Transcripts For CSPAN3 Amelia Earhart - Legend Legacy 20240

CSPAN3 Amelia Earhart - Legend Legacy July 13, 2024

,. 85 years ago this month, a millionaire heart became the first aviator to fly solo from Honolulu Hawaii to oakland california. Of course on may 21st 1932, exactly five years after american aviator Charles Lindbergh was the first person to fly solo across the atlantic ocean. Her heart was the first person person to repeat that. Dorothy curates the collections between aviation aircraft, flight material and aerial cameras, and the history of women in aviation. She is coauthor of the aviation careers of igor sick or ski, and smithsonian american women. Shes a sauna please join me in welcoming dorothy cochran. Good evening everyone, thank you so much, mike is supposed to beyond right can you hear me now its a pleasure to be here thank the Smithsonian Associates for inviting me as i walked into night i realized i remember being here with some of the people im going to talk about, as i walked in tonight, i realized that i remember to being here with some of the people im going to talk about later in the evening for a symposium about, i dont know, 25 years ago. Was anybody else here then . [laughter] ok, just checking. I dont want you to get a repeat. Yeah, i did want to point out our book here that just came out, smithsonian american women, i guess part for the course about amelia, she gets a four page spread in there. She is obviously still very popular and Everyone Wants to know about her. There are a lot of other exciting women in this book and i want to encourage you to go online and check it out and see who else is there. We have several other female aviators and a whole breath of women who have done all kinds of things and all kinds of disciplines. It is really a cool book and i was happy to be part of it. So, lets see here, and that all has to do with the american womens Historical Initiative that the smithsonian is running all this year which is of course the anniversary of the 19th amendment, women getting the right to vote, because of her story. And it is an Ongoing Program that you will see all year long. So, we will go on without further ado. When public speculation will run wild. January 11 as she mentioned was the 85th anniversary of the first solo flight from hawaii to the u. S. Mainland, and Amelia Earhart was the pioneering pilot. Few people know of this aeronautical milestone, but mention ehrhardts name and most everyone perks up. Yes, they know who she is. And they probably have an opinion about how or why she disappeared on her 1937 round the world flight. After all, her disappearance is one of the great mysteries of the 20th century. Earhart was a decorated pilot and a major celebrity during the 1930s, second only to Charles Lindbergh in terms of sheer notoriety, but even after the largest maritime search of the era came up empty and amelia was declared legally dead, and even after nearly 83 years, people continue to think of her and wonder what really happened to her. With each new theory or book or expedition, her name remains in the public arena. But is that the only reason earhart is remembered . Why do people continue to search and more importantly, why do they care . Amelia earhart is the most famous american female pilot and arguably, the most famous one in world history. An accolade due to her aviation career and to her mysterious disappearance. As we mentioned on may 21, 1932, she became the first woman in the second person after Charles Lindbergh to fly nonstop and solo across the atlantic. I have to put an asterisk, the north atlantic i found out a few years ago that there was a gentleman who flew the south atlantic. So i sometimes have to mention that. Flying it, she left newfoundland, canada and landed 15 hours later near londonderry Northern Ireland. The feat made her an instant worldwide sensation and proved she was a courageous and able pilot. Then on august when he fourth and 25th of that year, she made her first solo nonstop flight by a woman across the United States from los angeles to newark, establishing a womans record of 19 hours and five minutes. And setting a womans distance record of 2447 miles. To be sure, amelia had courage and commitment. It takes courage to embark on a path that is so different from the norm, but earhart felt that tug all her life. She was born on july 24, 1897 in kansas, the daughter of edwin and amy otis earhart, and her sister was born two years later. She was a tomboy, no surprise. Playing cowboys and indians, building and testing homemade roller coasters, the neighborhood leader, and she could handle a gun and so her own clothes. The family made moves due to her fathers employment record, and eventual alcohol issues. They lived in minnesota they lived in minnesota and chicago, visited him when he was working in iowa where she saw her first airplane. Her parents separated onandoff, so she learned to depend on herself. She and muriel often spent happy times with their grandparents where her grandmother she accepted most proprieties of the era and was throughout her life, nearly always polite and respectful. She was smart but also headstrong, and not afraid to speak up for herself, her friends or her fellow students. An avid reader, she scoured the newspapers and magazines for articles on accomplished women, cut them out and pasted them into a scrapbook. One entry was about a female doctor by the name of jessica rach. However, i dont know if that article also mentioned that she was a pilot and had built her own airplane with her husband. Never know. When her mother received a modest inheritance, she enrolled the girls in private boarding schools. Amelia went to a school in suburban philadelphia and merit and muriel went to a school in toronto. When she went to visit muriel at school in toronto at christmas, this was christmas of 1916, she was moved by the presence of the world war i moon wounded pilots who were up in toronto. And she decided that she was going to leave her school before graduation and to become and work as a nurse and a nurses aide in the military hospital, tending to those who suffered from shell shock or ptsd as we know it today. She also took a