‘From Sawdust to Stardust’: Jackie Cochran’s Soaring Achievements
By Angelica Walker-Werth
Adventure is always just around the corner, and I can turn that corner mighty fast. —Jacqueline Cochran
When Jackie Cochran died in 1980, she held more speed, altitude, and distance records than any other pilot in aviation history, she had founded a successful cosmetics company that she ran for twenty-eight years before selling it, and she had been awarded honorary degrees from four different universities (despite having less than two years of formal education).1 One would never know that her life had begun in the harsh sawmill camps of the southeastern United States. Her journey from “sawdust to stardust” is inspiring to all who want to achieve great things and “enjoy life to the brimful, every minute of it,” as she did.2
Takeoff
Cochran, who never knew her biological parents or precisely when she was born, started working in a cotton mill when she was about eight years old. But unlike her foster family, she wanted to do more than just survive—the only existence possible in that dreary, often dangerous environment. She told the children she worked with that she was going to be rich and travel the world when she was older, and she meant it. But she also knew it wouldn’t happen on its own: “In every well-blended recipe for success, you’ll probably find honesty, determination, some skill and experience, as well as a lot of courage.”3
At thirteen, Cochran left the cotton mill and her foster family and got a job working for a woman who owned three beauty parlors. She worked her way up in the beauty industry, eventually becoming part owner of a hair salon. She then trained as a nurse and worked as one for a year or two but decided it wasn’t for her. So, she moved to New York City and returned to the beauty industry, working in glamorous salons there. In the early 1930s, Cochran developed an interest in aviation, and in 1932, she made a decision that changed her life forever: She used her savings and vacation time from the beauty parlor to learn to fly—and earned her pilot’s license in three weeks.4
Soaring among the Stars
Cochran loved flying and was determined to become an excellent pilot. She trained with experienced pilots at multiple schools, studied aircraft manuals, and flew every chance she got. But she didn’t want merely to fly—she wanted to push the limits of flight. . . .
She entered her first race in 1933, the only all-female race she ever entered. In her biography of Cochran, Maryann Bucknum Brinley explains: “In that highly competitive sphere of air racing, Jackie Cochran always wanted to be first among men—not women. Why? Because ‘women’s records are invariably broken by men in higher performance aircraft.’”5
Her highly competitive spirit and adventurousness often led her to test innovations in the field of aviation; her first major win was the 1938 Bendix Trophy Race, which she won flying an average of 249.8 miles per hour in a brand-new prototype she had never flown before.6 This love of innovation and trying new things led her to take part in research and testing. The information she helped gather often led to advancements in aviation and medicine, as well as to important military decisions. For example, she tested a new fuel in 1939, and her findings contributed to the decision to use that fuel for aircraft in World War II.7 She tested a problematic plane called a P-35, enabling videographers to record previously not-understood issues with the retractable landing gear and rudder pedals; this footage made possible innovations necessary to create the Thunderbolt, the largest single-engine aircraft used in WWII.8 She also helped Drs. Randolph Lovelace, Walter Boothby, and Harry Armstrong develop oxygen masks for aviators to use at high altitudes.9
When WWII broke out, Cochran wanted to help train female pilots to complete ferrying duties (moving personnel, weapons, and supplies) so that more male pilots would be freed up to fly in combat. The military officials she first approached, however, didn’t think the U.S. Army needed women directly engaged in the war effort at that stage. Instead, in an attempt to help with publicity and recruiting efforts, Cochran became the first woman to fly a bomber over the Atlantic. Upon her return to America in 1941, she personally interviewed women for the Air Transport Auxiliary in Britain, a unit of female pilots engaged in ferrying duties. There, she served as a flight captain.10
In 1942, Cochran was called back to the United States to recruit female pilots and train them for similar ferrying activities. She started a training program and recruited female pilots for what became known as the WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots). Cochran became director of the WASPs, and together they flew a total of sixty million miles for the U.S. military.11 Her work with the WASPs showed military leaders that the tests and training used for male pilots were similarly useful for women. She and her team also demonstrated that women have comparable stamina and ability, can fly the same aircraft, have similar pass rates on flying tests, and have fatality rates similar to men in ferrying work.12 For her efforts, in 1945 she was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal.13
