A good story, with excellent details. As with most events of this era, there is a lot more that is not written, and is only available from personal accounts, which she did so well, from the sources that were available.

This book took a subject previously unknown to me, Hot Air Baloons, and turned it into one of the most intriguing historial events I have yet to read about. I strongly reccomend it for any reader, history buff or not. Go Eileen! I can't wait for your next book!

Before Amelia: Women Pilots In The Early Days Of Aviation by Eileen F. Lebow offers the reader an engaging glimpse into the earliest days of the very first flying machines, and the dozens of female pilots who made aviation history before the famous Amelia Earhart. Starting with Raymonde de Laroche, a French woman who became the first licensed female pilot in 1910, and profiling numerous other international female pilots, Before Amelia is a welcome contribution to both Women Studies and Aviation History reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

When Lindbergh bounced to an landing before a surging throng in Paris, his heroic effort to cross the Atlantic by airplane was already world wide news.

But in 1911, Cal Rodgers, a student of the Wright Brothers, undertook a perhaps even more momentous flight, the first man to fly across North America and exposed an incredulous country to the utility of the airplane. Rodger did so in a Wright EX, a special version of the Model B Flyer. He was sponsored by the Vin Fizz softdrink company, and tossed calling cards for discounts to the winds as he flew above towns and cities. The flight of the Vin Fiz blazed the trail for the commercial use of airplanes and showed a awestruck public that the machine had endless possibilites.

Eileen LeBow recreates this incredible flight with clarity and excitement. Through three months and 19 crashes, LeBow traces Rodgers route and that of the Vin Fizz Special, the special train that followed and supported the flight. The account includes details of Rodgers death in his plane in California following his celebrity-making success.

If you love aviation, this is the guy you should know more about. LeBow's book does a great job in applying the right mix of fact and adventurous narrative.

For the three thousand or so living alumni of the original Townsend Harris High School, this book will evoke pleasant memories of classmates, teachers and a less structured educational era.

The book traces the journey through which the compulsory sub-freshman preparatory year for entering the New York Free Academy (renamed the College of the City of New York in 1866) evolved into a three-year Academic Department in 1905 and was soon moved into the newly-built Townsend Harris Hall on the City College campus. Housed separately from the rest of the college population, this "preparatory" schooltook on an identity of its own and was called Townsend Harris Hall until 1930; at which time it was moved to 23rd Street and renamed Townsend Harris High School.

While the historical aspects of the book are based on much original reserarch by the author, the anecdotal matter has been provided by personal interviews with former students and teachers, and 150 Townsend Harris alumni who responded (in some cases volubly) to a series of questionnaires. The mix of facts, memories and impressions succeeds in illuminating, to some extent, the special character of this unique school for New york's bright boys.

The question usually asked by someone who hears about Townsend Harris for the first time is: "Why did they close it?" The author provides the anser in the closing chapters. If Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia's involvement in the original decision was more bureaucratic than personal, his later petulance and intransigence provide enough reason for casting him as the villain of the piece.

Perhaps te only quibble with this warm and wonderful work is that the author, having revealed WHY the school was closed, then proceeds to use the last quarter of the book to tell HOW it ws done. Getting the story straight will be important to the history-minded, but for those more interested in learning what a school for bright boys was really like, it could prove somewhat anticlimactic.

In its brief history (1905-1942), the original Townsend Harris gave us the Nobel Laureates, Herman Wouk, Jonas Salk, Ira Gershwin, Edward G. Robinson, Dam clayton Powell and a host of other prominent businessmen, educators, scientists, philanthopists, jurists and outstanding American citizens. Reading this book, you may wonder:"Why did they ever close Townsend Harris?"