ENGLISH

PROJECT
WORK
Submitted to: Mr. V.D. Raval Sir
Presented by: Prashant Saha

Biography of Amelia Earhart

Amelia
Mary
Earhart(Born on 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 record.
She set many other
records,
wrote
best-

Earhart joined the faculty of the Purdue University

aviation department in 1935 as a visiting faculty
member to counsel women on careers and help
inspire others with her love for aviation. 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 circum navigational
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.

Amelia in
her
Childhood

Amelia Mary Earhart, daughter

of Samuel "Edwin" Stanton
Childhood
Earhart
(1867-1930)and
Amelia "Amy" Otis Earhart
(18691962),was
born
in
Atchison, Kansas, in the home
of her maternal grandfather,
Alfred Gideon Otis (1827
1912), a former federal judge,
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

Earhart was named, according to family custom,

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
(18991998),
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.

neighborhood. As a child, Earhart spent long hours

playing with Pidge, climbing trees, hunting rats with a
rifle and" belly-slamming" her sled downhill. 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.
The girls kept "worms, moths, Katy did sand a tree
toad "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 trip to St. Louis and
secured the ramp to the roof of the family tool shed.
Earhart's
well-documented
first
flight
ended
dramatically. 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!"Although
there had been some missteps in his career up to that

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.

the acquisition of a new house and even the hiring of

two servants, it soon became apparent 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
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. In 1915, after
a long search, Earhart's father found work as a clerk at
the Great Northern Railway in St. Paul, Minnesota,
where Earhart entered Central High School as a 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

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."She eventually was 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."Earhart graduated from Hyde Park High School
in 1916.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

Toronto, Earhart was engaged in arduous nursing

duties including night shifts at the Spadina Military
Hospital. She became a patient herself, suffering
from pneumonia and maxillary sinusitis. She was
hospitalized in early November 1918 owing to
pneumonia and discharged in December 1918, about
two months after the illness had started. Her sinusrelated symptoms were pain and pressure around
one eye and copious mucus drainage via the nostrils
and throat. In the hospital, in the pre-antibiotic era,
she had painful minor operations to wash out the
affected maxillary sinus, but these procedures were
not successful and Earhart subsequently suffered
from worsening headache attacks. Her convalescence
lasted nearly a year, which she spent at her sister's
home in Northampton, Massachusetts. She passed
the time by reading poetry, learning to play the banjo
and studying mechanics. Chronic sinusitis was to
significantly affect Earhart's flying and activities in

At flying
about experiences
that time, with a young
Early

woman friend, Earhart 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

programs. She quit a year later to be with her

parents, who had reunited in California.
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 [6090 m] off the
ground," she said, "I knew I had to fly."After that 10minute 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 judgment."Her teacher

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
Fdration
Aronautique
Internationale(FAI).

a while Earhart was engaged to

Samuel Chapman, a chemical
engineer from Boston, breaking
off her engagement on
November 23, 1928.During the
same period, Earhart and
Putnam had spent a great deal of
time together, leading to
intimacy. George P. Putnam, who
was known as GP, was divorced
in 1929 and sought out Earhart,
proposing to her six times before
she finally agreed.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

" 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 medieval
[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 auto gyros and the tour sponsor,
Beech-Nut chewing gum. Although Earhart and
Putnam had no children, he had two sons by his

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