visit to a flying club there and that ignited a spark in her, she thought about that. Following her medical threat, she entered Columbia University extension program, taking premed courses in the fall. She stayed for a semester and then at her parents request, joined them in los angeles for the summer of 1920. The following months, there were airshows at many airfields and she started to learn more about aviation, and on Christmas Day 1920, she and her father attended an opening for a new airport at long beach at rogers field, which featured many exhibition acts. Her first she took a flight with a veteran flyer, frank hawkes, and declared, as soon i left the ground, i knew i myself had to fly. Her first instructor was anita snook who is shown here, a barnstormers herself from iowa who gave lessons. However, that did not last too long. She thought that amelia was a good student but anita married and gave pregnant and married and got pregnant and gave up flying. She did very well with him as well and to pay for her flight lessons, she worked as a telephone clerk, a photographer, and a truck driver. She soloed in 1921 and turk her trials for the National Aeronautic association license at that time. Characteristically, in 1922, she felt secure enough to buy a plane from a local designer, flying shows, and then wasting no time, in setting a womens altitude record, of 14,000 feet. She barely knew how to fly, right, but she was determined to go up and do this. It was part of the exhibition, attitude, and what people did in the era. People were excited to see anybody flying, really. And loved seeing the sport of it all. In 1923, she passed her flight test and became the 16th woman to receive an official Federation Era International Pilot license. When her parents parted for the final time, she sold airplane and left with her mother, moving east to be near her sister, muriel. She was drifting for the next few years. She was not interested in marriage or motherhood, but she had not figured out what she wanted to do. She took time to go back to columbia, took some courses at harvard, did some short jobs here and there, but eventually did it took some coursework that led to a job at a house in boston. Where she began working with immigrant families. At that time, once she was settled into that job and making some money, she was able then to locate the local flying school at denison airport, and got herself back into flying, joining the National Aeronautic association. Now she was starting to find herself again. She had a job, she had friends, she was having a good time. However, opportunity came knocking when she authored offered the opportunity of a lifetime to become the first woman to fly as a passenger across the atlantic ocean. She passed an interview in new york city with people who had already promoted lindbergh and richard berg. Richard berg was part of the group. She passed it and was sworn to silence then until the group prepared for a flight. I think i keep hitting something here. What am i hitting . Lets try that. There we go. I have to watch what im doing. She was a standin, a new york socialite who owned a plane and wanted to make the flight herself as a passenger, she was a socialite from new york. And her family strongly objected. So they set about asking around and looking for someone who could make the flight and they were trying to find the right sort of girl. She had to be smart, have a good background, and then as it turned out with amelia, she was a bonus because she already had some womens records. Before leaving for newfoundland with pilots wilmer spouts and lou, she wrote a philosophical note to her family, just in case she might not return. She said hooray for the grand adventure. I wish i had won. She accepted the challenge even though flying the atlantic in 1928 is very risky. 40 of the 1927 attempts failed. And 25 proved fatal. And the putnam group was not alone. It was a race. Another woman named mabel ball was a harvard at harvard grace, waiting out weather. The race was on. The lindbergh aero was there, lindbergh had flown the atlantic. It was just air mindedness and everyone was interested in aviation. There were all kinds of records and flights being taken. Everyone was involved in the public loved it, they ate it up. It was a very exciting time. It brought about investment and interest and regulation, all the things aviation needed to actually become a form of transportation and grow into, of course, military flying, airline, and more of what we know today. So on june 17, 1928, ehrhardtearhart left newfoundland in the plane. She was promised time at the wheel, at the controls. But it was not to be. During the 20 hour, 40 minute flight, she got zero flight time. However, she was able to pilot the plane from very port in wales to its final stop in southhampton, england. She said, i happened to be a woman and the first to make a transatlantic crossing by air, and the press and public seemed to be more interested in that fact than anything else. It was a tumultuous is subsection at wales, england, new york, boston and pittsburgh. She hid her disappointment, except for one reference to just being baggage. Stunned by the crowds, she managed to find the time to buy an evian aircraft from british pilot lady mary heath. Before she could fly it, she was obligated to George Putnam who was running the publicity to write a book. Within two months, she wrote her book, her first book entitled 20 hours and 40 minutes which talked mostly about aviation and women and people wanting to fly, and a bit about the flight itself. So then she came and flew her evian, came back from the east coast to california and back. The trip had a few breakdowns but everybody had that. It also gave her the opportunity to speak with people and learn to interact with them in the media. As importantly, it brought her to the realization that this fame she was starting to get my to her the opportunity to earn a living in aviation, which is what she wanted to do. George putnam of the putnam publishing and publicity family, became her manager and she began lecturing and writing in aviation and learned how to deal with the press while guarding her privacy. One of