The Week in History, Jan. 26th – Feb. 1st.

Bessie Coleman and her Curtiss “Jenny” biplane. c 1922.⁴

“The air is only the place free from prejudice.”

“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.” 

– Bessie Coleman

Aviation pioneer Bessie Coleman¹, AKA “Brave Bessie”², was born this week in 1892.

Her family were sharecroppers, and Bessie was the tenth of thirteen children.

She sought refuge from her hard life through her enjoyment of reading and learning. Her mother made sure that her children made use of the traveling library that came to them two or three times a year. (Bessie even has a branch of the Chicago Library named after her.)³

When she wanted to become a pilot, none of the flight schools in the USA would accept her due to her race or gender.

So on the advice of a friend, Bessie learned to speak, read and write French. Then she applied to aviation schools in France.

Accepted into France’s most famous flight school, she traveled there with the money she had saved and after ten months of rigorous training she earned her aviators license on June 15th, 1921.

Bessie returned to the USA and became a beloved and renowned barnstormer and flight instructor.  Her career was cut short in 1926 when her aircraft suffered mechanical failure and both she and her pilot/mechanic died in the accident.

You can learn more about Bessie Coleman by requesting, Bessie Coleman : trailblazing pilot, via Summit loan through the Clark Library.

“Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people—the beauty within themselves.”

– Langston Hughes⁵

American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, columnist, world traveler and member of the Harlem Renaissance – Langston Hughes⁶ of Joplin, Missouri was born this week in 1902.

Hughes poetry reflected the joy and pain he experienced throughout his life.  His works were disregarded by the African-American intelligentsia of his day as being disgraceful for what, was to him, honest portrayals of the lives and struggles of average African-Americans. He addressed his poetry to the people and it is what he is best remembered for today.

Learn more about him by checking out, Langston Hughes, by James A. Emanuel, from the General Collection. Look for PS3515.U274 Z64 1995

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

–The Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll⁷

This week is the 188^th birthday of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll.  While he is mostly known for his authorship of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland  and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, he is also remembered as the creator of the nonsense poem Jabberwocky.

Dodgson’s was a mathematician and the author of books with titles such as, An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, With Their Application to Simultaneous Linear Equations and Algebraic Equations. He was also an accomplished amateur photographer, and his personal life was not without controversy.

Find out more by checking out Lewis Carroll: a biography, which may be found in the collection at PR4612 .C588 1995

¹ http://bessiecoleman.org/bio-bessie-coleman.php
² https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/bessie-coleman
³ https://www.chipublib.org/about-coleman-branch/
⁴ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_Coleman#/media/File:Bessie_Coleman_and_her_plane_(1922).jpg
⁵ https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/91742/20-inspiring-quotes-langston-hughes
⁶ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/langston-hughes
⁷ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42916/jabberwocky
⁸ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jabberwocky.jpg
⁹ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Langston_Hughes_by_Winold_Reiss_cph.3c11612.jpg