After the war, Cochran returned to pushing the limits of aviation, often working as a test pilot. In 1953, while working for Canadair, she became the first woman to break the sound barrier.14 That summer, she also set three speed records. A year later, other pilots had already broken two of them—but that didn’t make her unhappy. “That is the way it should be,” she remarked. “It means progress in the air and progress is necessary.”15
Cochran broke numerous records and won multiple awards throughout her illustrious career. In 1937, she set two women’s speed records and became the first woman to make a “blind” landing (using instruments only). In 1962, she set nine international speed, distance, and altitude records.16 She was the first woman to pilot a jet across the Atlantic and the first woman to serve as president of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (a position she held from 1958 to 1961).17 Her myriad accolades include being named Outstanding Woman Pilot of the Decade in the 1940s and being honored in an exhibition of memorabilia at the Air Force Academy.18
Her accomplishments in aviation are impressive enough on their own, but even more so because during her lifetime, aircraft were much more dangerous than they are today. At one point early in her career, she made fifty-two emergency landings in a single year. In the 1946 Bendix Trophy Race, Cochran took second place, despite major mechanical issues that caused her minor injuries.19 But her sense of adventure overruled any fear of the dangers involved. She explained: “To live without risk, for me, would have been tantamount to death.”20
Flying High in the Beauty Industry
Using her experience as a beautician, she started Jacqueline Cochran Cosmetics in 1935, which she ran until she sold it in 1963. Their top product, a moisturizer called Flowing Velvet, was something Cochran helped develop to keep her skin soft while flying. Her brand, also known for its innovative hair dye colors, competed with Elizabeth Arden. Cochran was named Woman of the Year in Business by the Associated Press’s newspaper editor poll in both 1953 and 1954.21
Battles on the Ground: Congress, Russia, and American Politics
Though she never served as an elected official (she did run for Congress once, but lost), Cochran was involved in politics for much of her life. She waged her first political battles on behalf of the WASPs—fighting to establish the group, to develop the training program she thought necessary, to keep them separate from the army, and to get their status changed from that of civilian contractors to military. This last goal was finally realized near the end of her life; in 1977, Congress recognized the WASPs as a military unit and those who had served in it as military veterans.22
During World War II, the United States had no formal air force—the planes and pilots in service were considered part of the army. Many military officers and pilots thought that having a separate branch would be useful for training and administrative purposes. So, Cochran led the civilian effort to convince Congress to establish one. She gave speeches, ran newspaper ads, and raised $100,000 in six months. In 1947, Congress formally established the United States Air Force.23 The first secretary of the air force, Stuart Symington, said of Cochran’s efforts, “There’s a tremendous amount of politics in government and Jackie could do something about it. . . . Around the Air Force, she was a sort of goddess.”24
In the years following the war, Cochran traveled extensively. She saw the misery and poverty that socialism had brought to Russia, saying that it seemed to her a “land of contradictions with a broad foundation . . . of fear, work and poverty.”25 She somewhat facetiously concluded that the solution to the growing concern about communism in America was to send those with communist leanings to the USSR to see its handiwork for themselves.
Cochran took a more active interest in American politics in the early 1950s, when she convinced Dwight D. Eisenhower, who she knew personally from their military days, to run for president. She explained that she wanted to get more involved because “All that I had seen in my travels made me more aware of how precious what we have here in America is. We must keep it.”26 Later, she became a personal friend and sounding board for Lyndon B. Johnson, whose life she had saved by flying him to the prestigious Mayo Clinic when he was suffering from kidney stones during his 1948 senate campaign.27 Eisenhower and Johnson may not have advanced either Cochran’s personal views or liberty more broadly, but her efforts to protect America’s founding principles were commendable.