[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, this week I’ve AmericanStudied a handful of aviation histories, leading up to this special weekend post on the myths and even more inspiring realities of Earhart!]
As I wrote in
Wednesday’s post, Amelia Earhart’s solo flight is, like Earhart herself, justly
famed. But it’s also a bit of a legend at this point; and as is so often the
case with our collective legends, the multi-layered realities behind and around
it are even more interesting and inspiring. Here are a few:
1)
The First Flight: Four years before she made her
daring solo journey, Earhart
was a passenger on another transatlantic trip, accompanying pilot Wilmer Stultz and copilot
Louis Gordon as they flew from Newfoundland to South Wales on June
17-18, 1928 (just a year after Lindbergh’s famous flight). When the three
returned to the US in early July, they received a ticker-tape
parade in New York and a reception at the White House. Earhart was invited
to take part in this historic flight thanks to the efforts of a number of other
influential individuals, from aviation ally Amy Phipps Guest
to publisher (and Earhart’s future husband) George
Palmer Putnam. None of these origin points nor influences take anything
away from Earhart’s later solo flight—but they do remind us that any individual
achievement is also connected to communal histories that need our collective memories
as well.
2)
Fellow Aviator Friends: All of those
aforementioned individuals were friends and allies of Earhart’s, but as her
career continued to unfold she also became close to a number of other female
aviators. Many of them were part of an organization that Earhart herself helped
found: known as The
Ninety-Nines due to their original number of members, this group started in
1929 and Earhart became its first president in 1930. She also became
a mentor to younger female aviators, as illustrated by her relationship
with Jackie Cochran, the talented pilot who would go on to become the first
woman to break
the sound barrier in 1953. And perhaps Earhart’s most interesting relationship
was with one of my earlier subjects in this week’s series, Eleanor Roosevelt;
after flying
with Earhart Roosevelt got a student flying permit, indicative of just how
inspiring Earhart was on that notoriously individual and strong-willed friend.
3)
Bessie
Coleman: As far as I can tell, Earhart wasn’t friends with Bessie Coleman,
which I’m sure was due in part to racism (not Earhart’s, but the collective
racism of 1920s America that created such a segregated society in every way)
but also perhaps a little as well to competition, as Coleman
received her pilot’s license two years earlier than Earhart (but in
France, as American organizations wouldn’t give her one). I want to be as
clear as I can that I’m not accusing Earhart of anything here, but rather
suggesting that, as with every layer of American history and society, there are
African American figures and stories that we’ve purposefully forgotten and that
demand a place alongside our more familiar ones. So as we commemorate Earhart’s
feat this weekend, let’s make sure to remember and celebrate Coleman as well.
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other aviation histories or stories you’d share?
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