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Well before Evel Knievel or Hollywood stuntmen, reality television or the X Games, North America had a long tradition of stunt performance, of men (and some women) who sought media attention and popular fame with public feats of daring. Many of these feats—jumping off bridges, climbing steeples and buildings, swimming incredible distances, or doing tricks with wild animals—had their basis in the manual trades or in older entertainments like the circus. In The Thrill Makers, Jacob Smith shows how turn-of-the-century bridge jumpers, human flies, lion tamers, and stunt pilots first drew crowds to their spectacular displays of death-defying action before becoming a crucial, yet often invisible, component of Hollywood film stardom. Smith explains how these working-class stunt performers helped shape definitions of American manhood, and pioneered a form of modern media celebrity that now occupies an increasingly prominent place in our contemporary popular culture.

Jones discusses NASA's hiring of Cliff Fleming, a stunt-man, to use a helicopter to catch a NASA spacecraft as it glides down to Earth. The spacecraft, Genesis, will be carrying 400 micrograms of particles plucked from the solar wind.

(As the sidebar on p. 42 tells us, marketers promoted electric cars as more acceptable for female drivers.) Our understanding of present-day technology remains shaded by gender: computer games, online activity, and computer engineering carry particularly prevalent gendered associations. Earhart raised funds for her own flying by giving countless public lectures, writing aviation columns for Cosmopolitan, endorsing automobiles and other products, serving as adviser to coeds at Purdue University, helping airlines promote travel to female passengers, and designing women's clothing and luggage.\\n Visit the following sites to access these materials: The \"Mercury Thirteen\" After World War II, the cutting edge of technical innovation and excitement shifted to the rapidly-growing field of rockets, jet engines, and supersonic flight.

Sitting in front of the taxiway, about a dozen of the WWII pilots watched on as three restored P-47s -- including the Hun Hunter XVI and the Wicked Wabbit -- rumbled to life and took off, bound to fly over the Air Force Academy's football game before returning to awe audiences at the air show.