Barnstormers and Airmail Pilots Turn Aviation Into a Livelihood
Surplus war planes and a government mail contract create America's first working pilots
Quick facts
- First scheduled airmail route
- New York-Washington, D.C., May 15, 1918
- Pilot deaths, 1918-1927
- 34
- Kelly Act (private contractors)
- 1925
- Full transfer to private airlines
- 1927
What happened
The U.S. Post Office launched scheduled airmail service between New York and Washington, D.C. on May 15, 1918, at first flown by Army pilots and from August 1918 onward by newly hired civilians; the network reached Chicago in 1919, Omaha in 1920, and San Francisco by September 1920. Flying open-cockpit biplanes in all weather, pilots faced brutal odds, 34 airmail pilots died between 1918 and 1927. At the same time, former wartime pilots and surplus Curtiss Jenny biplanes fueled a barnstorming boom, with pilots touring small towns to perform stunts, race, and sell rides to paying passengers who had never seen an airplane up close. The Contract Air Mail Act of 1925 (the Kelly Act) then let the Post Office hand its routes to private companies, and by 1927 commercial airlines had taken over all U.S. airmail delivery.
Why it matters
Airmail and barnstorming together built the first generation of American commercial pilots and normalized the idea that ordinary people, not just the military, could fly or pay to fly, laying the commercial and cultural groundwork the passenger airline industry would build on through the 1920s and 1930s. The Kelly Act's shift to private contractors created the first for-profit airline companies in the United States, several of which grew directly into the major airlines of the mid-20th century.
How we know
Airmail's schedule of routes, casualty figures, and the 1925 Kelly Act's contract terms are documented in period Post Office and government records, preserved and summarized by the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, a federally chartered history project supported by NASA and the FAA.
Sources
- U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission. Airmail: The Air Mail Act of 1925 Through 1929 · General sourcecentennialofflight.net · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- San Diego Air & Space Museum. Privatization of the Airmail · General sourcesandiegoairandspace.org · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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