Amelia Earhart

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Amelia Earhart (1897-1937?)

Amelia Mary Earhart, born in Atchison Kansas on July 24, 1897 (missing in flight as of July 2, 1937), daughter of Edwin and Amy Otis Earhart, was an American aviator and noted early female pilot who mysteriously disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during a circumnavigational flight in 1937.

Daughter of a railroad attorney, she grew up as a tomboy in the American Midwest and continued to defy what was considered conventional feminine behavior throughout her life. The action and daring of her youth was not set aside in adulthood. She worked as a volunteer in a Red Cross Hospital during World War I, worked at a settlement house in Boston, studied briefly as a premed student, and taught English to immigrant factory workers. But her first love was the airplane, then captivating the public imagination. Surrounded by the excitement of stunt fliers and air shows, she made her first solo flight in 1921 and scraped together the money to buy her own plane. [1]

By becoming the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an airplane, Amelia gained immediate fame. She is still remembered as the outstanding female pilot of her time.

Amelia's flying accomplishments proved influential to American pilots and pilots of the world alike. She was a creative impulse within the Ninety-Nines organization, and a stimulus for womankind to replace outdated social norms. She encouraged women to hold fast to their beliefs, follow their hearts, and always dare to dream.

Amelia Earhart endures in the American consciousness as one of the world's most celebrated aviators. She remains a symbol of the power and perseverance of American women, and the adventurous spirit so essential to the American persona. [2]

Early Life and Education

America's most famous aviatrix Amelia Mary Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 at her grandparents' home in Atchison, Kansas. Her grandfather, Alfred Otis was one of the leading citizens of Atchison. Amy Earhart, having suffered a miscarriage in an earlier pregnancy, returned to her parents home to await the birth of Amelia. Her father, Edwin Earhart remained with his law practice in Kansas City during this period. A sister, Muriel would be born 2 1/2 years later. [3] Amelia was named after her two grandmothers, Amelia Otis and Mary Earhart.

During the school years, Amelia and Muriel lived primarily with their maternal grandparents in Atchison. During the summers, the girls stayed with their parents in Kansas City. Amelia and her sister experienced privilege and wealth through their grandparents, attending the private College Preparatory School, and enjoying many of the comforts of life.

When her father's private practice failed, Edwin Earhart took an executive job in 1905 with the Rock Island Line Railroad in Des Moines, Iowa. He and his wife moved to Des Moines, leaving the girls with their grandparents in Atchison. It was not till 1908 that the girls moved to Des Moines to be with their parents. [4]

When Amelia was a young teen, her father began to drink heavily. Her beloved grandmother, Amelia Harres Otis, died in 1911. Amelia was particularly affected by the death, as she had been her grandmother’s favorite and namesake. During this time, her father lost his job and entered a sanatorium for a month in an effort to conquer his alcoholism. The move to Des Moines, combined with her grandmother’s death and her father’s drunkenness, took its toll on the family and these were troubling, chaotic years for Amelia and her sister Muriel.

The trials of her family life caused the Earharts to relocate often. Amelia lived in and attended schools in Atchison Kansas, Des Moines Iowa, St. Paul Minnesota, Springfield Missouri and Chicago Illinois. When Amelia was 17 years old her parents separated.

Amelia entered college in October 1916, attending the Ogontz School near Philadelphia. While at the Ogontz, Amelia played hockey, studied French and German, and continued to excel in her classes, though she alienated some of her fellow students when she spoke out strongly against the secret sororities there. She was voted Vice President of her class, Secretary to a local Red Cross Chapter, and Secretary and Treasurer of Christian Endeavor. During her senior year she was elected vice-president of her class, and composed the class motto: “Honor is the foundation of Courage.” However, while visiting her sister Muriel in Toronto over Christmas, Amelia was very affected by the sight of wounded soldiers and decided not to finish out her senior year. Instead she moved to Toronto and joined in the war effort there. [5]

She received training as a Certified Nursing Assistant and, in November 1918 began to work at Spadina Military Hospital in Toronto, Ontario. By 1919 Earhart had enrolled at Columbia University to study pre-med but quit a year later to be with her parents who had reconciled in California.

