Amelia Earhart: Pioneering Aviator and Force for Women's Rights
Women tAke Flight By the time Amelia Earhart took to the skies women had been flying for more than 100 years Two different French women are credited with being the first female to pilot an aircraft Was it Jeanne Garnerin or Sophie Blanchard Both piloted hot air balloons in France in the early 1800s and both have other claims to aviation fame Jeanne was the first woman to make a parachute jump 1799 and Sophie was the first woman to earn her living as an aviator She was also the first woman in history to be killed in an aviation accident In 1819 her balloon caught fire and crashed and Sophie fell to her death In this illustration from a Parisian fashion magazine published in the 1870s French balloonist Jeanne Garnerin is shown rising above a crowd of spectators in a hot air balloon in March 1802 Several years earlier Jeanne had become the first female to ascend in a balloon without a male pilot The death of French balloonist Sophie Blanchard is shown in one of a series of trading cards that depicted events in ballooning and parachuting in the 1800s 88
A century later another French woman Thérèse Peltier became the first woman to pilot an airplane She only flew 650 feet 200 meters and the plane was only eight feet 2 5 m off the ground But she did it That was in 1908 just five years after the Wright Brothers had invented the airplane Two years later yet another French woman Raymonde de Laroche became the first woman in the world to earn a flying license Over the next 50 years the world witnessed women achieving many firsts in the air the first female to use aerobatic or stunt-flying skills 1915 movie stunt pilot 1929 and glider pilot 1931 the first female commercial airline pilot 1934 military pilots 1942 and helicopter pilot 1947 In 1963 Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union became the first female astronaut American Sally Ride was the first woman to become a U S astronaut when the Space Shuttle Challenger launched in June 1983 In 1999 Lt Col Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot a Space Shuttle Thérèse Peltier Valentina Tereshkova Raymonde de Laroche Sally Ride Eileen Collins 9
In Southampton reporters photographers officials and thousands of fans greeted the trio The only one of the fliers anyone cared about though was Amelia She became an overnight international celebrity because of the voyage It was genuinely surprising what a disproportion of attention was given to the woman member of the crew at the expense of the men Amelia wrote in her book The Fun of It It particularly surprised her because she hadn’t so much as touched the controls of the plane during the transatlantic flight Although Amelia was a licensed pilot she had no experience with this particular type of aircraft That meant she was unable to fly it She had merely been invited along for the ride and for the publicity a woman’s presence on the voyage would generate All the attention embarrassed Amelia She tried to set the record straight every chance she got I was just baggage like a sack of potatoes she told a reporter the day after the flight She quickly added Maybe someday I’ll try it alone Four years later Amelia did just that In 1932 she became the first woman and just the second person ever to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean Ever since my first crossing in the Friendship in 1928 when I was merely a passenger I have wanted to attempt a solo flight Amelia Earhart in The Fun of It 10
Amelia Earhart poses in front of the propeller of the Lockheed Electra 10E aircraft that she used during her attempted round-the-world flight in 1937 As well as being an aviation pioneer Amelia inspired women and girls to become independent and pursue goals that had once been unimaginable in their lives and work She even influenced how they dressed Superstar in the Sky By the time Amelia crossed the Atlantic the second time she was already one of the world’s best-known pilots That’s largely because her husband George Putnam was a world-class promoter From the minute he met Amelia George did everything he could do to keep her name in lights He arranged for her to make lecture tours promote products write books and have her photo taken with celebrities That’s not to say Amelia didn’t deserve fame During the early 1930s she took risks and set record after record in the air She was awarded a Gold Medal from the National Geographic Society and the Distinguished Flying Cross from the United States Army Air Corps The French government gave her the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor 11
