Summary

Chapter 1 is titled “The Miracle of Wichita.” This chapter focuses on the early life of Louise McPhetridge. She was the daughter of conservative, religious parents who had hoped that their child would be a boy, and who did not quite know what to do with their girl. Louise grew up, got a couple of years of college education, and eventually got a job selling coal in Wichita, Kansas. Her employer, according to the narration, had advanced ideas about the value and worth of employing women. Soon, Louise was making a good living, but found herself becoming distracted by the activity and personalities at the Travel Air Airplane Company, headquartered in Wichita.

Travel Air, owned by a man named Clyde Cessna, employed a skilled, hard-working, and hard-partying pilot named Walter Beech as both a consultant on plane design and construction and as an...