Amelia Earhart

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Amelia Mary Earhart (around 1928)

Amelia Mary Earhart (born July 24, 1897 in Atchison , Kansas ; lost July 2, 1937 in the Pacific Ocean , declared dead on January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer and suffragette .

Life

Amelia Earhart's birthplace in Atchison

Amelia Earhart was the daughter of the German-American lawyer Samuel “Edwin” Stanton Earhart (1868–1930) and his wife Amelia “Amy” Otis (1869–1962). She had a younger sister, Grace Muriel Earhart (1899-1998). Because her father was an alcoholic , she spent most of her childhood at her grandparents' house. Even as a child, Amelia Earhart behaved differently from what was expected of girls at the time. She climbed trees, hunted rats with a rifle, and collected newspaper articles about women in men's jobs. In 1915 she graduated from high school with honors, from 1917 she worked as a military nurse in Toronto and as a social worker in Boston . In 1919 Amelia Earhart began studying medicine at Columbia University in New York . However, she broke off her studies after almost a year and returned to her parents in Los Angeles.

In 1920 she was allowed to fly in an airplane for the first time , after which she made the decision to learn to fly herself. The cost of acquiring a license to fly at the time was about $ 300 for private pilots and about $ 4,000 for commercial pilots. Amelia Earhart's parents refused to fund the license. She worked in 28 different jobs and took her first flying lesson with the pilot Neta Snook in 1921 . Just six months later, with money saved and borrowed, she bought her first airplane, a Kinner Airster , a two-seater machine with an open cockpit, which she called The Canary and with which she set a world record for women (4,300 m) shortly afterwards. Her parents divorced in 1924. She moved to the east coast of the United States with her mother. For her mother's sake, she sold her airplane and bought a sports car for it. She worked in Boston as a teacher and later as a social worker again.

First transatlantic flight as a passenger

Amelia Earhart obtained a 20-hour flight on 17/18. June 1928 international fame as the first woman to cross the Atlantic as a passenger on a non-stop flight. When she was interviewed after landing, she said: “Stultz flew all the way alone - inevitably. I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes. ”She added,“… maybe one day I'll try it on my own. ”

She was celebrated as a heroine, voted "Woman of the Year" and received more attention than the pilot Wilmer Stultz, who operated the first non-stop flight between New York and Havana in Cuba. In no time, Amelia Earhart became an idol of young American women. She was frequently invited to interviews and lectures and used them to “get women out of the cage of their sex”. She emphasized again and again that no different standards should be applied to women than to men, but also that women “had used the reference to their gender as an excuse for far too long”.

Amelia Earhart at Langley Air Force Base, November 5, 1928

"Powder Puff Race"

In 1929 she took part in the first Cleveland Women's Air Derby (called " Powder Puff Race "), an overland air competition for female pilots only. She was financially and morally supported by the New York publisher George Palmer Putnam . Amelia Earhart met four other well-known female pilots in the fall of 1929 as a result of the devastating press reaction to the race. Together they founded the Club of the Ninety Nines ( Ninety Nines ) with the aim of strengthening the position of women in aviation.

In 1931 Earhart received the sixth marriage proposal from her longtime admirer and mentor George P. Putnam. She married him ("reluctantly," as she pointed out) on February 7th. She feared that marriage could restrict her flying, and she did not want to have children: "It takes too long to have a baby." Both agreed an " open marriage ".

Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Vega 5B, which she used for her transatlantic flight (now in the National Air and Space Museum )

Second transatlantic flight

Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Vega 5B - View into the cockpit

In 1932, six months after their wedding, she dared her greatest adventure: five years after Charles Lindbergh , she was the first woman to cross the Atlantic on a solo flight. She started on May 20, 1932 from Newfoundland towards Paris in a modified Lockheed Vega 5B (registration number NR7952). Due to bad weather and technical problems they did not reach Paris, but already had near Londonderry ( Northern Ireland ) emergency landing . For this flight, which also made her the first person to cross the Atlantic twice, President Herbert C. Hoover honored her with the gold medal of the National Geographic Society . She was also the first woman to be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross . In her acceptance speech she said laconically : “Some aspects of the flight have been exaggerated, I'm afraid. It was much more exciting to write that I landed with the last few liters of fuel. In fact, I still had over four hundred (liters). And I didn't kill a cow on landing - unless one had died of fear. "

As chairman of the Ninety Nines , Earhart tirelessly advocated her feminist goals and used her popularity to oppose the traditional educational system that “continues to classify people according to their gender”. She emphasized again and again that with her daring record flights it was also about proving that women are capable of technical top performances. She has therefore repeatedly advocated that women get their admission to technical universities. As a visiting professor at Purdue University in Lafayette , she helped lay the foundations to advance young women in aviation. She also supported young women in choosing a career and helped them gain a foothold in technical professions.

