The Flying Girl

Abstract

The first novel tells the story of Orissa Kane, the sister of a young man who is building his own flying machine. The 17-year-old Orissa provides financial support for her brother Stephen Kane and their blind mother through her office job, while Steve concentrates on his invention. She also supports Steve's work emotionally, urging him forward. The story involves commercial and technical competition, and sabotage by a competitor. When Steve suffers a broken leg in a crash and cannot fly, Orissa takes his place to prove the validity of his aircraft, demonstrating her own courage and competence in the process. She wins the top prize in an aerial exhibition and gets a boyfriend too, without ever losing "her humble and unassuming manner" and her other maidenly virtues. (Baum was simultaneously writing a similar story, of a brave girl defending her brother's interests, in his 1911 novel The Daring Twins.)

Her brother Steve supports her decision to fly, in the bold spirit characteristic of the new field of aviation. In Chapter 19 he says, "The most successful aviators in the future...are bound to be women. As a rule they are lighter than men, more supple and active, quick of perception and less liable to lose their heads in emergencies. The operation of an aeroplane is, it seems to me, especially fitted to women." (No traditionalist or male chauvinist would have written that women are "less liable to lose their heads" in an emergency than men.)