ENGLISH LESSON AMELIA EARHART

Silvia Oktaviani Putri S.

[BIOGRAPHY]
XA5/29
 Amelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart (July 24, 1897 – disappeared July 2, 1937) was an American aviation
pioneer and author. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
She received the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross for this accomplishment. She set many
other records, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences and was instrumental in
the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots. In 1935 Earhart became
a visiting faculty member at Purdue University as an advisor to aeronautical engineering and
a career counselor to women students. She was also a member of the National Woman's Party
and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment.

During an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937 in a Purdue-

funded Lockheed Model 10 Electra, Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near
Howland Island. Fascination with her life, career and disappearance continues to this day.

Childhood

Amelia Earhart as a child

Earhart was the daughter of Samuel "Edwin" Stanton Earhart (1867-1930) and Amelia
"Amy" (nee Otis) (1869–1962). 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. She was of part
German descent. Alfred Otis had not initially favored the marriage and was not satisfied with
Edwin's progress as a lawyer.

According to family custom, Earhart was named after her two grandmothers, Amelia
Josephine Harres and Mary Wells Patton. 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 the dutiful follower. Both girls
continued to answer to their childhood nicknames well into adulthood. Their upbringing was
unconventional since Amy Earhart did not believe in molding her children into "nice little
girls." 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.
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" 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.

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. One of the highlights of the day was a
flying exhibition put on by a World War I ace. The pilot overhead spotted Earhart and her
friend, who were watching from an isolated clearing, and dived at them. "I am sure he said to
himself, 'Watch me make them scamper,'" she said. Earhart stood her ground as the aircraft
came close. "I did not understand it at the time," she said, "but I believe that little red airplane
said something to me as it swished by."

By 1919 Earhart prepared to enter Smith College but changed her mind and enrolled at
Columbia University, in a course in medical studies among other programs. She quit a year
later to be with her parents, who had reunited in California.

L–R: Neta Snook and Amelia Earhart in front of Earhart's Kinner Airster, c. 1921

In Long Beach, on December 28, 1920, Earhart and her father visited an airfield where Frank
Hawks (who later gained fame as an air racer) gave her a ride that would forever change
Earhart's life. "By the time I had got two or three hundred feet [60–90 m] off the ground," she
said, "I knew I had to fly." After that 10-minute flight (that cost her father $10), she
immediately became determined to learn to fly. Working at a variety of jobs, including
photographer, truck driver, and stenographer at the local telephone company, she managed to
save $1,000 for flying lessons. Earhart had her first lessons, beginning on January 3, 1921, at
Kinner Field, near Long Beach. In order to reach the airfield, Earhart had to take a bus to the
end of the line, then walk four miles (6 km). Earhart's mother also provided part of the $1,000
"stake" against her "better judgement." Her teacher was Anita "Neta" Snook, a pioneer
female aviator who used a surplus Curtiss JN-4 "Canuck" for training. Earhart arrived with
her father and a singular request, "I want to fly. Will you teach me?"

Earhart's commitment to flying required her to accept the frequently hard work and
rudimentary conditions that accompanied early aviation training. She chose a leather jacket,
but aware that other aviators would be judging her, she slept in it for three nights to give the
jacket a "worn" look. To complete her image transformation, she also cropped her hair short
in the style of other female flyers. Six months later, Earhart purchased a secondhand bright
yellow Kinner Airster biplane which she nicknamed "The Canary." On October 22, 1922,
Earhart flew the Airster to an altitude of 14,000 feet (4,300 m), setting a world record for
female pilots. On May 15, 1923, Earhart became the 16th woman to be issued a pilot's license
(#6017) by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI).

Throughout this period, her grandmother's inheritance, which was now administered by her
mother, was constantly depleted until it finally ran out of money following a disastrous
investment in a failed gypsum mine. Consequently, with no immediate prospects for
recouping her investment in flying, Earhart sold the "Canary" as well as a second Kinner and
bought a yellow Kissel "Speedster" two-passenger automobile, which she named the "Yellow
Peril." Simultaneously, Earhart experienced an exacerbation of her old sinus problem as her
pain worsened and in early 1924 she was hospitalized for another sinus operation, which was
again unsuccessful. After trying her hand at a number of unusual ventures that included
setting up a photography company, Earhart set out in a new direction. Following her parents'
divorce in 1924, she drove her mother in the "Yellow Peril" on a transcontinental trip from
California with stops throughout the West and even a jaunt up to Calgary, Alberta. The
meandering tour eventually brought the pair to Boston, Massachusetts, where Earhart
underwent another sinus operation, which was more successful. After recuperation, she
returned to Columbia University for several months but was forced to abandon her studies
and any further plans for enrolling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology because her
mother could no longer afford the tuition fees and associated costs. Soon after, she found
employment first as a teacher, then as a social worker in 1925 at Denison House, living in
Medford, Massachusetts.