Soon after, in Long Beach, California she and her father went to a stunt-flying exhibition and the next day she went on a ten minute flight. Within six months, Earhart purchased a yellow Kinner Airster biplane which she named "Canary." On October 22, 1922, she flew it to an altitude of 14,000 feet, setting a women's world record. On May 15, 1923 Earhart was the 22nd woman to be issued a pilot's license by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI).


Adulthood

AE, as Amelia Earhart was called by her friends, was a modern woman. She was courageous, independent, and had a strong social conscience. She fought for international peace, equality for women, the advancement of women in aviation, and the viability of commercial aviation. During her lifetime, she was a role model to millions of people whom she motivated and encouraged through her actions. In an era when men dominated aviation, she was truly a pioneer. [6]

Diverse Undertakings

Amelia was a woman not only of many interests, but of action. When something moved her heart, she acted upon it. Though she is best known for her aviation career, some of her other endeavors included:

  • In 1918 she became a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse at the Spadina Military Convalescent Hospital in Toronto, Ontario caring for wounded World War I soldiers. Many of the patients at the hospital where Amelia worked were British and French pilots, and Amelia and her sister Muriel began spending time at a local airfield watching the pilots in the Royal Flying Corps train. The war ended with the Armistice in November 1918.
  • In 1919 Amelia took an all-girls auto repair class in the spring. In the fall, she enrolled as a pre-med student at Columbia University in New York.
  • In 1920 - 1921 she worked in a photography studio and as a filing clerk at the Los Angeles Telephone Company to help pay for her plane and flying lessons.
  • In 1920 - 1921 Amelia began submitting poetry for publication under the pen-name Emil Harte. She eventually wrote two books.
  • In 1925 Amelia taught English to foreign students at a Harvard University summer extension program. From June to October of that year, she worked as a companion in a hospital for mental diseases.
  • In 1926 Amelia began working part-time as a social worker at Denison House, Boston ’s oldest settlement house. There, she taught English to Syrian and Chinese children and their parents. She eventually became a full-time resident staff member and was elected Secretary to the Board of Directors.
  • In 1934 Amelia launched a fashion house to manufacture and market clothing she designed. [7]

Marriage

Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic on June 18-19, 1928. The flight was the brainchild of Amy Guest, a wealthy, aristocratic American expatriate living in London. Mrs. Guest originally wanted to make the flight herself, but after consideration, hired George Putnam, a New York publicist who had promoted Lindbergh's book We, to look for a suitable women pilot. He selected the then little-known Amelia Earhart, and introduced her as "Lady Lindy".

Though Putnam was married at the time, he eventually divorced his wife, and he and Amelia married in February 1931. [8] Amelia and George continued pursuing their individual careers, but he used his great abilities as a publicist to make Amelia one of the best-known personalities in America. [9]

Amelia continued her aviation career under her maiden name. Amelia and George formed a successful partnership. George organized Amelia's flights and public appearances, and arranged for her to endorse a line of flight luggage and sports clothes. He also published two of her books, The Fun of It, and Last Flight. In 1939, George authored Amelia's biography, entitled Soaring Wings, as a tribute to his beloved wife. [10]


Career in Aviation

High-altitude fliers made little money. Earhart sold Canary and bought a yellow Kissel roadster which she named "the Yellow Peril".

Earhart walks on White House grounds with President Herbert Hoover, January 2, 1932.

Her parents divorced in 1924 and she drove her mother across the United States in the Yellow Peril to Boston, Massachusetts where in 1925 she took employment as a social worker.

Earhart also became a member of the National Aeronautic Association's Boston chapter, through which she invested a small sum of money into airport construction and the sale of Kinner airplanes in the Boston area. She also wrote local newspaper columns on flying and as her local celebrity grew she helped market Kinner airplanes, promote flying and encourage women pilots.

According to the Boston Globe she was "one of the best women pilots in the United States", although this characterization has been somewhat disputed by aviation experts and experienced pilots in the decades since.

After Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, Amy Guest, a wealthy American living in London, England expressed interest in being the first woman to fly (or be flown) across the Atlantic Ocean.

After deciding the trip was too dangerous to make herself, she offered to sponsor the project anyway, suggesting they find "another girl with the right image." While at work one afternoon in April 1928 Earhart got a phone call from a man who asked her, "Would you like to fly the Atlantic?"

