Harriet Quimby was an early American aviator and movie screenwriter. She was the first woman to gain a pilot license in the United States when, in 1911 she earned the first U.S. pilot's certificate issued to a woman by the Aero Club of America. Less than a year later, she became the first woman to fly across the English Channel. Although Quimby lived only to age 37, she had a major impact on women's roles in aviation.

After her family moved to San Francisco, California in the early 1900s, she became a journalist. She moved to New York City in 1903 to work as a theatre critic for Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, which published over 250 of her articles over a nine-year period. She became interested in aviation in 1910, when she attended the Belmont Park International Aviation Tournament on Long Island, New York and met Matilde Moisant and her brother John, a well-known American aviator and operator of a flight school. On August 1, 1911, Quimby took her pilot's test and became the first U.S. woman to earn a pilot's certificate. Matilde Moisant soon followed and became the nation's second certified female pilot.

In 1911 Quimby authored five screenplays that were made into silent film shorts by Biograph Studios. All five of the romance films were directed by director D.W. Griffith with stars such as Florence La Badie, Wilfred Lucas, and Blanche Sweet. She had a small role in one other movie.

The Vin Fiz Company, a division of Armour Meat Packing Plant of Chicago, recruited Harriet as the spokesperson for the new grape soda, Vin Fiz, after Calbraith Perry Rodgers' death in April 1912. Her distinctive purple aviatrix uniform and image graced many of the advertising pieces of the day.

On April 16, 1912, Quimby took off from Dover, England, en route to Calais, France and made the flight in 59 minutes, landing about 25 miles (40 km) from Calais on a beach in Hardelot-Plage, Pas-de-Calais