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EARHART AMELIA 1897-1937?

AVIATRIX

The Road to Flight

Raised in a traditional Kansas family, Amelia Earhart faced difficult times when her parents, although well-to-do, overspent themselves. Her mother was able to recover some money from the estate and enroll Amelia in a school in Pennsylvania, but she never graduated, preferring instead to work as a nurse in a war hospital in Toronto. Meanwhile, she became the subject of a seven-year courtship, which she eventually rejected, fearing that the traditional limits of marriage would prevent her from attaining a meaningful life as an active woman. On Christmas 1920 her father took her to an air show inaugurating the opening of an airfield in Long Beach, California. Fascinated by the show, they went three days later to Rogers Field, where he bought her a ticket for a ride with pilot Frank Hawks. From that point she became obsessed with the idea of flying. She convinced Neta Snook, a female manager at Kinner Airfield, to teach her to fly and paid for her lessons, at a dollar per minute in the air, with Liberty Bonds. Her first successful record was set in October 1922, when she reached an altitude of fourteen thousand feet without wearing an oxygen mask. On 15 May 1923 she became the sixteenth woman to receive the coveted pilot's license of the Federation Aeronautique Internationale.

Lady Lindy

Earhart was broke by the time she was licensed. Following a sinus illness, she had no choice but to take whatever job she could find, including teaching English. In the fall of 1927 she took more flying lessons to strengthen her experience. Bearing an uncanny resemblance to Charles Lindbergh, who had crossed the Atlantic alone in May 1927, she quickly gained the nickname "Lady Lindy." The identification spread like wildfire once she completed a team transatlantic crossing in 1928, landing in Wales. She loathed such comparisons, however, because she felt she had done nothing that truly compared to Lindbergh's success. That would change in the 1930s.

Chasing the Records

Though she married publisher G. P. Putnam in 1931, Earhart continued her flying career. On 20 May 1932 she became the first woman and only the second person to fly solo across the Atlantic. This event inaugurated a string of speed and distance records throughout the 1930s that would be interrupted abruptly by her disappearance during a transpacific flight attempt in July 1937. Such records included the first solo flight between Hawaii and the mainland in 1935. Some of her ventures, clearly intended to raise money for other records, brought her strong public criticism that male pilots had never faced. As she explained to one of her contemporaries, the pattern was a simple one: "I make a record and then I lecture on it. That's where the money comes from. Until it's time to make another record." She sold the airplanes she used to buy newer, more powerful machines that would take her to her next successes. She also became an active spokesperson for the six hundred female pilots in the United States and headed the aviatrix club the Ninety-Nines. Her flight schedule became increasingly full, as her husband attempted to add various tours and stunts to what was already perceived as excess advertising. Earhart played along, including on her final expedition, although it appeared that a few more months of work would be necessary before a successful world flight could be attempted. This did not happen, however, as her last transmission from her plane came on 5 July 1937 as she was crossing the Pacific.

A Feminist by Action Rather Than Words

Throughout her career Earhart represented the modern woman using technology as a means to liberate herself from social constraints. She viewed aviation as "this modern young giant," something that would give equal opportunity to both men and women. Such a line of thought clearly reflected a utopian view of technology still in vogue in the 1930s; Her need to make a difference through aviation as well as the pressures of public scrutiny are believed to have contributed to her decision to attempt her last long-distance flight ahead of schedule; had she succeeded, such a "stunt" would likely have placated critics into silence. She remains nevertheless a great inspiration to all pilots.