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Ruth Elder Remembered
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Sydney Crabaugh
a3dde96248534ca655d53a0f5179f40e656ee371
Ruth Elder
1 2017-12-09T08:30:49-08:00 Sydney Crabaugh a3dde96248534ca655d53a0f5179f40e656ee371 27674 1 plain 2017-12-09T08:30:49-08:00 Sydney Crabaugh a3dde96248534ca655d53a0f5179f40e656ee371This page is referenced by:
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The Ruth Elder Project
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Ruth Elder- aviatrix, actress, and the first woman to attempt the transatlantic flight in 1927, and yet every person I've asked has never heard of her. I myself only stumbled upon her while seeking out footage of ocean liners in the Fox Movietone News collection held at the Moving Image Research Collection (MIRC) at South Carolina University. The footage I came across depicted a young woman emerging from the ship entrance, immediately swarmed by a hoard of enthusiastic spectators and journalists. Subsequent overhead shots of enormous crowds awaiting her return to New York City indicated the grandeur and remarkably momentous nature of this event. I hadn’t a clue who Ruth Elder was, but found myself intrigued by the grand reception and her charismatic disposition. It was to my surprise that she held such a pivotal position in early aviation history as the first woman- after Charles Lindbergh's successful transatlantic flight earlier that year- to fly over the ocean. Although she and her partner George Haldeman crashed three hundred miles short of their goal, they- particularly Elder- were honored and celebrated by the country upon their return. While Elder was clearly a sensational figure in history, there has been little else written on her since her heyday in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
The transatlantic flight was not a blip- in 1929, Elder participated in the first Women's National Air Derby, a nine-day air race from Clover Field, California to Cleveland, Ohio. The contest, taking place nearly two years after Elder’s transatlantic flight, is the first of its kind to extend an invitation to women, in this case, only to women. She participated along with other prominent female fliers, namely Ruth Nichols, Bobbi Trout, Louise Thaden (who would win the race), and unsurprisingly, Amelia Earhart. This event was widely sensationalized across the country. Spectators would gather at each pit-stop air strip and shower the participants with gifts and encouragement. Although Elder did not win the race, the outtake footage from Fox Movietone News suggests the iconic status of her and Earhart by prioritizing shots of each of them. Likewise, the newspaper articles from the day tended to angle the stories with Elder and Earhart in mind, further emphasizing her role in late 1920s popular culture.
My hope with this exploration of Elder and the substantial quantity of outtake and home-movie footage pertaining to her is to bring attention to a seemingly forgotten figure in American history. The evidence of Elder’s cultural significance is prevalent via newspapers, magazines, newsreels, audio material, images, and outtake footage from the era, however the utilization of this material in contemporary historical accounts is scarce. The research presented here emphasizes the major celebrity status she held after embarking on her initial flight across the Atlantic by utilizing these primary source materials that seemed to languish by the wayside for the last eighty-five years. By paying particular attention to the ninety-plus minutes of footage spanning from newsreel sources, outtakes, home movies, and Hollywood promotional videos, I also attempt to stake claim for the importance of orphan film and the additional layer of depth it provides to understanding historical happenings.
