Heroines From History
With her determination and love of adventure, Amelia Earhart was virtually unstoppable
Amelia Earhart is a name remembered for two reasons: one is as the pioneering American aviator who completed numerous record-breaking exploits in the air, and the second is for her disappearance – a mystery that remains unsolved to this day.
Born in Kansas in 1897, young Amelia had a thirst for adventure, and with an upbringing that was difficult due to her father’s patchy career and struggles with alcoholism, she soon realised that she wanted to be self-sufficient. After graduating from high school, Amelia visited her sister in Toronto, where she became a volunteer nurse’s aide, helping wounded soldiers returning from World War One. While there, she became friends with several pilots, whom she greatly admired and spent a lot of free time watching the Royal Flying Corps training.
It was in 1920 that her path was truly set. Having moved back to be with her parents in California, she went to the Long Beach Air Show and took a plane ride. She was hooked, and from that moment on every moment became about learning to fly. Amelia took on several jobs, scraping together the money to pay for lessons, where she was taught by another pioneering female aviator, Anita “Neta” Snook. In 1921, she bought a secondhand Kinner Airster that she nicknamed The Canary. She participated in her first flight exhibition in Pasadena, California, two days after she got her National Aeronautics Association license in December that year.
From that point, Amelia embarked on a decade of unparalleled achievement, overcoming financial difficulties and having to work several jobs to allow her to fulfil her passion for flying. A regular r and popular fixture at air a shows, Amelia entered the record books at just 25, when she set the women’s altitude record of 14,000 feet, but had to sell the plane to cover her dwindling resources.
Her fortunes changed in 1928, when publisher George
Amelia created the Ninety-Nines to support and nurture female pilots
Putman, keen to capitalise on a boom in interest in flying, helped her to become the first woman to cross the
Atlantic by plane, as a passenger, catapulting her to stardom and leading to the publication of several books. In 1931, the two got married, but Amelia kept her maiden name. In 1932, she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic – as a pilot. Her awards included the American Distinguished Flying Cross and the Cross of the French Legion of Honour.
As well as her exploits in the air, the pilot was also an advocate for women. In 1929, Amelia was struck by the lack of opportunities for women to advance in the aviation field, so she created the Ninety
Nines, an organisation to support and nurture female pilots, which still exists today.
In 1937, hopes were high for another record of spectacular proportions. Amelia and navigator Fred Noonan took off from Oakland, California in an attempt to become the first people to circumnavigate the globe. On June 29, they reached New Guinea, and only had 7,000 more miles to go before finishing the trip and landing back in Oakland. They were in touching distance of
achieving their dream. The last time Earhart and Noonan were seen alive was on July 2. They lost radio contact and disappeared. They were never found and on July 19, 1937, they were declared lost at sea. Two years later, Amelia was declared dead, but her legacy of innovation, derring-do and thirst for excellence has meant she has never been forgotten and she remains an inspiration for many young women keen to make their own mark on the world.