OVERVIEW
On a stormy day in June 1928, the Fokker tri-motor Friendship dipped down out of a leaden sky to land in the bay near Burry Port, Wales. The airship taxied through the pouring rain to a nearby buoy and cut its engines. A moment later, crewman Louis “Slim” Gordon, opened a door in the fuselage, hopped out, and moored the ship to the buoy.
At the controls of the airship was Wilmer Stultz, and in the passenger compartment was a woman, who up until that flight had been a recreational aviator and a social worker in Boston. On that rainy morning, however, she was catapulted to international celebrity. Her name was Amelia Earhart.
A few months before, the young, boyish woman with tousled hair, had been asked to an interview by George Palmer Putnam, the wealthy and powerful head of G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Publishers. An athletic adventurer, writer, and promoter, Putnam had been asked by wealthy New England socialite Amy Guest, who had purchased a Fokker tri-motor aircraft from Admiral Richard Byrd, to find a woman to fly across the Atlantic in that aircraft. Initially, Mrs. Guest planned to make the flight herself, to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, but had been pressured out of the flight by her worried family.
A masterful promoter, George Palmer Putnam, or “GP” as he liked to be called, immediately seized upon the young Amelia Earhart at their first meeting. Earhart was tall, slim and had a remarkable physical likeness to recent aviation hero Charles Lindbergh, whose nickname was “Lucky Lindy.” Putnam instantly christened her “Lady Lindy”, a nickname which Earhart deplored.
When asked if she wanted to make the flight, Earhart unhesitatingly jumped for it, as she was plucky, adventurous, and ambitious. She knew an opportunity when she saw one. As she said later, “You don’t turn down an opportunity like that!”
The rest was history. Immediately after the flight of the Friendship, commemorative medals were struck and sold, and the young aviatrix embarked upon a number of product endorsements.
At the same time, GP hustled his young protégéé off to his luxurious estate, Rocknoll, in Rye, NY, so that she would have the privacy and peace to write an account of her famous flight. This she did, and before the end of 1928, “20 Hours, 40 Minutes” was published. To this day, it is an important historical source and a sought after collectible.
Earhart then embarked upon a lucrative and busy lecture tour to discuss her new book. Upon her return to New York, she was appointed Aviation Editor for Cosmopolitan Magazine. By then, in 1929, she was all the rage.
Dissatisfied with being just a passenger on the first transatlantic flight, Earhart determined to pilot the Atlantic Ocean herself and spent the next four years in preparing for this. Preparations were set back by a crash during a practice flight in Norfolk, Virginia in 1930, which necessitated lengthy repairs that weren’t completed until 1931. Shortly after the Norfolk crash, GP obtained a divorce from his wife, Dorothy, and the following February, in 1931, he and Earhart were married in a quiet ceremony.
In the spring of 1932, the aviatrix took off from Newfoundland and successfully crossed the Atlantic in 15 hours, 18 minutes, landing in a pasture in Londonderry, Ireland. Earhart was now the first woman to successfully pilot the Atlantic.
Over the next five years, under GP’s guidance, Earhart set more aviation records, participated in various aviation events, continued to tour the lecture circuit, was the spokesperson for a multitude of products, and lent her name to several businesses. One of them was a line of women’s clothing, which she personally designed. Another was a high quality line of luggage that continued be manufactured for years after her disappearance.
Additionally, Earhart became actively involved in establishing commercial air routes and founding airlines. But beyond that, she was an ardent feminist, who eschewed the conventional female role and forged a new one for herself. On her passport, under “occupation”, she had entered, “flyer.” And whenever she was on an airfield, she habitually wore custom tailored gabardine slacks, an open throated man’s sport shirt with a knotted silk scarf, and a leather-flying jacket. They became her trademarks. She was one of the most talked-about, fashionable, admired, beloved, and emulated women of the 1930s. She was an icon. Her name was a household word. Even the press referred to her more often as not as just “Amelia.” Everyone knew whom they were talking about.
During her brief career, she was always thinking about the next flight, because these flights kept her in the public eye. During her preparations for the round-the-world flight, she told a friend, “I think I’ve only got one more good flight left in me.” That remark turned out to be more prescient than Earhart could know.
THE EARLY YEARS
On July 24, 1897 the remarkable life of Amelia Earhart began in Atchison, Kansas in the home of her grandfather, Alfred Gideon Otis (1827–1912), a retired federal judge, president of the Atchison Savings Bank and a prominent citizen in town. Her parents were Samuel "Edwin" Stanton Earhart (1867-1931) and Amelia "Amy" Otis Earhart (1869–1962). Judge Otis had not initially approved of the marriage or Edwin's efforts as a lawyer.
Amelia Earhart was named, according to family custom, after her two grandmothers (Amelia Josephine Harres and Mary Wells Patton). From a young age, Earhart, nicknamed "Meeley" and sometimes "Millie", was the neighborhood leader, while her younger sister (two years her junior), Grace Muriel Earhart (1899–1998), nicknamed "Pidge," was a dutiful follower. Although their grandmother favored a more conventional upbringing, their mother leaned the other way, dressing her girls in the then avant garde "bloomers" which Earhart liked because of the freedom
Every morning, the Earhart children set off on daily on outings to explore their neighborhood. Earhart spent long hours playing with Pidge, climbing trees, hunting rats with a rifle and "belly-slamming" her sled downhill. This love of the outdoors activity and rough play, although common with many youngsters, later caused some biographers to characterize the young Earhart as a tomboy. The girls kept "worms, moths, katydids and a tree toad in a growing collection gathered in their outings. In 1904, with the help of her uncle, she built a home-made ramp modeled after a roller coaster she had seen on a trip to St. Louis and secured the ramp to the roof of the family tool shed. Earhart's first documented flight ended with her emerging from the broken wooden box that had served as a roller coaster car, with an injured lip and torn dress, exclaiming, "Oh, Pidge, it's just like flying!"
Share with your friends: |
