ABSTRACT
In 1912, Isabel Paterson set a record for high flight by a woman, as a passenger in a flimsy biplane piloted by pioneer aviator Harry Bingham Brown. The invention of the airplane exemplified her ideas about capitalism, risk, and progress. There were two Americans who asked nothing of anybody; they could earn what they needed, and mind their own business; and out of their native genius they solved a scientific problem which gave mankind the mastery of the air. They had a shed for a workshop and a pasture field for an experiment station. The Wrights didn't learn to fly by random "experiments"; they knew exactly what they were doing, and why. They did not learn by having such interesting talks with every one they met, or by international cultural relations, or by buzzing around youth conferences. They were really quite anti-social. they did invent the flying machine.
