Grapefruit League. Dodgers manager Wilbert Robinson and outfielder Casey Stengel heard that Law had been dropping golf balls from the sky for a nearby golf course and decided that a similar stunt would be good for publicity. On March 13, 1915, Law flew with Stengel on board (though, later, Stengel would recant his role in the tale, saying it was team trainer) ready to drop the baseball to Robinson's waiting mitt. But instead of a baseball, a grapefruit was flung out the plane, either as a prank or by mistake. The fruit shattered on impact, covering Robinson in the "ooze and goo" and making him believe he was injured and covered with blood. Fortunately, this was not the case, but a popular legend is that this incident was how the Grapefruit League earned its nickname.^[7]

In the spring of 1916, she took part in an altitude competition, twice narrowly coming in second to male fliers. She was furious, determined to set a record that would stand against men as well as women.

Her greatest feat took place on 19 November 1916, when she broke the existing cross-America flight air speed record of 452 miles (727 km) set by Victor Carlstrom by flying nonstop from Chicago to New York State, a distance of 590 miles (950 km). The next day she flew on to New York City. Flying over Manhattan, her fuel cut out, but she glided to a safe landing on Governors Island and was met by United States Army Captain Henry "Hap" Arnold (who changed her spark plugs in the Curtiss pusher),^[8] who would one day become Commanding General of the United States Army Air Forces. President Woodrow Wilson attended a dinner held in her honor on December 2, 1916.

In January 1917, at the invitation of The New York World newspaper, Law and her husband steamed to France so she could assess the state of French aviation during World War I. According to her 1960 interview with Columbia University, the paper also wanted her to "bring back what I considered to be the best plane that they had." The United States, she said, was "being criticized for lagging [in aerial equipment]--this was 1916, before we got into the war. . . . So the New York World [gave] me $10,000 to spend for this plane." She purchased a Morane aircraft, brought it back to the States, and started flying it at a "little airfield outside of Boston" (page 31).

 

After the United States entered World War I in April 1917, she campaigned unsuccessfully for women to be allowed to fly military aircraft. Stung by her rejection, she wrote an article entitled "Let Women Fly!" in the magazine Air Travel, where she argued that success in aviation should prove a woman's fitness for work in that field.

After the war, she continued to set records. After Raymonde de Laroche of France set a women's altitude record of nearly 13,000 feet (4,000 m) on 7 June 1919,^[9] She broke Laroche's record on 10 June, flying to 14,700 feet (4,500 m).^[9] Laroche, in turn, broke Oliver's record on 12 June, flying to a height of 15,748 feet (4,800 m).^[10]

On a morning in 1922, Law woke up to read with surprise an announcement of her retirement in the newspaper; her husband had tired of her dangerous job and had taken that step to end her flying career,^[11] and she acquiesced to his demand.

She attributed a 1932 nervous breakdown to the lack of flying, having settled down in Los Angeles, spending her days gardening.^[5]

In 1948, Law attended a Smithsonian event in Washington, D.C. celebrating the donation of the Wright brothers' Kitty Hawk plane, despite Orville Wright's earlier refusal to teach her. Notwithstanding her accomplished career in aviation, she traveled by train.^[5]

She died on December 1, 1970, in San Francisco.^[1] She is buried in Pine Grove Cemetery in Lynn, Massachusetts.

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  Law at Daytona Beach with her first plane, a Wright Model B
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  Ruth Law in 1915: Her aircraft is a Curtiss Pusher, but has Wright Brothers control levers.
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  Ruth Law at the Hotel McAlpin, 1917

• Pawlak, Debra Ann. "The Baroness of Flight". Aviation History, July 2008, pp. 16–17.

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ruth Bancroft Law.

• Short biography
• Image of Ruth Law in uniform
• Ruth Law at Daytona Beach 1913–1916
• Hill Air Force Base factsheet
• Ruth Law Thrills A Nation; Reading Rainbow PBS, 1994 on YouTube – hosted by LeVar Burton, read by Linda Lavin
• Chicago-to-New York flight
• Smithsonian Magazine, 22 March 2017