When Earhart lived in Medford, she maintained her interest in aviation, becoming a member
of the American Aeronautical Society's Boston chapter and was eventually elected its vice
president. She flew out of Dennison Airport (later the Naval Air Station Squantum) in
Quincy, Massachusetts, and helped finance its operation by investing a small sum of money.
Earhart also flew the first official flight out of Dennison Airport in 1927. As well as acting as
a sales representative for Kinner aircraft in the Boston area, Earhart wrote local newspaper
columns promoting flying and as her local celebrity grew, she laid out the plans for an
organization devoted to female flyers.
Celebrity image

Earhart walking with President Hoover in the grounds of the White House on January 2, 1932

Trading on her physical resemblance to Lindbergh, whom the press had dubbed "Lucky
Lindy," some newspapers and magazines began referring to Earhart as "Lady Lindy." The
United Press was more grandiloquent; to them, Earhart was the reigning "Queen of the Air."
Immediately after her return to the United States, she undertook an exhausting lecture tour in
1928 and 1929. Meanwhile, Putnam had undertaken to heavily promote her in a campaign
that included publishing a book she authored, a series of new lecture tours and using pictures
of her in mass market endorsements for products including luggage, Lucky Strike cigarettes
(this caused image problems for her, with McCall's magazine retracting an offer) and
women's clothing and sportswear. The money that she made with "Lucky Strike" had been
earmarked for a $1,500 donation to Commander Richard Byrd's imminent South Pole
expedition.

The marketing campaign by both Earhart and Putnam was successful in establishing the
Earhart mystique in the public psyche. Rather than simply endorsing the products, Earhart
actively became involved in the promotions, especially in women's fashions. For a number of
years she had sewn her own clothes, but the "active living" lines that were sold in 50 stores
such as Macy's in metropolitan areas were an expression of a new Earhart image. Her concept
of simple, natural lines matched with wrinkle-proof, washable materials was the embodiment
of a sleek, purposeful but feminine "A.E." (the familiar name she went by with family and
friends). The luggage line that she promoted (marketed as Modernaire Earhart Luggage) also
bore her unmistakable stamp.

A wide range of promotional items bearing the Earhart name appeared.

Marriage to George Putnam

Earhart and Putnam in 1931

For a while, Earhart was engaged to Samuel Chapman, a chemical engineer from Boston; she
broke off the engagement on November 23, 1928. During the same period, Earhart and
publisher George P. Putnam had spent a great deal of time together. Putnam, who was known
as GP, was divorced in 1929 and sought out Earhart, proposing to her six times before she
finally agreed to marry him. After substantial hesitation on her part, they married on February
7, 1931, in Putnam's mother's house in Noank, Connecticut. Earhart referred to her marriage
as a "partnership" with "dual control." In a letter written to Putnam and hand delivered to him
on the day of the wedding, she wrote, "I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any
midaevil [sic] code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly."

Earhart's ideas on marriage were liberal for the time as she believed in equal responsibilities
for both breadwinners and pointedly kept her own name rather than being referred to as "Mrs.
Putnam." When The New York Times, per the rules of its stylebook, insisted on referring to
her as Mrs. Putnam, she laughed it off. GP also learned quite soon that he would be called
"Mr. Earhart." There was no honeymoon for the newlyweds as Earhart was involved in a
nine-day cross-country tour promoting autogyros and the tour sponsor, Beech-Nut chewing
gum. Although Earhart and Putnam never had children, he had two sons by his previous
marriage to Dorothy Binney (1888–1982), a chemical heiress whose father's company,
Binney & Smith, invented Crayola crayons: the explorer and writer David Binney Putnam
(1913–1992) and George Palmer Putnam, Jr. (1921–2013). Earhart was especially fond of
David, who frequently visited his father at their family home, which was on the grounds of
the The Apawamis Club in Rye, New York. George had contracted polio shortly after his
parents' separation and was unable to visit as often.

Records and achievements

 Woman's world altitude record: 14,000 ft (1922)

 First woman to fly the Atlantic Ocean (1928)
 Speed records for 100 km (and with 500 lb (230 kg) cargo) (1931)
 First woman to fly an autogyro (1931)
 Altitude record for autogyros: 18,415 ft (1931)
 First person to cross the USA in an autogyro (1932)
 First woman to fly the Atlantic solo (1932)
 First person to fly the Atlantic twice (1932)
 First woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross (1932)
 First woman to fly nonstop, coast-to-coast across the U.S. (1933)
 Woman's speed transcontinental record (1933)
 First person to fly solo between Honolulu, Hawaii and Oakland, California (1935)
 First person to fly solo from Los Angeles, California to Mexico City, Mexico (1935)
 First person to fly solo nonstop from Mexico City, Mexico to Newark, New Jersey
(1935)
 Speed record for east-to-west flight from Oakland, California to Honolulu, Hawaii
(1937)
 First person to fly solo from the Red Sea to Karachi (1937)