She interviewed with the project coordinators who included book publisher and publicist George P. Putnam and was asked to join pilot Wilmer Stultz and co-pilot/mechanic Louis Gordon on the flight, nominally as a passenger. The team left Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland in a Fokker F7 on June 17, 1928, and arrived at Burry Port (nr. Llanelli), Wales, United Kingdom approximately 21 hours later.

She piloted the plane for part of the journey and wrote in the flight log, "If anyone finds that wreck, know that the non-success was caused by my getting lost in a storm for an hour." When the crew returned to the States they were greeted with a ticker-tape parade in New York and a reception by President Calvin Coolidge at the White House.

Because of her physical resemblance to Lindbergh, whom the press had dubbed "Lucky Lindy", the American public began referring to Amelia as "Lady Lindy".

Earhart later placed third at the Cleveland Women's Air Derby (nicknamed the "Powder Puff Derby" by Will Rogers). For a while she was engaged to Samuel Chapman, an attorney from Boston.

Meanwhile Putnam took the chance of heavily promoting Earhart, which included publishing a book she authored, lecture tours and using pictures of her in mass market endorsements for products including luggage, cigarettes (she didn't smoke), pajamas and women's sportswear. The extensive time they spent together led to intimacy and after substantial hesitation on her part they were married on February 7, 1931.

Earhart referred to the marriage as a "partnership" with "dual control", and appears to have asked for an open marriage. In a letter written to Putnam shortly before their wedding she said, "I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any medieval [sic] code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly". (see [11], [12]).

Later in 1931 she set a world altitude record of 18,415 feet (5613 m) in a Pitcairn PCA-2 autogyro.

Lockheed Vega 5b flown by Amelia Earhart as seen on display at the National Air and Space Museum

On the morning of May 20, 1932, aged 34, Earhart took off from Saint John, New Brunswick with the latest (dated) copy of a local newspaper. She stopped off in Harbour Grace, Newfoundland in her single engine Lockheed Vega, intending to fly to Paris and duplicate Charles Lindbergh's solo flight.

However strong north winds, icy conditions and mechanical problems forced her to land in a pasture near Derry, [Northern Ireland].

As the first woman to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic she received the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress, the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor from the French Government, and the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society from President Herbert Hoover.

On January 11, [1935, Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Honolulu, Hawaii to Oakland, California. Later that year she soloed from Los Angeles to Mexico City and back to Newark, New Jersey.

She held several transcontinental speed records. Earhart joined the faculty of Purdue University in 1935 as counselor on careers for women, exploring new fields for young women to enter after graduation.

World flight, 1937

In July 1936 she took delivery of a Lockheed L-10E Electra financed by Purdue University and started planning a round-the-world flight. This would not be the first to circle the globe, but would be the longest at 29,000 miles (47,000 km) since it would follow a grueling equatorial route.

Although the Electra was publicized as a "flying laboratory" little useful science was planned and the flight seems to have been arranged around Earhart's goal to circumnavigate the earth along with providing raw material and public attention for her next book.

Through contacts in the Los Angeles aviation community Fred Noonan was eventually chosen as navigator. He had vast experience in both marine (he was a licensed ship's captain) and flight navigation. Noonan had recently left Pan Am, where he established most of the company's seaplane routes across the Pacific. He hoped the resulting publicity would help him establish his own navigation school in Florida.

On St Patrick's Day, 1937, they flew the first leg, Oakland, California to Honolulu, Hawaii. The flight resumed three days later but a tire blew on takeoff and Earhart ground-looped the plane.

File:Frednoonan earhart2.jpg
Earhart and Noonan by the Lockheed L-10 Electra during their World Flight, 1937.

Severely damaged, the aircraft had to be shipped to California for repairs and the flight was called off. The second attempt would begin at Miami, this time flying east. They departed on 1 June and after numerous stops in South America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia they arrived at Lae, New Guinea on June 29.

About 22,000 miles (35,000 km) of the journey had been completed and the remaining 7,000 miles (11,000 km) would all be over the Pacific.

On July 2, 1937, at midnight GMT Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae. Their intended destination was Howland Island, a flat sliver of land 2000 meters long and 500 meters wide, 10 feet (3 m) high and 2556 miles (4113 km) away.

