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Amelia Earhart (1897
- 1937)
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 Amelia
Earhart : A Biography by Doris L. Rich
She died mysteriously before she was forty. Yet
in the last decade of her life Amelia Earhart soared from
obscurity to fame as the best-known female aviator in the world.
She set record after record—among them, the first trans-Atlantic
solo flight by a woman, a flight that launched Earhart on a double
career as a fighter for women’s rights and a tireless crusader
(perhaps the most effective activist of her time) for commercial
air travel. Doris L. Rich’s exhaustively researched biography
downplays the “What Happened to Amelia Earhart?” myth by
disclosing who Amelia Earhart really was: a woman of three
centuries, born in the nineteenth, pioneering in the twentieth,
and advocating ideals and dreams relevant to the twenty-first.
"When Amelia Earhart vanished in the South
Pacific in July 1937, she ascended into the annals of aviation
legend. The mystery of her disappearance has excited speculation
ever since. . . . Ms. Rich vividly evoke[s] that tragic aspect of
Amelia Earhart, as well as the moxie and grit of her personality
and the hair-raising atmosphere of pioneering aviation." --
David M. Kennedy, New York Times Book Review
 Amelia
Earhart's Daughters : The Wild and Glorious Story of American
Women Aviators from World War II to the Dawn of the Space Age
by Leslie Haynsworth, David M. Toomey
The first American woman to fly a plane ignored the
orders of her flight instructor and unblocked the throttle he had
rigged to prevent her takeoff. She lifted above where he stood on
the tarmac for a few moments before returning, triumphant, to the
ground. From that moment, the history of America's airwomen has
been one such high-flying rebellion after another. In chapters
that intercut profiles of the most important (and forgotten)
American women aviators with a more general history of aviation, Amelia
Earhart's Daughters revives this fascinating and
underdocumented slice of American women's history.
As Haynsworth and Toomey explain, female
aviators in the U.S. earned their way as "barnstormers"
in the first two decades of the 20th century, performing airborne
stunts for the enthralled masses at county fairs and exhibitions.
When America's role in World War II deepened after the bombing of
Pearl Harbor, enterprising women pilots pushed for and finally
found work as Women's Airforce Service Pilots, delivering military
planes for combat around the country and overseas. Finally, women
demanded and, after much disappointment, gained a role in the U.S.
aerospace program. Although the authors' desire for completeness
sometimes leads to digression, these terrific, adventurous women
are well worth knowing. Read and be inspired! --Maria Dolan
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From Navel
Historical Center
Excerpt:
Amelia Earhart was born on 24 July 1897 in
Atchison, Kansas. Her flying career began in Los Angeles in 1921
when, at age 24, she took flying lessons from Neta Snook and
bought her first airplane-- a Kinner Airstar. Due to family
problems, she sold her airplane in 1924 and moved back East, where
she took employment as a social worker. Four years later, she
returned to aviation bought an Avro Avian airplane and became the
first woman to make a solo-return transcontinental flight. From
then on, she continued to set and break her own speed and distance
records, in competitive events, as well as personal stunts
promoted by her husband George Palmer Putnam.
Earhart's name became a household word in 1932
when she became the first woman--and second person--to fly solo
across the Atlantic, on the fifth anniversary of Charles
Lindbergh's feat, flying a Lockheed Vega from Harbor Grace,
Newfoundland to Londonderry, Ireland. That year, she received the
Distinguished Flying Cross from the 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 Hoover.
In January 1935 Earhart became the first person
to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean from Honolulu to Oakland,
California. Later that year she soloed from Los Angeles to Mexico
City and back to Newark, N.J. In July 1936 she took delivery of a
Lockheed 10E "Electra," financed by Purdue University,
and started planning her round-the-world flight.
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From Ellen's Place
Amelia Earhart, 1897 to 1937, biography of achievements, the early years, the celebrity, the last flight, links, references.
In English and Spanish.
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By Camille Paglia
Excerpt:
The tall, shy, boyish Earhart was dubbed
"Lady Lindy" after a 1928 flight that made her the first
woman to cross the Atlantic by air, although she was little more
than a passenger. Four years later, determined to prove her
mettle, Earhart became the first woman to fly the Atlantic solo,
overcoming near-fatal weather hazards and equipment failure. Until
her strange disappearance in the Pacific after a trouble-plagued
around-the-world flight in 1937, Earhart was probably the most
famous woman in the world and a constant presence in the media.
Dashing in man-tailored shirts, jackets and slacks, Earhart
epitomized the rapidly evolving new woman who sought
self-definition and fulfillment outside the home. Her ability to
open her mysterious, poetic inner self to the camera lens was as
advanced as any movie star's...
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