THE HISTORY OF AMELIA EARHART

Amelia Mary Earhart (/ˈɛərhɑːrt/, born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937)
was an American aviation pioneer and author.[1][Note 1] Earhart was the first female
aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.[3][Note 2] She set many other records,[2]
wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the
formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.[5]

Born in Atchison, Kansas, Earhart developed a passion for adventure at a young age,
steadily gaining flying experience from her twenties. In 1928, Earhart became the first
female passenger to cross the Atlantic by airplane (accompanying pilot Wilmer
Stultz), for which she achieved celebrity status. In 1932, piloting a Lockheed Vega
5B, Earhart made a nonstop solo transatlantic flight, becoming the first woman to
achieve such a feat. She received the United States Distinguished Flying Cross for this
accomplishment.[6] In 1935, Earhart became a visiting faculty member at Purdue
University as an advisor to aeronautical engineering and a career counselor to women
students. She was also a member of the National Woman's Party and an early
supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment.[7][8]

During an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937 in a

Purdue-funded Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan
disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island.[Note 3]

Childhood

Earhart was the daughter of Samuel "Edwin" Stanton Earhart (1867–1930) and
Amelia "Amy" (née Otis; 1869–1962).[10] She was born in Atchison, As a child, Earhart
spent long hours playing with sister Pidge, climbing trees, hunting rats with a rifle and "belly-
slamming" her sled downhill.[16] Although the love of the outdoors and "rough-and-tumble"
play was common to many youngsters, some biographers have characterized the young
Earhart as a tomboy.[17] The girls kept "worms, moths, katydids and a tree toad"[18] in a
growing collection gathered in their outings. In 1904, with the help of her uncle, she cobbled
together a home-made ramp fashioned after a roller coaster she had seen on a trip to St.
Louis and secured the ramp to the roof of the family toolshed. Earhart's well-documented
first flight ended dramatically. She emerged from the broken wooden box that had served as
a sled with a bruised lip, torn dress and a "sensation of exhilaration". She exclaimed, "Oh,
Pidge, it's just like flying!"[12]

Earhart as a child

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Education

Earhart graduated from Chicago's Hyde Park High School in 1916.[28] Throughout her
troubled childhood, she had continued to aspire to a future career; she kept a
scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in predominantly male-
oriented fields, including film direction and production, law, advertising, management
and mechanical engineering.[19] She began junior college at Ogontz School in Rydal,
Pennsylvania, but did not complete her program.[29][Note 5][30]

During Christmas vacation in 1917, Earhart visited her sister in Toronto. World War I
had been raging and Earhart saw the returning wounded soldiers. After receiving
training as a nurse's aide from the Red Cross, she began work with the Voluntary Aid
Detachment at Spadina Military Hospital. Her duties included preparing food in the
kitchen for patients with special diets and handing out prescribed medication in the
hospital's dispensary.[31][32]

Spanish flu pandemic of 1918

When the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic reached Toronto, Earhart was engaged in
arduous nursing duties that included night shifts at the Spadina Military
Hospital.[33][34] She became a patient herself, suffering from pneumonia and maxillary
sinusitis.[33] She was hospitalized in early November 1918, owing to pneumonia, and
discharged in December 1918, about two months after the illness had started.[33] Her
sinus-related symptoms were pain and pressure around one eye and copious mucus
drainage via the nostrils and throat.[35] While staying in the hospital during the pre-
antibiotic era, she had painful minor operations to wash out the affected maxillary
sinus,[33][34][35] but these procedures were not successful and Earhart subsequently
suffered from worsening headaches. Her convalescence lasted nearly a year, which
she spent at her sister's home in Northampton, Massachusetts.[34] She passed the time
by reading poetry, learning to play the banjo and studying mechanics

Early flying experiences

At about that time, Earhart and a young woman friend visited an air fair held in
conjunction with the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. One of the highlights
of the day was a flying exhibition put on by a World War I ace.[37] The pilot overhead
spotted Earhart and her friend, who were watching from an isolated clearing, and
dived at them. "I am sure he said to himself, 'Watch me make them scamper,'" she
said. Earhart stood her ground as the aircraft came close. "I did not understand it at
the time," she said, "but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it
swished by."[38]

By 1919 Earhart prepared to enter Smith College but changed her mind and enrolled
at Columbia University, in a course in medical studies among other programs.[39] She
quit a year later to be with her parents, who had reunited in California.

