blog post by Melissa Haley

The newly-processed Genevieve Haugen Papers (Collection 1967) combines two prominent elements of local history: aviation and movie-making.

The high-flying Haugen (1911-1968) received her pilot’s license in 1932 at the age of 20. Her flight logbook documents the action as she barrel rolls and loops around Los Angeles, giving numerous friends and strangers their first airplane rides along the way.

Haugen was a member of the Ninety-Nines, an organization of women aviators founded in 1929 and still active today.

Photo taken at the National Air Races in Los Angeles, 1933. Haugen stands in the back row, far right. Note Amelia Earhart first row, far left.

In 1935 Haugen published Women with Wings: A Novel of the Modern Day Aviatrix, which was later adapted for the screen as the 20th Century Fox film Tail Spin (1939). Haugen served as a technical advisor for the film. In this photo she coaches Tail Spin’s star Alice Faye (right), who played the fictional aviator, Trixie Lee.

In the 1940s, Haugen wrote several screenplays while married to her third husband, Max Nosseck.

Haugen working on the screenplay for The Jungle (later filmed by Nosseck as Kill or Be Killed) at the Hotel Atlantico in Estoril, Portugal, 1947.

The Genevieve Haugen Papers contain correspondence, photographs, screenplays and other writings (even a pair of flight goggles), and document the life of a dynamic, independent woman in 20th century Los Angeles.