Amelia Earhart Essay, Research Paper

Amelia Earhart is one of the worlds greatest aviators, heroes, women, and all around person. She wasn’t afraid of the things people said about Women not being aviators. She broke the stereo type boundaries and let the world know that she was not afraid of being a one of the best aviators of our time.

Amelia was born in her grandparents house on July 24,1897. Her Father Edwin Earhart was working for a law practice in Kansas city during this time. Amelia didn’t know that 2 1/2 years later she would have a sister named Muriel with the nickname Pidge.

Amelia and Pidge were born into a life of privilege through their grandparents. They both attended a private school and took pleasure in their life of leisure. There grandfather was not impressed, though, with his son in law Edwin, the girls father. He apparently failed to live up to his father in laws social and financial expectations.

Her Mother and Father moved to Des Moines in 1905 leaving the girls with their grandparents. The girls moved back to their parents in Des Moines in 1908.

Amelia saw her first airplane when she was ten years old at the Iowa State fair. In her words she said “It was a thing made of wire and not all that interesting…”She took more interest in the Hat that she purchased at the fair. It would be almost ten years until Amelia’s interest in aviation would unfold.

Amelia father was promoted in 1909 and their conditions of living improved greatly. But Edwin had begun to drink and soon it became apparent to Amelia that her father was a drunkard. It also became apparent to family and friends.

Finally in 1914 Amelia, Pidge and her mother left her father and he was fired and went to live with some friends in Chicago. There social life dropped and they became a subject of pity. Amy took money out of a trust fund to support Amelia and her sister through a prepatory school for collage.

Amelia decided to train to become a nurse and served as a Voluntary Aid Detachment until the Armistices in November 1918.In her words she said: “There for the first time I realized what the World War meant.”She also told about the horrible things that she saw like men without arms or legs, blind men, and even Paralyzed men.

In the fall of 1919 Amelia enrolled as a pre- med student at Columbia University . She did well in her studies but decided to rejoin her parents in California where they reunited.

A few Months after they reunited Amelia’s father took Amelia to her very first “aerial meet”. She was now quite interested in flying and the next day, she got a helmet boarded a plane and the moment she took off she knew she was born to fly

Amelia soon began taking lessons from a pioneer aviatrix named Anita Snook . She had her lesson at Kinner field near long beach. Anita had restored a “canuck”.. which is an old Canadian plane.

In July Amelia purchased a her first airplane which she named “the Canary”. She had lots of accidents due to the instability of planes back then. But by October 1922 Amelia began attempting to set a women’s altitude record of 14,000, which was broken a few weeks later by an aviator named Ruth Nichols.

Amelia Sold her “Canary” a little later and bought a canary-yellow car to drive her Mother cross-country to Boston ,which was quite a novelty back then. People loved to ask questions about the road and the fact that it was bright yellow was just part of the excitement.

Amelia later took a job as a “novice” social worker and later became an employee. She joined the Boston Chapter of the National Aeronautic Association. The Boston Globe called her “one of the best women pilots in the United States.” She always supported aviation, especially for Women.

Then, on April 27,1926, her life would never be the same. She got a call from Captain H.H. Raily who asked her if she would like to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic.

She immediately became a celebrity and her life in front of a camera started. The press was all over her. She made her flight across the Atlantic and was even honored by President Roosevelt. She started women’s air derby and got women all over the country interested in aviation.

Finally, it was time that Amelia decided to take her last flight, and she didn’t know this but it really was going to be her last flight. But she decided to fly around the world. Amelia took along one navigator and they departed from Miami, Florida for California by traveling around the world. They of course stopped to have the plane checked, refueled and to tell everyone that they were ok. On July 2nd Amelia left Lae and the Electrica apparently had 1,000 gallons of fuel. At 8:00 GMT Amelia made her last radio contact with Lae. They had short communications with the Itasca which received the last transmission saying that gas was low.

After that no one knew what happened to Amelia and her plane most people thought they crashed but there has been lots of theories to what really happened.