Events - Event View

She Flies With Her Own Wings Until He Clipped Them: Woman Aviators and the making of an exhibition at OHS

This evening’s program features Megan Lallier-Barron and David-Paul Hedberg, curators and historians behind several prominent Oregon exhibitions.

The early years of aviation included many opportunities for women — the chance to fly and earn a living was open to women from the beginning until the mid-1930s. Barnstorming, or “Air Circus” tours swept through the nation introducing the fledgling aviation industry to the general public through aeronautic feats and challenges. The Northwest Air Tour was one such group that traveled throughout Oregon and Washington promoting aviation to the masses. At these early airshows local women barnstormers of 1920s and 1930s both set records and challenged assumptions that the sky was an environment only for men. Researching and telling the stories of Oregon’s robust community of woman pilots became a centerpiece for the exhibition She Flies With Her Own Wings on display at Oregon Historical Society. This presentation will explore these women and give a behind the scene look at the development of this exhibition.


MEGAN LALLIER-BARRON is Curator of Exhibitions at the Oregon Historical Society and is responsible for researching and developing content for exhibitions of all sizes. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in archaeology and art history from the State University of New York (SUNY) College at Potsdam in 2007. In 2012, she earned a Master's of Science in arts management from the University of Oregon. Her research interests include museum interpretation and how visitors learn and understand content presented in exhibitions.

DAVID-PAUL B. HEDBERG is an independent historian in Portland, Oregon, and served as cocurator for the Oregon Historical Society exhibition She Flies with Her Own Wings. He holds an M.A. in history from Portland State University. His research interests center on environmental history, the history of the Pacific Northwest, and public interpretation. His public history work ranges from cultural resource management to documentary films. He is currently the resident historian at the Oregon Aviation Historical Society and Museum in Cottage Grove, Oregon, where he leads an oral history project documenting the lives of Oregon's aviation community, funded in part by a grant from the Oregon Heritage Commission.