Helen Hodge Harris

Helen Hodge Harris (1892–1967) was among the first women to earn a pilot's license. She was therefore one of the few women among the Early Birds of Aviation. In addition she became a proponent of flight safety. She later became supervisor of a machine shop.

Early life and first marriage Hodge was born in Omaha, Nebraska on August 2, 1892. A July article mentions her living with her father, and she seems to have reclaimed her maiden name. and the book Before Amelia: Women Pilots in the Early Days of Aviation seems to imply that they stayed together until Ralph Newbre's death in the 1930s. took flying lessons together at Silas Christofferson's school in Redwood City, California, after being initially rejected due to their gender. who taught them to fly on a Curtiss-type biplane. and she received her pilot's license on November 12, 1916. At the time, she planned to become an exhibition flyer. Though she did perform several exhibition flights for the Christofferson school, most of her flights appear to have been simply for her own pleasure. Hodge was the eleventh female pilot in the United States to receive her license, and possibly the last American woman to become a licensed pilot before the start of World War I. During the war, she was a flight instructor for American cadets.

Later life and death Hodge married Frank Harris in 1937 after moving to Los Angeles. There, she opened a machine shop specializing in airplane tools. She supervised a crew of twenty men and fourteen women, and could operate machinery herself as needed. Frank Harris had died by 1950. Hodge died in Pomona, California, in 1967.