The Vega 5B used by Amelia Earhart for the flight is now in the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.

Political commitment

In 1917, while working as a military nurse in Toronto, Amelia Earhart had seen soldiers mutilated in Europe during the First World War . She therefore became a staunch pacifist . At a young age, she sympathized with the political left. As a young woman, she once took part in an event organized by the illegal socialist organization Industrial Workers of the World , which was disbanded by the police. She welcomed the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as 32nd President of the United States and subsequently supported his program of social legislation and state welfare for the sick, retired, unemployed and marginalized groups. When Roosevelt ran for re-election in 1936, she supported the left-liberal president in numerous public lectures. She had a personal and political friendship with the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt - shortly after she moved into the White House, she persuaded Eleanor Roosevelt to take a nightly sightseeing flight over Washington.

Pacific flight

On January 11, 1935, she flew over the part of the Pacific Ocean between Honolulu (Hawaii) and Oakland (California) in a Lockheed Model 5C Vega Special (registration number NR-965Y) as the first person to fly solo . In the same year she completed her first solo flight from Mexico City to Newark .

Last flight

Route of your last flight

Shortly before her 40th birthday, she decided to be the first person to circumnavigate the earth at the equator . An Electra ( Lockheed Model 10 ) was available as an aircraft . The company was largely funded by Purdue University , where Earhart was an advisor to female students. The Electra was sponsored by the university as a "flying laboratory". She had to abandon her first attempt in March because of a start-up accident in Hawaii. After this accident her second navigator, Captain Henry Manning, the only one who was an experienced radio operator, left the project. Manning was previously the captain of the SS President Roosevelt , the ship that Earhart brought back to the States from Europe in 1928.

With her navigator Fred Noonan she started again on May 21, 1937 in Miami . After stopping over in Brazil , West Africa , Calcutta and Rangoon , she had already covered three quarters of the route on June 29 and started on July 2 from Lae in New Guinea to cover the last section - the Pacific. She flew to Howland Island , where she wanted to make a final stopover.

USCGS Itasca
Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10E. During the reconstruction for the flight, most of the windows were removed and additional tanks were installed. The round antenna for radio direction finding can be seen above the cockpit. This picture was taken on March 20, 1937, shortly before the launch accident at Luke Field, Hawaii.

Earhart had planned to find Howland Island, only 2.6 km² in size, by means of radio direction finding. For this purpose, the ship USCGC Itasca was waiting there , and it responded to their radio messages as agreed. Earhart, however, reported repeatedly that she was not receiving any radio signals, after which she was apparently wandering around the Pacific, increasingly in distress. At around 08:40 a.m. local time, her navigator gave the direction of flight (on the base line 157 ° / 337 °), after which contact was finally broken. The plane never arrived on Howland Island.

Shortly after her last radio message, the US government launched a major search operation: 64 aircraft and eight warships were involved in the search, the largest in aviation history to date. More than 400,000 km² of sea was searched at a cost of approximately 4 million US dollars. But neither the plane nor Earhart or her companion could be found, so the search was stopped on July 19.

Amelia Earhart was declared "missing, presumably dead". In 1938, a lighthouse named Amelia Earhart Light was built in her honor on Howland Island .

A combination of different causes probably led to the disaster: Firstly, Howland Island was incorrectly recorded on the maps of the time, namely 10 km west of its actual location. In addition, the calculation of the aircraft position of the navigator Noonan was probably incorrect. Difficulties in radiotelephone communication also contributed to the accident. The cloudy sky at the time of the accident made it difficult to find the tiny island just a few meters above the sea. The biggest mistake, however, was probably that the radio direction finding systems of the aircraft and the USCGC Itasca were not coordinated with one another and the flight crew was hardly familiar with the system.

Hypotheses about Earhart's disappearance

Neither her body nor that of her navigator has been found to this day, including the plane. The most obvious assumption therefore appears that the aircraft and its crew crashed into the Pacific. It is believed that Earhart ran out of fuel a short time after her last radio message, and that she was so busy stabilizing the plane that she could no longer broadcast Mayday . In other ditchings of the Lockheed Electra it turned out that the aircraft was buoyant for a maximum of ten minutes because of the heavy engines. The radio system is also no longer operational after landing on the water. Presumably the aircraft is in the vicinity of Howland Island at a depth of approx. 5000 meters.

