Adelphi Women Take Flight

On the morning of November 16, 1939, ten students from Adelphi College—then an all-female institution—made their way over to Roosevelt Field on Long Island to begin flight school. Among them was twenty-one-year-old Sally Elizabeth Knapp ’40 who, enamored of flying, would go on to become a licensed commercial pilot, a civilian flight instructor, and, during WWII, a trainer of pilots for the famed Women Airforce Service Pilots organization (WASP). She would also later teach instrument flying to pilots at Pan Am Airways.

Sally Knapp Oracle Yearbook
photograph, 1940

Cover of New Wings for
Women (Loening Collection)

In 1946, Sally Knapp wrote New Wings for Women, a book which told the stories of a group of pioneering women WWII aviators. She also published books for young adults and articles in aviation magazines and teenage publications such as The American Girl. Later in her career, she worked as an educator and administrator at numerous hospitals and universities around the country until her retirement in 1975.  Sally Knapp earned her B.A. in English from Adelphi in 1940, her M.A. in Hospital Administration from Columbia University in 1952,and her doctoral degree in Adult Education from Columbia University Teachers College in 1970.  She died in 2010.

The instruction which first took Sally Knapp, and her fellow Adelphi students, to Roosevelt Field was part of an experimental program, first conceived by Civil Aeronautics Authority head Robert Hinckley, to increase the number of American pilots.  On December 27, 1938 President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced the establishment of the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) and in 1939 Adelphi was selected as one of four women’s colleges to participate.

Roosevelt Field, ca. 1938 (Loening Collection)

Intended to train 20,000 college students as civilian pilots, the CPTP was designed as a cooperative program run by colleges in conjunction with local flying field operators. As part of the program Adelphi provided ground school instruction (with CAA-approved teachers) in aerodynamics, meteorology, navigation, parachutes, air regulations, basic mechanics and aviation history. Roosevelt Field was designated as the cooperating flying field for Adelphi, with the flight instructors from Safair Flying School providing the elementary flying course which included 35 to 55 hours of dual instruction and controlled solo flying. Famed aviation pioneer, Ruth Nichols (1901-1960), travelled to Garden City to help inaugurate the program.

By 1942, under this very successful program, more than 75,000 college and non-college young people nationwide were given ground school and flight training.  The program was phased out by 1944.

References

“Air-Minded Boys and Girls Will Test Wings Tomorrow,” Brooklyn Eagle, November 15, 1939, 10.

Deborah G. Douglas, American Women and Flight Since 1940 (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2004), 21-22.

Sally Knapp, New Wings for Women (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1946).

Ernest K. Lindley, “Notable Progress in Hinckley’s Program for Air-Conditioning America,” Brooklyn Eagle, March 29, 1942, 12.

"F. D. to Train 20,000 Fliers In U.S. Schools: Courses Under NYA Impetus Will Start Early Next Month,” Brooklyn Eagle, December 28, 1938, 2.

Natalie A. Naylor, Women in Long Island's Past: A History of Eminent Ladies and Everyday Lives (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2012), 136.

“Obituary,” The Barre-Montpelier Times Argus. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/timesargus/obituary.aspx?n=sally-e-knapp&pid=142587128.

Ruth Nichols, Wings for Life: The Life Story of the First Lady of the Air (Philadelphia: L. B. Lippincott, 1957), 267.

Roosevelt Aviation School, Catalog no. 12 (Mineola, NY: Roosevelt Field, Inc., ca. 1938), 2.

--by David Ranzan