Their last positive position report and sighting were over the Nukumanu Islands, about 800 miles (1,300 km) into the flight. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca was on station at Howland, assigned to communicate with Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10E and guide her to the island once she arrived in the vicinity.

Through a series of misunderstandings or errors (the details of which are still controversial), the final approach to Howland using radio navigation was never accomplished, although vocal transmissions by Earhart indicated she and Noonan believed they had reached Howland's charted position, which was incorrect by about five nautical miles (9 km), over scattered clouds which are said to have cast hundreds of island-like shadows on the ocean.

After several hours of frustrating attempts at two-way communications, contact was lost, although subsequent transmissions from the downed Electra may have been received by operators across the Pacific.

The United States government spent $4 million looking for Earhart. The air and sea search by the Navy and Coast Guard was the most costly and intensive in history at that time, but search and rescue techniques during that era were rudimentary and planning was influenced by individuals wary about how their roles in looking for an American hero might be reported by the press.

Many researchers believe the plane ran out of fuel and Earhart and Noonan ditched at sea. However, one group (TIGHAR — The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery) suggests they may have flown for two and a half hours along a standard line of position, which Earhart specified in her last transmission received at Howland, to Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro, Kiribati) in the Phoenix group, landed there, and ultimately perished. TIGHAR's research has produced a range of documented, archaeological and anecdotal evidence (but no proof) supporting this theory. The third theory suggests Earhart overflew the Marshall Islands to photograph Japanese military installations for pre-war intelligence planning and then was to proceed on to Howland Island. Her aircraft however was either intercepted by Japanese fighters or suffered a mechanical failure and she and Noonan were taken prisoner by the Japanese and later killed in Saipan. Some also suggest they may have returned to the US under new names.

To this day, US government documents concerning Earhart and her disappearance remain classified.

Legacy

Amelia Earhart was a widely-known celebrity during her lifetime. Her shyly charismatic appeal, independence, persistence, coolness under pressure, courage and goal-oriented career along with the mysterious circumstances of her disappearance have driven her lasting fame in popular culture. Hundreds of books have been written about her life, which is often cited as a motivational tale, especially for girls. Earhart is generally regarded as a feminist icon who blazed a trail of achievement for generations of women who came after her.

In 1942, a United States Liberty ship named the SS Amelia Earhart was launched. It was wrecked in 1948.

She was inducted in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1992.

Books by Earhart

File:EarhartBook.jpg
1977 reprint of Earhart's book, The Fun of It.

Amelia Earhart was an accomplished and articulate writer who served as aviation editor for Cosmopolitan times magazine from 1928 to 1930. She wrote numerous magazine articles and essays, and published two books based upon her experiences as a flyer during her lifetime:

  • 20 Hrs., 40 Min. was her journal of her 1928 flight across the Atlantic as a passenger (making her the first woman to make such a journey).
  • The Fun of It was a memoir of her flying experiences, as well as an essay on women in aviation.

A third book credited to Earhart, Last Flight, was published following her disappearance and featured journal entries she made in the weeks prior to her final departure from New Guinea. Compiled by Putnam himself, historians have cast doubt upon how much of the book was actually Earhart's original work and how much had been embellished by Putnam.

Fiction by other authors

The romantic, tragic and mysterious story of Amelia Earhart has spurred the imaginations of many writers. Stories featuring her have ranged from straightforward biographies to true flights of fantasy. For example:

  • I Was Amelia Earhart is a faux autobiography by Jane Mendelsohn in which "Earhart" tells the story of what happened to her in 1937, complete with heavy doses of romance with her navigator.
  • Flying Blind by Max Allan Collins is a detective novel in which the intrepid Nathan Heller is hired to be a bodyguard for Amelia Earhart. Before long they become lovers, and later Heller helps her to try to escape from the Japanese following her ill-fated flight.
  • The Star Trek: Voyager episode, "The 37s", suggests that Earhart and Noonan were kidnapped by aliens in 1937 and taken to the Delta Quadrant, where they were found by Captain Kathryn Janeway but chose to remain on the far side of the galaxy instead of returning to Earth. (Star Trek also established that one of Starfleet's main space stations is named after Earhart.)
  • The 1943 Rosalind Russell film Flight for Freedom was a fictionalized treatment of Earhart's life, with a heavy dose of Hollywood World War II propaganda.
  • A 1976 television bio project titled Amelia Earhart included flying by Hollywood stunt pilot Frank Tallman whose late partner in Tallmantz Aviation, Paul Mantz, had tutored Earhart in the 1930s.
  • In Christopher Moore's 2003 novel Fluke, Earhart survived her wreck and appears as the mother of one of the characters.
  • In the show Lost the cast finds a pair of humans whom they call "Adam and Eve". "Lost" fans have theorized that they are, in fact, Earhart and Noonan.

