Great Women in Aviation #1 - WASP

By 1940, little had changed for women economically. About one fourth of American women earned their own money, which was virtually no change from the days of Harriet Quimby. Full time salaries for clerical workers averaged about $1,200 a year, but women's incomes had not increased much over the previous decade, averaging only about $850 a year. A pilot's license cost about $750. Most young women were expected to marry and for the most part, their husbands did not think women should be pilots or be allowed to earn their own money. Only about 15 percent of married women worked. For a wife to take flying lessons in 1940, the husband had to relinquish half of his annual salary. Those women able to break the financial barriers and formal societal structure never returned to the traditions expected of them, and they played a crucial role during World War II.