Amelia Earhart From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Amelia Mary Earhart (/ˈɛərhɑːrt/; July 24, 1897 – disappeared July 2, 1937) was Amelia Earhart an American aviation pioneer and author.[1][N 1] Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.[3][N 2] She received the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross for this accomplishment.[5] She set many other records,[2] wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences and was instrumental in the formation of The Earhart beneath the nose of her Ninety-Nines, an organization for female Lockheed Model 10 Electra, pilots.[6] In 1935, Earhart became a March 1937, Oakland, California visiting faculty member at Purdue University as an advisor to aeronautical Born Amelia Mary Earhart engineering and a career counselor to July 24, 1897 women students. She was also a member Atchison, Kansas, U.S. of the National Woman's Party and an Disappeared July 2, 1937 (aged 39) early supporter of the Equal Rights Pacific Ocean, en route to Howland [7][8] Amendment. Island from Lae, Papua New Guinea During an attempt to make a Status Declared dead in absentia circumnavigational flight of the globe in January 5, 1939 (aged 41) 1937 in a Purdue-funded Lockheed Nationality American Model 10-E Electra, Earhart disappeared Known for Many early aviation records, over the central Pacific Ocean near including first woman to fly solo Howland Island. Fascination with her across the Atlantic Ocean. life, career and disappearance continues Spouse(s) George P. Putnam to this day.[N 3] Website ameliaearhart.com (http://ameliaearha rt.com) Contents Signature 1 Early life 2 Aviation career and marriage 3 Transatlantic solo flight in 1932 4 Move from New York to California 5 World flight in 1937 6 Speculation on disappearance 7 Legacy 8 In popular culture 9 Records and achievements 10 Books by Earhart 11 See also 12 References 13 Further reading 14 External links Early life Childhood Earhart was the daughter of Samuel "Edwin" Stanton Earhart (1867–1930) and Amelia "Amy" (nee Otis; 1869–1962).[10] She was born in Atchison, Kansas, in the home of her maternal grandfather, Alfred Gideon Otis (1827–1912), who was a former federal judge, the president of the Atchison Savings Bank and a leading citizen in the town. Amelia was the second child of the marriage, after an infant stillborn in August 1896.[11] She was of part German descent. Alfred Otis had not initially favored the marriage and was not satisfied with Edwin's progress as a Amelia Earhart as a lawyer.[12] child According to family custom, Earhart was named after her two grandmothers, Amelia Josephine Harres and Mary Wells Patton.[11] From an early age, Earhart, nicknamed "Meeley" (sometimes "Millie") was the ringleader while her younger sister (two years her junior), Grace Muriel Earhart (1899–1998), nicknamed "Pidge", acted as the dutiful follower.[13] Both girls continued to answer to their childhood nicknames well into adulthood.[11] Their upbringing was unconventional since Amy Earhart did not believe in molding her children into "nice little girls".[14] Meanwhile their maternal grandmother disapproved of the "bloomers" worn by Amy's children and although Earhart liked the freedom they provided, she was aware other girls in the neighborhood did not wear them. Early influence A spirit of adventure seemed to abide in the Earhart children, with the pair setting off daily to explore their neighborhood.[N 4] As a child, Earhart spent long hours playing with sister Pidge, climbing trees, hunting rats with a rifle and "belly-slamming" her sled downhill.[16] Although this love of the outdoors and "rough-and-tumble" play was common to many youngsters, some biographers have characterized the young Earhart as a tomboy.[17] The girls kept "worms, moths, katydids and a tree toad"[18] in a growing collection gathered in their outings. In 1904, with the help of her uncle, she cobbled together a home-made ramp fashioned after a roller coaster she had seen on a 1963 U. S. Postal trip to St. Louis and secured the ramp to the roof of the family stamp honoring toolshed. Earhart's well-documented first flight ended dramatically. Amelia Earhart She emerged from the broken wooden box that had served as a sled with a bruised lip, torn dress and a "sensation of exhilaration". She exclaimed, "Oh, Pidge, it's just like flying!"[12] Although there had been some missteps in Edwin Earhart's career up to that point, in 1907 his job as a claims officer for the Rock Island Railroad led to a transfer to Des Moines, Iowa. The next year, at the age of 10,[19] Earhart saw her first aircraft at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.[20][21] Her father tried to interest her and her sister in taking a flight. One look at the rickety "flivver" was enough for Earhart, who promptly asked if they could go back to the merry-go-round.