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n July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart, on an attempt to circumnavigate the globe, disappeared mysteriously into the expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Somewhere en route from Lae, Papua New Guinea, and Howland Island, she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, lost communications with those on the ground. The circumstances surrounding her disappearance have been the subject of years of speculation and fruitless efforts to determine Earhart and Noonan’s fate. Numerous theories, from sensational rumors claiming Earhart was a spy for the US government, or even she was working for the Japanese government, to more technical speculation, such as the crash-and-sink theory or that she landed on a different island, continue to fuel curiosity. However, the story of Amelia Earhart did not begin with her disappearance. Quite on the contrary, she was a remarkable woman who made a name for herself in the male-dominated world of aviation. Like many aviation pioneers of her time, Amelia was driven by a spirit of adventure. This wonderment started off from an early age, where she was encouraged to explore her surroundings and reject the traditional confines of femininity, at the encouragement of her mother. Born on July 24, 1897 in a small town in Kansas, Earhart grew up at a time where women had clearly defined roles in society. Girls at the time were expected to wear dresses and prepare for a life of domesticity, while Amelia and her sister, Grace, caught bugs and explored their 14
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neighborhood together, all while wearing bloomers. She even “took flight” with the help of an uncle, creating a rollercoaster-like contraption on the roof of her parent’s shed. After her “flight” down the roof, she reportedly exclaimed, "Oh, Pidge, it's just like flying!" These experiences and opportunities instilled in Amelia a sense of adventure and a willingness to break out of societal norms. However, she was not immediately drawn to aviation. Her first airplane sighting came at age 10 at the Iowa State Fair, but she ultimately was not impressed with the experience, saying the plane was “a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting”. Though she did not pursue aviation as a career until much later, Amelia developed a love of science and math, excelling at these subjects in school, despite pressure to conform. She even kept a scrapbook detailing the accomplishments of women in male-dominated fields, such as mechanical engineering, law, management, and advertising. Her academic career took a short detour in 1918, when she spent a brief time volunteering as a nurse at a hospital in Toronto, caring for patients during the Spanish flu pandemic. This experience, though short in time, maintained a connection to the aviation world. Many of her patients were French and British pilots, and soon after beginning, she and her sister spent time at the nearby airfield watching the pilots in the Royal Flying Corps train.
She soon returned to the United States, with the intention to enroll at Columbia University and pursue a career in medicine. Which did not last long. She soon left Columbia to be with her parents in California, and had she not, we may not know her as Amelia Earhart, pioneering aviator.
PASSION SPARKED In 1920, Amelia and her father visited an airfield in Long Beach, California. There, she met aviator Frank Hawks, who agreed to take her on a short flight. In that short ten-minute flight, she knew her calling. Realizing she needed a way to pay so she could pursue her dream, Amelia took a number of odd jobs, including working as a stenographer for a telephone company. Finally, in 1921, she began lessons with Anita “Neta” Snook, another pioneering aviator, who agreed to take her on. Within six short months, she saved up enough to purchase her first plane, a bright yellow Kinner Airster, which she affectionately nicknamed “The Canary”. It wasn’t long after that, that Amelia set her first record and began making a name for herself in the aviation world. By 1922, she made a solo flight to 14,000ft, a first for a female pilot. Not long after, she became the 16th woman to obtain a pilot’s license. Despite showing promise in the field, she once again had to give up her ambitions, temporarily. During the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, Amelia herself was a victim of the infection.