Amelia Earhart

Queen of the Air 

By: Emerson 

Today I will tell you about Amelia Earhart and her life. Amelia Mary Earhart was born on July 24, 1897, in Atchison, Kansas. She was very close to her sister, Muriel.  They moved a lot during her childhood, but she still managed to graduate from high school in 1916.  Amelia became a nurse and worked for the American Red Cross. She married her love George Putman in 1931. When she was a kid, she was a tomboy and loved playing outside with her sister.  When she was 10, her family went to the state fair where she saw her first plane. However, she wasn’t very impressed. Then when Amelia was 23, she went to an air show with her dad. Amelia got to take a ride on an airplane and fell in love with it!  That’s when she knew she wanted to fly.  In 1921, when she started taking flying lessons with Neta Snook and began saving money to buy her first airplane in 1922!  It was known that Amelia liked to enjoy hot cocoa and oranges on her flights. 

Amelia quickly set a record for the highest flight at 14,000 feet in 1922.  In 1930, she flew the fastest at 181 mph, setting another record.  Later, Amelia was the first female pilot to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 1932.  Pretty soon, she would set her biggest goal yet. 

Not many women in the 1930’s had careers.  Amelia did, so she was becoming famous.  She wrote books about flying, gave speeches across the country, and was even invited to the White House!  She became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt. One night in 1933, they famously snuck out of a White House dinner and went for a joy ride in Amelia’s airplane to Baltimore and back while still dressed in their evening gowns! Apparently, after their escapade, Eleanor Roosevelt said she wanted to be a pilot, too. Amelia received a lot of medals and spoke at colleges, inspiring women all over the world. Everybody wanted to be like her. The media called her Queen of the Air. She was an American hero. 

Purdue University gave her money in 1936 to buy a Lockheed Electra 10E airplane. Amelia had always dreamed of flying around the world, so she made preparations to be the first woman to circumnavigate the globe.  Amelia and her navigator Fred Noonan began their journey by flying over various deserts and mountains, stopping for gas and repairs along the way. On July 2,1937, after a month of flying, they took off on the last portion of their trip, attempting to cross the Pacific Ocean. During the flight, officials lost radio contact with her plane. Unfortunately, Amelia and Fred Noonan were never seen again.  

When people realized they went missing, there was an extensive search. Amelia and Fred were supposed to land on Howland Island, but experts believe they may have crashed landed on Nikumaroro Island (aka: Gardner Island) about 350-400 miles of course.  The whole world wondered what went wrong.  It is believed her radio communication failed because she didn’t have a trailing wire antenna and was using the wrong frequencies to transmit to the Coast Guard.  Neither of them were trained in morse code, and she didn’t fully understand how to operate the radio direction finder.  In 1940, a British colonial officer found shoes and human bones on Nikumaroro Island. They were analyzed and thought to belong to a short male.  In 1991, researchers returned to the island and found a Cat’s Paw brand replacement heel that matched the type of shoe Amelia was known to wear. They also found a metal panel that matches the replacement navigation window patched onto her airplane just before her last flight. The rivet pattern matches photographs of her plane, and modern imaging techniques have revealed serial numbers on the metal as well.  In 2018, experts analyzed the data again and determined the bones actually matched Amelia Earhart’s proportions more closely than 99% of people, and one of the shoes closely matched women’s shoes from the 1930s that Amelia was known to wear.  Recently on Nikumaroro Island, researchers found fragments of a jar of freckle cream from the 1930s like Amelia used, parts of a bone-handled jack knife like Amelia owned, and evidence of someone eating turtles. It appears that she survived the crash and lived on the island for a while, waiting for a rescue that never came and eventually succumbing to the harsh, secluded island. 

 Even after her death, her fame has lived on.  She was pictured on her own postage stamp in 1963.  One of her planes is in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.  For decades, her death has been shrouded in mystery.  However, in recent years, there has been enough evidence found that the mystery is likely solved at this point, but we may never know for sure.  Regardless, she will always live on as an American hero and an inspiration to many! 

 Sources: 

Ameliaearhart.com 

Amelia Earhart Adventures in the Sky by: Francene Sabin and Anel Joanne Mattern 

National Geographic Kids: Amelia Earhart by: Caroline Crosson Gilpin 

The Extraordinary Life of Amelia Earhart by: Dr.Sheila Kanani and Rachel Cocran