her first moves was joining the Editorial Staff of cosmopolitan magazine. In her first column, it came out in november of 1928 titled try flying yourself. [laughter] now, she was determined to succeed. So she acquired her transport license. She made sure she did more flying, that she got better at it, that she took the trials that were necessary to dedicate so she would be taken as a serious pilot. In august of 1929, flying a plane so miller to the one we have in the collection, she placed third in the all womens air derby, behind louise baden and gladys odonnell. This is the first transcontinental flight for women, and it was important. It was from santa monica to cleveland, ohio, where the Cleveland Air races were, and it was a race that she helped organize, but more importantly, it was a race that was closely followed by the press and public. And it proved that women could make a long and dangerous flight. They were capable of making these flights a day in and day out, taking care of the airplanes, taking care of themselves, learning how to fly in all kinds of weather, make decisions, and a lot of men did not think women could do that and they were out to prove that they could. Will rogers dubbed the flight the powder puff derby. Louise fade and said we would rather just be called pilots, thank you. I forgot to mention, then there was the beach nut auto driver. She flew that around as well. That was a new plane that was kind of a short takeoff and landing plane with the rotor on the top. That was a whole different design. That took some time to learn how to fly that. She flew that across country and back. The second day, she went up and did an altitude record in that. She was not afraid of technology, she was not afraid of trying something new. She did have her crackups but so did everett did other people. Everyone is testing these new designs. Shes not afraid of technology or a challenge. In fact, she is eager for it, it is what keeps her going. After the derby, the women who participated in it, they finally found all these other women who were interested in flying just like them. They didnt know each other. There were two Different Levels of flying in the derby. Once they got to know each other, they did what all pilots naturally do, talk about opportunities and jobs in airplanes, and they decided that they needed to have their own group, so they created the group that would be for social and networking purposes, finding jobs, all of the above. Female pilots obviously lacked the social and economic independence that men had an it was harder for them to get aircraft. They cannot get jobs could not get jobs. Most of the jobs they had were very small and didnt they a group of women organized, sent out letters to the 285 licensed american female pilots. 99 responded and 26 actually showed up at a valley stream, new york to organize the club. That is the image of them here. Amelia is in the back there on the left, three or four in. In the front, on the front right is faye bellis wells. When i came in this theater, i was saying i know we spoke a few years ago, i think faye belus wells was speaking about that about amelia because she knew emilio so well. She was a longtime friend of the smithsonian and a marvelous pilot herself. She is the one in the flight suit. Ok. And then, now she was being managed by George Putnam. Flying seemed to be the easy part for earhart. She felt a far more personal risk from a stream of marriage proposals from her manager, George Putnam. He was married when she first met him, but he and his wife divorced, and amelia had nothing to do with that. It was dorothys idea, she had other plans, she had other interests, and she divorced george. George, i dont think minded too much because he really liked amelia. He started proposing to her not long after the divorce. Though she liked him, and they were successful business partners, she really valued her independence. She was afraid it would compromise her life. On the other hand, george was her publicist, and he knew what she wanted to do, and he was good at it. So she finally married him on her own terms in february 1931, after delivering a letter of mixed emotions. She dismissed the medieval code of faithfulness and she also requested a cruel promise that you will let me go in one year if we find no happiness together. Though some called it a marriage of convenience, they remained together. And while other husbands of women pilots often objected to their wives flying, george kept amelia on the treadmill. She chose the flights, he booked the lectures. Putnam was demanding and not wellliked by any of her friends. I havent found any of them that liked him. But bobby trout had to admit, she said, i might have been famous if i had a promoter like george. So she was still flying with friends, louise thaden, eleanor smith, and ruth nichols. Ruth nichols was quite the competitor. All of them one of them had won an air derby, nichols had an idea to fly the atlantic, and amelia was getting the idea to fly the atlantic. She had done it as a passenger but she felt she hadnt done enough flying yet. She was doing a variety of races, doing a variety of shows and things like that. But she felt she really needed to show the discipline and show that she could actually accomplish a flight like this. So she bought a different lockheed vega than the one she used in the derby. The lockheed five b, the red one that we have now in the collection of the national air and space museum. And determined to prove herself, she decided to fly the atlantic. She thought a transatlantic flight would bring her respect. Ruth nichols had made an attempt in 1931, crashing in canada. She recovered and she was planning another flight within a few weeks of earhart taking off on her flight. So, earhart took off on a nonstop solo flight from harvard grace newfoundland to londonderry, Northern Ireland. This is what she said when she got there. She obviously realized when she was flying that the landscape, when she reached land, it didnt look like france. She had been thinking she wanted to go to france. She knew she had drifted to the north. And she realized that

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