Bernetta Adams Miller

Bernetta Adams Miller (January 11, 1884 – November 30, 1972) was a pioneering woman aviator who was the fifth licensed woman pilot in the United States. She led a colorful life including winning a Croix de Guerre in World War I and being one of the people standing between Albert Einstein and the public at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

Bernetta Miller was born in Canton, Ohio. Her family lived for a time in Nebraska, but soon moved to the Finger Lakes region of New York state where she briefly attended the State Normal School at Geneseo. She dropped out when her father's business failed, and they returned to Canton, where she attended Canton Actual Business College where she studied bookkeeping. She then moved to New York City.

There she became interested in aviation and took flying lessons in 1912 from the Moisant aviation school in Mineola, Long Island. She received her license on September 25, 1912, becoming the fifth woman in the U.S. to hold a pilot's license (she held Aero Club of America license number 173). The Moisant company used her as a demonstration pilot for the Blériot monoplanes that they were building under license. She was the pilot chosen to demonstrate the Moisant-Blériot monoplane to the United States Army at College Park, Maryland on October 7, 1912. She wrote of it, much later

This was apparently the first demonstration of a monoplane to the U.S. government. On January 20, 1913 at Garden City, New York she attempted a women's altitude record, but had to return to ground when an oil gauge broke and oil obscured her vision. With increasing disapproval of women flying after the death of Harriet Quimby, and suffering financial difficulties, she gave up aviation soon after.

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