Emma Lilian Todd: The Forgotten Pioneer Who Designed the First Airplane

his is Emma Lilian Todd, the first woman to design an airplane. Born in Washington DC, Emma Lilian Todd (1865-1937) was a self-taught inventor who liked to take things, such as clocks, apart and put them back together to see how they worked. A lawyer and a clerk in the US patent Office, she would type up patent applications, and she learned what worked, and what didn’t work. She started small, working on inventing a typewriter copy holder and mechanical toys. Inspired by airships she saw on a trip to London, Todd began creating designs around 1903 and trying and eliminating different features and modifications, persisting until she successfully designed a working aircraft that improved upon the Wright brothers' model. About the process, she exclaimed, “There is no work so discouraging, so exasperating, so delightful, so mean, so difficult, so exhilarating as building aeroplanes.” Todd’s work in aviation was noticed by philanthropist Olivia Sage when she exhibited her first design at a Madison Square Garden airshow. Sage became Emma’s patron, giving her $7,000 to design and build an aircraft. Todd wanted to fly the plane herself but was denied a pilot’s license due to her gender, so her plane was successfully flown by test-pilot Didier Masson. Todd was a little-known, self-taught engineer who contributed to, but has largely been forgotten by history.