Louise McPhetridge was born in Bentonville, Arkansas and attended Bentonville public schools. McPhetridge attended the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas from 1921 to 1925 as a journalism and physical education major.
In 1926 McPhetridge was working for the J.H.J. Turner Coal Co. where one of her main customers was the Travel Air Corporation in Wichita, Kansas owned by Walter Beech. Beech liked McPhetridge and offered her a job as a sales representative in San Francisco, California which she accepted. Part of her salary included free pilot's lessons and she earned her pilot's certificate in 1927. She was the first female pilot to be licensed by the state of Ohio.
McPhetridge met Herbert Thaden who was a former United States Army pilot and engineer who worked on developing the first American all-metal aircraft. McPhetridge and Herbert Thaden were married in San Francisco in the summer of 1928. By 1929 Louise Thaden had become only the fourth woman to hold a transport pilot rating.
Thaden rapidly became a major figure in the aviation world and set many world performance records and won many major flying events. In 1929 she became the first pilot to hold the women's altitude, endurance, and speed records in light planes simultaneously. Thaden set the women's altitude record in December of 1928 with a mark of 20,260 feet. In March of 1929 she set the women's endurance record with a flight of 22 hours, 3 minutes, 12 seconds.
Thaden was a friend and rival of pioneer aviators Amelia Earhart, Pancho Barnes, and Blanche Noyes. Thaden defeated her colleagues in the first Women's Air Derby in 1929. The Air Derby was a transcontinental race from Santa Monica, California to Cleveland, Ohio which was the site of the National Air Races that year. Earhart damaged her aircraft at Yuma, Arizona, Barnes became lost and flew into Mexico and damaged her plane attempting to get back on course, and Noyes suffered an in-flight fire over Texas.
In 1930 Thaden went to work as public relations director of Pittsburgh Aviation Industries and became the director of the Women's Division of the Penn School of Aeronautics. That same year Thaden and Earhart founded an international organization for women pilots called the Ninety-Nines. Thaden turned down the presidency of the organization but served as the treasurer and vice-president. The Ninety-Nine organization still exists. In 1991 astronaut Eileen Collins carried Thaden's flying helmet into space on the space shuttle to honor her achievements and the early women pioneer's of flight.
In 1935 Phoebe Omlie, another pioneer female aviator, asked Thaden to become a field representative for the National Air Marking Program.
In 1936 she teamed up with Blanche Noyes as her co-pilot and won the Bendix Cup race in the first year women were allowed to compete against men. They set a new world record of 14 hours, 54 minutes from New York to Los Angeles and beat the second place finisher by 45 minutes. In their astonishing victory the two women flew a C17R Staggerwing biplane and defeated twin-engine planes specifically designed for racing. Laura Ingalls, another female pilot, came in second in the race. For her achievements Thaden won aviation's highest honor given to women, the Harmon Trophy.
Thaden teamed up with Frances Marsalis and set another endurance record by flying a Curtiss Thrush biplane over Long Island, New York for 196 hours. The pair made seventy-eight air-to-air refueling maneuvers. Food and water were lowered to the two by means of a rope from another aircraft. The event gained national attention and the pair made a series of live radio broadcasts from the aircraft.
In 1937 she became the National Secretary of the National Aeronautics Association. Just prior to her retirement she returned to Beech Aircraft Corporation as a factory representative and demonstration pilot.
Thaden retired from competition in 1938. She worked for a time with the Bureau of Air Commerce to promote the creation of airfields. She also wrote her memoirs, High, Wide and Frightened soon after her retirement. In addition to her memoirs she wrote numerous newspaper and magazine articles dealing with aviation issues. Thaden stated that women were "innately better pilots than men".
During World War II Thaden attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel with the Civil Air Patrol.
In 1951 the Bentonville, Arkansas airport was renamed Louise Thaden Field in her honor. A building at the National Staggerwing Museum in Tullahoma, Tennessee is also named for Thaden in 1974.
Thaden died of a heart attack at High Point, North Carolina.