The Wright brothers’ iconic lift off from Kitty Hawk is immortalized on Ohio license plates, in museums, in photos and in documentaries. It’s become a symbol of innovation and Ohio pride.
That first plane – made of wood, wire and cloth – was entirely the Wright brothers’ handiwork. But, in the years after, the unseen labor of women was vital to keeping flight afloat.
“There were a lot of women behind the scenes,” said Toni Vanden Bos, head of special collections and archives at Wright State University.
Two Dayton women, in particular, played a crucial role. One quite literally helped to build the planes that carried them into history. The other offered social and emotional support to market their idea around the world.
The Wright brothers’ seamstress
After the Wright brothers proved flight was possible, they turned their invention into an industry. In 1910, they hired a woman to work at the Wright Company.
At the Delphos Canal Commission museum, a wall of black and white photos tell the story of the northwest Ohio native, who stumbled into aviation history by answering an ad with a typo.
“She was working in Dayton as a seamstress and saw an ad in the paper that said plane sewing, P-L-A-I-N sewing, and she thought, ‘Well, I'm a seamstress, I can make dresses or whatever.’ So she answered that ad,” Ebbeskotte said.
Little did she realize, she would be sewing fabric that would fly.
“I did the cutting and the sewing of the cloth for the airplane, that is the wings and the stabilizers and rudders," Holdgreve recounted her experience to a Delphos radio station host, Bob Ohm, in her 90s.
In the Wright Company’s southwest corner, Holdgreve stretched fabric tightly over the aircraft’s frame and mended holes after accidents. As far as historians can tell, Holdgreve is the first ever female aerospace worker.
The glue of the family
While Holgreve helped to build some of the world’s first flying machines, another Ohio woman was essential to ensuring the planes would truly take off: the Wright brothers’ kid sister, Katharine.
“She was the unsung hero, really, of the story,” Wright State archivist Vanden Bos said.
The Wrights’ mother died when Katharine was only 15 years old. She became the head of the household – cooking, cleaning and caring for her older brothers so they could focus on inventing flight. She even abandoned her job as a teacher to nurse Orville back to health after a failed demonstration flight.
Once her brothers did finally take to the sky, Katharine travelled to Europe, selling the invention to skeptics. She spoke to the public, connected with businessmen and charmed reporters – work that her shy brothers couldn’t have done themselves.
“She took all that anxiety of the social demands of selling a flyer, making those networks with people. She took all of that off from Wilbur and Orville, which was significant,” Vanden Bos said.
Alongside her brothers, she was awarded the Legion of Honor, France’s highest merit, for her contributions to aviation.
Forgotten contributions
Katharine’s emotional and domestic labor — central to the Wrights’ success — was largely forgotten as flight moved into the mainstream.
“You can't miss her in the photographs and so forth, but she didn't get as much acclaim in the history books,” Vanden Bos said.
As for Holdgreve, she continued to sew for the skies, even after the Wright brothers sold off their airplane company. She went on to be a supervising seamstress at The Dayton-Wright Company in 1917, where she managed a team of women in producing World War I combat aircraft.
But it wasn’t until she was 88 years old – after decades of working behind the scenes – that she herself flew for the first time.
“It was nice. I didn’t mind it all,” she told Ohm a couple years later.
Her contributions are now honored on Ohio’s Air & Space Trail. Her courage and curiosity matched the spirit of other early aviators, Ebbeskotte said.
“She wasn't afraid to go from little Delphos to Dayton to find work. And when she had a chance to work at an airplane factory — which, what’s that? — she went and did it.”
Neither she, nor Katharine, were there for that first historic flight. But their work ensured it wasn’t the last.