Popular Culture

Singer Joni Mitchell wrote a song called "Amelia" on her 1976 album, Hejira, loosely about Earhart. Earhart is mentioned in the song "Someday We'll Know" by the New Radicals, later covered by Mandy Moore and Jonathan Foreman for the movie A Walk To Remember.

Urban legends

During the decades since her disappearance many rumours and urban legends have circulated (and often been published) about what might have happened to Earhart and Noonan. Some have claimed Earhart was captured in the South Pacific Mandate area by the Japanese and interned for a number of years before either perishing or being executed. This story originated when a man, then 15, claimed he had been toying with his radio and a woman came upon the speaker, claiming to be Amelia Earhart. There was then a scream and the woman said Japanese soldiers had entered the plane, she begged them not to hurt her. Then the transmission went dead.

In another account, natives of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands claim that Earhart and Noonan were captured and executed when their plane crashed in the archipelago while it was under Japanese occupation. The account was recreated for the American television series Unsolved Mysteries, however, there is little evidence that this really occurred.

Purported photographs of Earhart during her captivity have been identified as having been taken before her final flight. A fictional World War II era movie called Flight for Freedom starring Rosalind Russell and Fred MacMurray is often cited as the most likely source of a popular myth that Earhart was a spy.

Some researchers have noted the possibility that for wartime propaganda purposes, the US government may have tacitly encouraged (or was indifferent to) false rumours that Earhart had been captured by the Japanese.

An archaeological dig on Tinian in 2004 failed to turn up any bones at a location rumored since the close of World War II to be the aviators' grave.

Another rumor was that Earhart had been forced to make propaganda radio broadcasts as one of the many women known as Tokyo Rose (according to several biographies of Earhart, George Putnam investigated this rumor personally, but after listening to recordings of numerous Tokyo Roses, was unable to recognize her voice among them).

Others have suggested Earhart later managed to return to America where she changed her name and lived out her life quietly, while still others blame her disappearance on Unidentified Flying Objects (the aforementioned Star Trek episode was based upon the UFO myth). There is no evidence to support any of these suggestions, which have all been dismissed by serious historians.

References
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Commons
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  • Briand, Paul, Daughter of the Sky. New York: Duell, Sloan, Pearce, 1960.
  • Butler, Susan, East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart. Reading MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997.
  • Devine, Thomas E., Eyewitness: The Amelia Earhart Incident. Frederick, CO: Renaissance House, 1987.
  • Goerner, Fred, The Search for Amelia Earhart. New York: Doubleday, 1966.
  • King, Thomas F.; Jacobson, Randall; Spading, Kenton; Burns, Karen Ramey; Amelia Earhart's Shoes. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2001. ISBN 0759101302
  • Long, Elgen M., Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.
  • Loomis, Vincent V., Amelia Earhart, the Final Story. New York: Random House, 1985.
  • Lovell, Mary S., The Sound of Wings. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989.
  • Rich, Doris L., Amelia Earhart: A Biography. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.
  • Strippel, Dick., Amelia Earhart — The Myth and the Reality. New York: Exposition Press, 1972.

See also

  • Amelia Earhart Park
  • Opa Locka Airport

External links


bs:Amelia Earhart ca:Amelia Earhart de:Amelia Earhart es:Amelia Earhart eo:Amelia Earhart eu:Amelia Earhart fr:Amelia Earhart hr:Amelia Earhart id:Amelia Earhart it:Amelia Earhart nl:Amelia Earhart ja:アメリア・イアハート no:Amelia Earhart nds:Amelia Earhart pl:Amelia Earhart pt:Amelia Earhart sh:Amelia Earhart fi:Amelia Earhart sv:Amelia Earhart tl:Amelia Earhart [[zh:阿梅莉亚·埃尔哈特]

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