Throwback Thursday: The Wind Beneath His Wings
Image by Forward Association
By Chana Pollack October 31, 2013
Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly photo feature in which we sift 116 years of Forward history to find snapshots of women’s lives. Click below for more.
Edith Bowie Hawks was the wind beneath her husband’s wings. Captain Frank Hawks was a famed aviator in the 1920s and ’30s. (A common phrase at the time was “Don’t send it by mail… send it by Hawks.”) Airmen such as Hawks were so popular in their day that they had fan clubs — likely including Forverts readers.
Edith purchased a plane for her husband and then ran a fairly sophisticated weather station from atop the couple’s penthouse on Manhattan’s East Side, from which she kept him apprised of flying conditions.
The couple is pictured in 1929 broadcasting Frank’s radio show from the 18th floor of the Roosevelt Hotel studio of WRNY. Frank died in 1938 in an experimental flight.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
, editor-in-chiefSupport our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