[22] She later described the biplane as "a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting".[23] Education The two sisters, Amelia and Muriel (she went by her middle name from her teens on), remained with their grandparents in Atchison, while their parents moved into new, smaller quarters in Des Moines. During this period, Earhart received a form of home-schooling together with her sister, from her mother and a governess. She later recounted that she was "exceedingly fond of reading"[24] and spent countless hours in the large family library. In 1909, when the family was finally reunited in Des Moines, the Earhart children were enrolled in public school for the first time with Amelia Earhart entering the seventh grade at the age of 12 years. Family fortunes While the family's finances seemingly improved with the acquisition of a new house and even the hiring of two servants, it soon became apparent that Edwin was an alcoholic. Five years later in 1914, he was forced to retire and although he attempted to rehabilitate himself through treatment, he was never reinstated at the Rock Island Railroad. At about this time, Earhart's grandmother Amelia Otis died suddenly, leaving a substantial estate that placed her daughter's share in a trust, fearing that Edwin's drinking would drain the funds. The Otis house, and all of its contents, was auctioned; Earhart was heartbroken and later described it as the end of her childhood.[25] In 1915, after a long search, Earhart's father found work as a clerk at the Great Northern Railway in St. Paul, Amelia Earhart in evening Minnesota, where Earhart entered Central High School as a clothes junior. Edwin applied for a transfer to Springfield, Missouri, in 1915 but the current claims officer reconsidered his retirement and demanded his job back, leaving the elder Earhart with nowhere to go. Facing another calamitous move, Amy Earhart took her children to Chicago, where they lived with friends. Earhart made an unusual condition in the choice of her next schooling; she canvassed nearby high schools in Chicago to find the best science program. She rejected the high school nearest her home when she complained that the chemistry lab was "just like a kitchen sink".[26] She eventually enrolled in Hyde Park High School but spent a miserable semester where a yearbook caption captured the essence of her unhappiness, "A.E. – the girl in brown who walks alone".[27] Earhart graduated from Chicago's Hyde Park High School in 1916.[28] Throughout her troubled childhood, she had continued to aspire to a future career; she kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in predominantly male-oriented fields, including film direction and production, law, advertising, management and mechanical engineering.[19] She began junior college at Ogontz School in Rydal, Pennsylvania, but did not complete her program.[29][N 5] During Christmas vacation in 1917, Earhart visited her sister in Toronto. World War I had been raging and Earhart saw the returning wounded soldiers. After receiving training as a nurse's aide from the Red Cross, she began work with the Voluntary Aid Detachment at Spadina Military Hospital. Her duties included preparing food in the kitchen for patients with special diets and handing out prescribed medication in the hospital's dispensary.[30][31] Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 When the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic reached Toronto, Earhart was engaged in arduous nursing duties that included night shifts at the Spadina Military Hospital.[32][33] She became a patient herself, suffering from pneumonia and maxillary sinusitis.[32] She was hospitalized in early November 1918, owing to pneumonia, and discharged in December 1918, about two months after the illness had started.[32] Her sinus-related symptoms were pain and pressure around one eye and copious mucus drainage via the nostrils and throat.[34] While staying in the hospital during the pre-antibiotic era, she had painful minor operations to wash out the affected maxillary sinus,[32][33][34] but these procedures were not successful and Earhart subsequently suffered from worsening headaches. Her convalescence lasted nearly a year, which she spent at her sister's home in Northampton, Massachusetts.[33] She passed the time by reading poetry, learning to play the banjo and studying mechanics.[32] Chronic sinusitis significantly affected Earhart's flying and activities in later life,[34] and sometimes even on the airfield she was forced to wear a bandage on her cheek to cover a small drainage tube.[35] Early flying experiences At about that time, Earhart and a young woman friend visited an air fair held in conjunction with the Canadian National Exposition in Toronto.