Amelia Earhart Biography

Amelia Mary Earhart was born on the 24th of July, 1897 in Atchison, Kansas. Her father was Samuel 'Edwin' Stanton Earhart and her mother was Amelia Otis Earhart. She had a younger sister Grace Muriel.

Amelia's childhood can be described as quite unconventional for that time, as her mother did not want her children to become like the typical girls of that time. She gave her daughters a considerable amount of freedom.

Amelia was at best a tomboy and she would often go on adventures along with her sister. Her father worked as a claims officer for the Rock Island Railroad. Amelia was 11 years old when her father got transferred to Des Moines, Iowa. However, Amelia, her mother and her sister remained in Atchison with her grandparents. They finally moved to Iowa in 1909.

However, Amelia's father was an alcoholic which caused him to retire in 1914 in order to rehabilitate. He never got his old job back even though he tried to take treatment for his alcoholism. At this time, Amelia's grandmother died and left a considerable amount of money in trust for her daughter.

In 1915, Amelia's father found a job as a clerk at the Great Northern Railway in St. Paul, Minnesota.

World War I had begun and in 1917, Amelia began working as a nurse in the Spadina Military Hospital in Toronto, Ontario. She worked there till 1918. While working there, she once attended a flying exhibition. When the plane swept by her side, she stood her ground. And she was hooked on to flying.

However, she fell ill to a sinus infection, one which would plague her for quite a long time. She spent a year convalescing at her sister's house in Massachusetts from a failed surgery.

Amelia Earhart's Flying Career

In late 1920, she visited an airfield with her father. She rode on a plane for the first time and discovered that she would love to fly a plane. She worked as a truck driver and at a local telephone company to earn the $1000 for her flying lessons from Anita 'Neta' Snook.

Six months later, she bought a second hand Kinner Airster biplane. In 1922 she flew the plane to an altitude of 14,000 feet setting a world record for women pilots.

She became the 16th woman to earn her Pilot's License in May 1923.

By 1927, Amelia had accumulated over 500 hours of flying, her skills and professionalism growing steadily.

Meanwhile, her grandmother's inheritance had gradually become depleted. And Amelia's sinus problem persisted. In 1924, she was again hospitalized for this, with no success in her condition. So, Amelia sold off her plane and another one which she had bought to buy a Kissel roadster. Her parents also got divorced in the same year. Finally, she had another surgery for her sinus in Boston, which proved to be successful. Amelia found herself working as a teacher and a social worker to make ends meet.

Her interest in flying continued nevertheless. She became a member of the American Aeronautical Society's Boston chapter and was even elected Vice President. She also acted as a sales rep for Kinner Airplanes in Boston, and wrote articles in the local newspapers promoting flying.

In 1928 she was called by a publicist Captain Hilton H. Riley who asked her if she was interested in flying across the Atlantic Ocean. This project was to be funded by Amy Phipps Guest who was an American Socialite. Amelia was not trained to fly planes with just the aid of instruments. The plane took off from Newfoundland and landed in Wales, 21 hours later. She said that the pilot accompanying her on this flight, Wilmer Stultz did all the flying and expressed an interest in the idea that one day she would do this all by herself.

But Amelia had quickly acquired a celebrity status, who named her 'Queen of the Air'. This brought her many endorsements which helped her fund more such ventures. She wrote a book, and endorsed a women's clothing line promoting 'active living' and a luggage line which met the demands of air travel and is in production till date. She promoted commercial air travel and along with Charles Lindbergh spent time and money setting up Transcontinental Air Transport (later TWA). They set up their first shuttle service between New York and Washington DC.

In August 1928, she became the first woman to fly solo across the North American continent and back. In November 1928, Amelia broke her some-time engagement with Samuel Chapman. She came closer to George Putnam.

In 1929, Putnam got divorced and proposed to Amelia. He did so many times and finally she agreed. They got married in February, 1931. Their marriage was quite unconventional for that time. She believed that both the partners or "breadwinners" shared equal responsibility and she kept her own name. Their marriage could also be termed as the modern-day "open marriage". They never had any children.

In 1931, she set another world record by flying to an altitude of 18,481 feet.

George had two sons by his first marriage and Amelia grew quite fond of his son David, who visited them frequently.

In May 1932 Amelia was finally achieve what she had wanted to do for a very long time - fly solo across the Atlantic. She took off from Newfoundland and after 14 hours and 56 minutes landed in Derry, Northern Ireland. She received the Distinguished Flying Cross from the Congress for being the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

In 1935, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo from Honolulu to California. The same year she also flew solo from Los Angeles to Mexico, and then from Mexico City to New York.

Now Amelia wanted to fly across the globe. In March 1937 she flew from Oakland to Honolulu, where they stopped for repairs and servicing. Three days later, they took off again, but a tire blew off and the plane was severely damaged. The plan was canceled.

She did not give up. Soon she was flying from Oakland to Miami. There, she announced her plan and took off with Fred Noonan as the only crew member in June 1937. They made several stops in South America, Africa, India, South East Asia and arrived in Lae in New Guinea. They had completed 22,000 miles of the journey and only 7,000 miles remained, which would be over the Pacific Ocean.

They set off from Lae on the 2nd of July, 1937 in the Electra airplane. Their destination was Howland Island. They never reached.

Several search and rescue operations were mounted, but no trace of their plane either existing or crashing was discovered. Finally, she was declared dead on the 5th of July, 1937. Amelia Earhart's disappearance has been a subject of wild speculation ranging from the straightforward 'crash and sink' theories to being kidnapped by aliens.

Today, Amelia Earhart has become a role model for women all over the world as a daring lady and a woman of substance and as one of the pioneering women pilots in the world.