[On May 20-21, 1932, Amelia Earhart became the second person, and the first woman, to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic. So for the 90th anniversary of that historic feat, I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of aviation histories, leading up to a special weekend post on the myths and realities of Earhart!]
On how history
can overshadow history, and why we should partly resist that trend.
I think it’s
fair to say that Charles
Lindbergh, one of the true aviation pioneers
in American history, is remembered in our collective narratives at least as
well (if not, indeed, much more fully) for two stories that had nothing
whatsoever to do with his flying abilities and achievements. First, there was
the horrifying March 1932
abduction and murder of Lindbergh (and wife Anne
Spencer Morrow)’s 20-month old son Charles Augustus, a true crime story
that gripped the nation both for the 10 weeks that Charles was missing and
again after the 1934 arrest and trial
of Bruno Hauptmann (a prosecution that led to a
new law deeming kidnapping across state lines a federal offense). And then,
less than a decade later, there was Lindbergh’s 1938 acceptance of a German
medal of honor from Nazi
leader Hermann Goering, and his subsequent opposition to U.S. entrance into
World War II through his leadership of the American
First Committee, an openly isolationist, xenophobic, and anti-semitic
organization. Although Lindbergh would go on to fly numerous missions once the
U.S. had entered the war, after these dual 1930s histories he would always at
the very least remain connected to such broader cultural, social, and political
issues alongside his aviation advances and successes.
That’s not
particularly fair when it comes to the true crime story—not only because it
tells us nothing about Lindbergh as a historical figure or a man, but also
because placing that story too much at the center of our collective memories
seems to replicate the grisly fascination with a missing and then dead child
(one of far
too many such true crime fascinations in our cultural history). But the
America First history is a far different story. Lindbergh’s association
with—really his leading, spokesperson status in—that movement reflects deeply
his attitudes and beliefs, his close connection to the Nazi regime in Germany,
his actions and activism on behalf of an exclusionary
vision of American identity and community. While of course those beliefs of
his may have evolved over time, and we can and should consider that question (and
thus his World War II service, among other factors) as part of this
conversation, the late 1930s and early 1940s were a pivotal moment in American
and world history, and Lindbergh aligned himself very fully and vocally with
some of the darkest and most destructive forces in that moment. We can’t
possibly remember his life and public career without putting that alignment front
and center, not only for the sake of an accurate assessment of the man’s role
in and influence on America but also because “America
First” has, like anti-semitism, returned
with a vengeance in our present moment.
Yet at the same
time, there’s another way of looking at Lindbergh’s America First alignment in
relationship to his aviation achievements. Lindbergh was far from the only
isolationist and anti-semitic voice in early 1940s America; the St. Louis and its Jewish refugee
passengers were turned away by forces far bigger and more widespread than
Charles Lindbergh, after all. On the other hand, Lindbergh was quite literally
the first person to make a solo
nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean (on May 20-21, 1927, ironically in
a plane named The Spirt of
St. Louis), a pioneering and courageous aviation achievement that
distinguished him from all of his peers and contemporaries and changed the
course of transportation history. History isn’t a competition or a zero-sum
game; the courageous moment doesn’t cancel out the horrific one, and we can and
should work to remember both as part of Lindbergh’s story. But it’s also
important that we remember America First and its bigoted and exclusionary
attitudes as a far
too widespread phenomenon, one certainly exemplified by but by no means
limited to Charles Lindbergh. Whereas when Lindbergh boarded that plane in May
1927 and set off across the Atlantic, he was both literally and figuratively
alone, and that’s worth remembering as well.
Next history
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other aviation histories or stories you’d share?
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