Over the years, other hypotheses have been voiced about Earhart's whereabouts. She is said to have hidden on islands in the South Seas , captured by Japanese troops or hid under a new identity in the USA. There are reports of calls for help that were received in North America after their disappearance and that are interpreted as the harmonics of Earhart's calls for help, which achieved a long range through reflection in the ionosphere .

Nikumaroro thesis

Nikumaroro Lagoon / Gardner Island

There are indications that Earhart and her companion may have made an emergency landing on Gardner Island (since 1979 Nikumaroro ), an uninhabited atoll on the Phoenix Islands , and survived there for a short time. A week after Earhart's disappearance, one of the search planes reported there were indications of human presence ("signs of recent habitation"). Emergency calls intercepted and logged in the days after the disappearance may also have come from Earhart. In addition, the aircraft's radio receiving antenna was found on the bumpy runway of the airfield in Lae , so that one can assume that radio messages could be sent but no longer received.

1940 was found on Gardner Iceland a woman's shoe, an empty sextant chest and a bottle of French liqueur brand Bénédictine that Earhart liked to drink. An incomplete skeleton was also found, which was initially assigned to a male person. In 2007, remnants of a women's shoe from the thirties of the “Cat's Paw” brand (which Earhart also wore) were found, a man's heel, a zipper (which could have come from a flight jacket), a powder compact mirror, several buttons, simple tools, acrylic glass and aluminum sheet, which could also come from an airplane. In 2010 the following items were found during excavations: old make-up, glass bottles and mussel shells. Bone fragments were also discovered at the point where the remains of the skeleton, which can no longer be found, were found in 1940. These fragments resembled the bones of a vertebra and a finger. A DNA comparison of the bones turned out to be impossible; it was not even possible to establish with certainty whether the bones were of human origin. According to The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), devoted to testing this hypothesis, other parts of the skeleton or equipment of palm thieves , a large cancer, or other animals may have been dismantled and carried away so that they may still be can be found in the vicinity of the site.

The bones found in 1940 were lost in the Fiji Islands , where they had been taken for examination; their whereabouts are unclear. In 1998, however, based on the analysis data from 1940, the skeleton was identified as probably belonging to a female person with the approximate age and weight of Earhart. On Women's Day on March 8, 2018, the American anthropologist Richard L. Jantz, former director of the Anthropological Research Facility at the University of Tennessee (1998-2011), published a study in the journal "Forensic Anthropology" that the dimensions of skeletal remains that Found on Nikumaroro in 1940, fit very well with Earhart's traditional and in part estimated body measurements. Critics complain, however, that this thesis is based on a poor factual basis, specifically on seven measurements of the skeletal remains from 1940, and it is considered unlikely that these measurements were correct. Otherwise, the study primarily made estimates of Earhart's height based on photos, so the findings of the study are viewed as limited.

In 2018, the sextant box could be assigned to the Bushnell , an American ship whose crew was stationed on Gardner Island in 1939 to survey the island.

The fact that the aircraft wreck has not been found so far is explained by the fact that, after Earhart ditched it off the coast of the atoll, the current pulled it over the coral reef after a few days. The sea floor there drops steeply to several hundred meters. In July 2012, an expedition from the TIGHAR group used a robotic submarine to search the sea floor for wreckage. The company cost two million dollars. Parts of the aircraft could not be found. The leader of the expedition Ric Gillespie said, however, that an expert for the evaluation of image material had identified a possible field of debris. An expedition led by underwater archaeologist Robert Ballard in 2019 also ended without result.

This theory is countered by the fact that no further finds of equipment or the wreck have been documented on the island, although it was regularly visited from 1937, a communications base for the US Navy was located there during the Second World War and the island was permanently inhabited until 1963. Most of the wreckage found there can be assigned to combat aircraft; no part is certain to be from Earhart's aircraft type. It is also controversial whether the fuel on board would have been enough to reach Gardner Island. In November 1929 the SS Norwich City ran aground on Gardner Island, until the rescue four days later, the crew survived on Gardner Island and left behind artefacts, including a lifeboat that was still in existence in 1938.

Japanese captivity thesis

According to this theory, Earhart and her companion were apprehended by the Japanese after a crash landing near the Mili Atoll and later died in Japanese captivity on Saipan .

The capture hypothesis was re-fueled in early July 2017 when a History Channel documentary incorrectly interpreted a photo as being taken in 1937 on the Jaluit Atoll and allegedly showing Earhart and Noonan in Japanese captivity. However, a Japanese blogger found out that the photo was actually from 1935.