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Neta Snook and Amelia Earhart in front of Earhart's Kinner Airster, c. 1921

In Long Beach, on December 28, 1920, Earhart and her father visited an airfield
where Frank Hawks (who later gained fame as an air racer) gave her a ride that would
forever change Earhart's life. "By the time I had got two or three hundred feet [60–
90 m] off the ground," she said, "I knew I had to fly."[40] After that 10-minute flight
(which cost her father $10), she immediately determined to learn to fly. Working at a
variety of jobs including photographer, truck driver, and stenographer at the local
telephone company, she managed to save $1,000 for flying lessons. Earhart had her
first lesson on January 3, 1921, at Kinner Field near Long Beach. Her teacher was
Anita "Neta" Snook, a pioneer female aviator who used a surplus Curtiss JN-4
"Canuck" for training. Earhart arrived with her father and a singular request: "I want
to fly. Will you teach me?"[41] In order to reach the airfield, Earhart had to take a bus to
the end of the line, then walk four miles (6 km). Earhart's mother also provided part of the
$1,000 "stake" against her "better judgement".[42]

Six months later, Earhart purchased a secondhand bright yellow Kinner Airster biplane she
nicknamed "The Canary". On October 22, 1922, Earhart flew the Airster to an altitude of
14,000 feet (4,300 m), setting a world record for female pilots. On May 15, 1923, Earhart
became the 16th woman in the United States to be issued a pilot's license (#6017)[44] by the
Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI).[45][46] [Note 6]

Transatlantic flight in 1928

Commemoration Stone for Amelia Earhart's 1928 transatlantic flight, next to the quay
side in Burry Port, Wales

Photo of Amelia Earhart prior to her transatlantic crossing of June 17, 1928

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After Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, Amy Guest (1873–
1959) expressed interest in being the first woman to fly (or be flown) across the
Atlantic Ocean. After deciding that the trip was too perilous for her to undertake, she
offered to sponsor the project, suggesting that they find "another girl with the right
image". While at work one afternoon in April 1928, Earhart got a phone call from
Capt. Hilton H. Railey, who asked her, "Would you like to fly the Atlantic?"

The project coordinators (including book publisher and publicist George P. Putnam)
interviewed Earhart and asked her to accompany pilot Wilmer Stultz and
copilot/mechanic Louis Gordon on the flight, nominally as a passenger, but with the
added duty of keeping the flight log. The team departed from Trepassey Harbor,
Newfoundland, in a Fokker F.VIIb/3m on June 17, 1928, landing at Pwll near Burry
Port, South Wales, exactly 20 hours and 40 minutes later.[53] There is a
commemorative blue plaque at the site.[54] Since most of the flight was on instruments
and Earhart had no training for this type of flying, she did not pilot the aircraft. When
interviewed after landing, she said, "Stultz did all the flying—had to. I was just
baggage, like a sack of potatoes." She added, "... maybe someday I'll try it alone."[55]

Earhart reportedly received a rousing welcome on June 19, 1928, when she landed at
Woolston in Southampton, England.[56] She flew the Avro Avian 594 Avian III, SN:
R3/AV/101 owned by Lady Mary Heath and later purchased the aircraft and had it
shipped back to the United States (where it was assigned "unlicensed aircraft
identification mark" 7083).[57]

Marriage to George Putnam

Earhart and Putnam in 1931

Earhart was engaged to Samuel Chapman, a chemical engineer from Boston; she
broke off the engagement on November 23, 1928.[81] During the same period, Earhart
and publisher George P. Putnam had spent a great deal of time together. Putnam, who
was known as GP, was divorced in 1929 and sought out Earhart, proposing to her six
times before she finally agreed to marry him.[Note 8] After substantial hesitation on her

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part, they married on February 7, 1931, in Putnam's mother's house in Noank,

Connecticut

Transatlantic solo flight in 1932

Amelia Earhart Museum, Derry 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, 34-year-old Earhart set off from Harbour Grace,
Newfoundland, with a copy of the Telegraph-Journal, given to her by journalist
Stuart Trueman,[90] intended to confirm the date of the flight.[90] She intended to fly to
Paris in her single engine Lockheed Vega 5B to emulate Charles Lindbergh's solo
flight five years earlier.[91][Note 10] Her technical advisor for the flight was famed
Norwegian American aviator Bernt Balchen who helped prepare her aircraft. He also
played the role of "decoy" for the press as he was ostensibly preparing Earhart's Vega
for his own Arctic flight.[Note 11] After a flight lasting 14 hours, 56 minutes during
which she contended with strong northerly winds, icy conditions and mechanical
problems, Earhart landed in a pasture at Culmore, north of Derry, Northern Ireland.
The landing was witnessed by Cecil King and T. Sawyer. When a farm hand asked,
"Have you flown far?" Earhart replied, "From America".

