• Home
• Bio-sketches
• MY GP DATA-CENTER
• Register
• Support Network
• Contact Us

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 in Atchison, Kansas. Her mother, Amy, was the daughter of a wealthy judge; and her father, Edwin, a lawyer, was frustrated because he was never able to provide his wife with the kind of lifestyle she had become accustomed to growing up in a judge's house. Her parent's difficult marriage had a profound effect on Amelia.

                  EARLY LESSONS IN INDEPENDENCE

As a young girl, Amelia and her younger sister Muriel were encouraged to pursue any activity that interested them, including traditionally male activities. So, she spent long hours climbing trees, “belly-slamming” her sled downhill, and hunting rats with a rifle.

When she was twelve, the family moved to St. Paul, MN so her father could earn more money as a railroad executive. However, the pressure of the job soon led Edwin to drinking, and in 1914 he was fired. Seeing her father's frustration and unhappiness, Amelia was determined to be an independent woman, sharing responsibilities equally with a man, and not being dependent on him.

                              FINDING HER CALLING

After Edwin lost his job, Amy took the girls to live with friends in Chicago, where Amelia graduated from Hyde Park High School in 1915. Amelia then went to visit her sister at school in Toronto, where she volunteered as a nurse’s aide at a military hospital. Some of her patients were World War I pilots, and Amelia often spent time watching them practice their flying skills.

In 1919 Amelia enrolled at New York’s Columbia University to study pre-med. But she quit a year later so she and her mother could re-join her father who was able to open a law office in California.

While in Long Beach she and her father went to a stunt-flying exhibition. The next day Edwin arranged for his daughter to take a trial flight. Once in the air, Amelia realized she'd found her calling. She immediately arranged to take lessons on an installment plan from Neta Snook, the first woman graduate of the Curtis School of Aviation. In June 1921 Amelia Earhart took her first solo flight. Six months later she purchased her first plane. And, on October 22, 1922, she flew it to an altitude of 14,000 feet, setting a women's world record.

        EMERGING "LADY LINDY" CELEBRITY STATUS

Amelia’s parents finally divorced in 1924. So, Amelia re-located to Boston where she worked as a social worker, became a member of the National Aeronautic Association's Boston chapter, and wrote local newspaper columns on flying. She used her emerging local celebrity status to help market Kinner airplanes (in which she had invested some money), promote flying, and encourage women pilots.

One afternoon in April 1928 – following Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927 – Amelia 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 Putnam), and was asked to join pilot Wilmer Stultz and co-pilot/mechanic Louis Gordon on the flight. The team left Newfoundland on June 17, 1928 and arrived in Wales, United Kingdom, approximately 21 hours later.

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".

Meanwhile publicist Putnam heavily promoted Earhart by publishing a book she authored, organizing lecture tours, and by using her picture in advertising for luggage, cigarettes (but she didn't smoke), and women's sportswear. The time they spent together led to a personal relationship. After much hesitation on her part, George and Amelia were married on February 7, 1931. Being a strongly independent woman, Earhart referred to the marriage as a "partnership" with "dual controls.”

                    SOLO TRANS-ATLANTIC FLIGHT

Amelia Earhart's major claim to fame began on the morning of May 20, 1932 when, at age 34, she took off in her single engine Lockheed Vega from Saint John, New Brunswick, intending to land in Paris and duplicate Charles Lindbergh’s solo trans-Atlantic flight. However strong north winds, icy conditions and mechanical problems forced her to land in a pasture near Derry, Northern Ireland.

Nevertheless, Amelia Earhart succeeded in being the first woman to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic. For this, 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.

Earhart went on to set several transcontinental speed and solo flight records. In 1935 she joined the faculty of Purdue University in Indiana as a career counselor helping young women explore new fields to enter after graduation.

                       ROUND-THE-WORLD ATTEMPT

In July 1936 Amelia Earhart took delivery of a Lockheed L-10E Electra financed by Purdue University and started planning a round-the-world flight. It would not be the first to circle the globe, but would be the longest at 29,000 miles since it would follow a grueling equatorial route. Fred Noonan, who had vast experience in both marine and flight navigation, was chosen as navigator.

After a tire blew on takeoff in Honolulu during the initial March attempt, a second attempt departed June 1, 1937 from Miami, this time flying east. After numerous stops in South America, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, they arrived at Lae, New Guinea on June 29th. About 22,000 miles of the journey had been completed and the remaining 7,000 miles would all be over the Pacific.

On July 2nd at midnight. Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae flying toward Howland Island, a flat sliver of land 2556 miles away. Their last position report and sighting was over the Nukumanu Islands, about 800 miles into the flight. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca was on station at Howland, assigned to guide Earhart 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 (there was no radar at the time) was never accomplished. Vocal transmissions by Earhart indicated she and Noonan believed they had reached Howland's charted position, but this was incorrect. After several hours of frustrating attempts, contact was lost. The U. S. Navy and Coast Guard conducted an extensive air and sea search, but the plane has never been found.

There are three theories as to what happened. One, is that the plane ran out of fuel and Earhart and Noonan ditched at sea. A second suggests they may have flown to Gardner Island, landed there, and ultimately perished. A third theory suggests Earhart agreed to assist the U. S. government in its pre-war intelligence planning by flying over the Marshall Islands to photograph Japanese military installations before going on to Howland Island. However, according to this theory, her aircraft was either intercepted by Japanese fighters or suffered a mechanical failure; and she and Noonan were taken prisoner and later killed by the Japanese in Saipan. Some also suggest the President Roosevelt administration returned them to live out their lives in the U. S. under assumed names.

                     LEGACY: A PIONEERING SPIRIT

Whatever the details of her disappearance or death, during her lifetime, Amelia Earhart was a widely-known celebrity. 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.

Amelia Earhart was an independent, pioneering spirit who blazed a trail of setting high-reach goals and personal achievement for all to see and admire ... especially for the generations of girls and women who decide to walk (or fly!) in her pioneering footsteps.