Additional solo flights

On January 11, 1935, Earhart became the first aviator to fly solo from Honolulu,
Hawaii to Oakland, California.[Note 13][99][100][101] Although this transoceanic flight had
been attempted by many others, notably by the unfortunate participants in the 1927
Dole Air Race that had reversed the route, her trailblazing[102] flight had been mainly
routine, with no mechanical breakdowns. In her final hours, she even relaxed and In
1935, Earhart joined Purdue University as a visiting faculty member to counsel
women on careers and as a technical advisor to its Department of Aeronautics.

World flight in 1937

Early in 1936, Earhart started planning a round-the-world flight. Although others had
flown around the world, her flight would be the longest at 29,000 miles (47,000 km)
because it followed a roughly equatorial route. With financing from Purdue,[Note 17] in
July 1936, a Lockheed Electra 10E was built at Lockheed Aircraft Company to her

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specifications, which included extensive modifications to the fuselage to incorporate

many additional fuel tanks.[116] Earhart dubbed the twin engine monoplane her "flying
laboratory". The plane was built at Lockheed's Burbank, California plant, and after
delivery it was hangared at Mantz's United Air Services, which was just across the
airfield from the Lockheed plant.[117]listened to "the broadcast of the Metropolitan
Opera from New York".[102]

First attempt

On March 17, 1937, Earhart and her crew flew the first leg from Oakland, California to
Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to Earhart and Noonan, Harry Manning and Mantz (who was
acting as Earhart's technical advisor) were on board. Due to lubrication and galling problems
with the propeller hubs' variable pitch mechanisms, the aircraft needed servicing in Hawaii.
Ultimately, the Electra ended up at the United States Navy's Luke Field on Ford Island in
Pearl Harbor.

Second attempt

While the Electra was being repaired Earhart and Putnam secured additional funds
and prepared for a second attempt. This time flying west to east, the second attempt
began with an unpublicized flight from Oakland to Miami, Florida, and after arriving
there Earhart publicly announced her plans to circumnavigate the globe. The flight's
opposite direction was partly the result of changes in global wind and weather
patterns along the planned route since the earlier attempt. On this second flight, Fred
Noonan was Earhart's only crew member. The pair departed Miami on June 1 and
after numerous stops in South America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast
Asia, arrived at Lae, New Guinea, on June 29, 1937. At this stage about 22,000 miles
(35,000 km) of the journey had been completed. The remaining 7,000 miles
(11,000 km) would be over the Pacific.

On July 2, 1937, midnight GMT, Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae Airfield (06°43′59″S
146°59′45″E)[131] in the heavily loaded Electra. Their intended destination was Howland Island

Many researchers believe that Earhart and Noonan ran out of fuel
while searching for Howland Island, ditched at sea, and perished. The
plane would have carried enough fuel to reach Howland with some
extra to spare. The extra fuel would cover some contingencies such as
headwinds and searching for Howland. The plane could fly a compass
course toward Howland through the night. In the morning, the time of
apparent sunrise would allow the plane to determine its line of position
(a sun line that ran 157°–337°). From that line, the plane could
determine how much further it must travel before reaching a parallel
sun line that ran through Howland.[188] At 6:14 AM Itasca timeAs the
plane closed with Howland, it expected to be in radio contact with
Itasca. With the radio contact, the plane should be able to use radio
direction finding (RDF) to head directly for the Itasca and Howland.
Unfortunately, the plane was not receiving a radio signal from Itasca, so
it would be unable to determine an RDF bearing to the ship.[, Earhart
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estimated they were 200 miles away from Howland.[ Myths, legends,
and claims

The unresolved circumstances of Earhart's disappearance, along with her fame,

attracted a great body of other claims relating to her last flight. Several unsupported
theories have become known in popular culture.

Spies for FDR

The World War II-era movie Flight for Freedom (1943) is a story of a fictional
female aviator (obviously inspired by Earhart) who engages in a spying mission in the
Pacific. The movie helped further a myth that Earhart was spying on the Japanese in
the Pacific at the request of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration.[Note 51] By 1949,
both the United Press and U.S. Army Intelligence had concluded that this rumor was
groundless. Jackie Cochran, another pioneering aviator and one of Earhart's friends,
made a postwar search of numerous files in Japan and was convinced that the
Japanese were not involved in Earhart's disappearance.[256

Legacy

Earhart was a widely known international celebrity during her lifetime. Her shyly charismatic appeal,
independence, persistence, coolness under pressure, courage and goal-oriented career along with
the circumstances of her disappearance at a comparatively early age have driven her lasting fame in
popular culture. Hundreds of articles and scores 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.[265]