Services

  • 1922: Women's altitude record: 4,267 m (14,000 ft).
  • 1928: A woman's first non-stop flight across the Atlantic (as a passenger).
  • 1928: Your book 20 Hours 40 Minutes was a great success.
  • 1929: Third place in the First Women's Air Derby, known as the "powder puff race".
  • 1929: Election to the functionary of the National Aeronautic Association. She inspired the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) to introduce separate height, speed and endurance records for women.
  • 1930: Women's speed record for 100 km without a load and with a load of 500 kg.
  • 1930: Vice president of a new airline, New York, Philadelphia and Washington Airways .
  • 1931: Women's autogiro altitude record: 5613 m (18,415 ft).
  • 1932: First solo flight by a woman across the Atlantic in 14 hours 56 minutes.
  • 1932: First solo transcontinental flight by a woman (19 h 5 min) from Los Angeles to New York; at the same time a long distance record for women with 3939 km.
  • 1932: President of the “Ninety Nines”.
  • 1933: New women's speed record in transcontinental flight (17 h 7 min).
  • 1935: First solo flight across the Pacific from Honolulu to Oakland.
  • 1935: First solo flight from Los Angeles to Mexico City (13 h 23 min).
  • 1935: First solo flight from Mexico City to Newark (New Jersey, USA) (14 h 19 min).
  • 1937: First flight from the Red Sea to India (as part of her circumnavigation of the world).

Amelia Earhart was the first woman to hold a pilot's license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI).

Please know I am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.

“I would like to remind you that I am fairly well aware of the dangers. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women have to try things just as men tried. If they fail, their failure must be nothing more than a challenge to others. "

- A. Earhart : 1937

Works

  • 1928: 20 Hrs. 40 min .: Our Flight in the Friendship ; German: 20 hours, 40 minutes. My first flight across the Atlantic , translated by Theresia Übelhör, Frederking and Thaler, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-89405-483-2 .
  • 1932: The Fun of it
  • 1937: Last Flight (edited post-mortem by George P. Putnam; ISBN 0-517-56794-6 )
  • 1939: Soaring Wings (post-mortem biography of George P. Putnam with diary entries by A. Earhart)
  • 2009: Amelia Earhart: The Sound of Wings by Mary S. Lovell ( ISBN 0-349-12176-1 , ISBN 978-0-349-12176-5 )

reception

Movie

Amelia Earhart's life has been the subject of several television and film productions, including:

music

  • Joni Mitchell's piece Amelia from the album Hejira refers to Amelia Earhart. On her live DVD Shadows and Light , released in 2004, she also processes historical film recordings.
  • In 1972 Iain Matthews ' folk band Plainsong recorded the album In Search of Amelia Earhart .
  • Also Heather Nova recorded a song about her: I Miss My Sky .
  • From the Canadian rock group Bachman Turner Overdrive there is also a song called Amelia Earhart .
  • In the title Someday we'll know by the American rock band New Radicals it is briefly mentioned: “ Whatever happened to Amelia Earhart… ”.
  • Jimmy MacCarthy, the famous Irish singer-songwriter, wrote the song No Frontiers and honored her with the line “ And your heart is Amelia, dying to fly ”. It has been interpreted by Mary Black , Maura O'Connell and the band The Corrs, among others . We asked about it in 2010 on the Late Night Show.
  • Bang On A Can: Lost Objects; (TÜV Rheinland Berlin-Brandenburg; Dresden Music Festival; TELDEC New Line), 15th title: Amelia, Flying
  • Spanky and Our Gang - Amelia Earhart's Last Flight (D. McEnery) on the album Spanky & Our Gang - Live (Mercury SR61326 / 1970)

Designations

2 ships were named after her:

2 terms of astronomy:

Barbie doll

In 2018, Mattel released an Earhart Barbie doll as part of a new Barbie collection called “Inspirational Women”.

literature

German
English
  • Susan Butler: East to the dawn. The Life of Amelia Earhart. Da Capo, New York NY 1999, ISBN 978-0-306-81837-0 .
  • Ric Gillespie: Finding Amelia. The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance. Naval Institute, Annapolis (Maryland) 2006, ISBN 1-59114-319-5 .
  • Fred Goerner: The Search for Amelia Earhart. Doubleday & Company, NY 1966.
  • Elgen M. Long, Marie K. Long: Amelia Earhart. The mystery solved. Simon & Schuster, New York NY 1999, ISBN 0-684-86005-8 .
  • Mary Lovell: The Sound of Wings. The Life of Amelia Earhart. St. Martin's Press, New York 1989, ISBN 0-312-03431-8 .
  • Carol A. Pearce: Amelia Earhart Facts on File, NY 1988, ISBN 0-8160-1520-1 .
  • Doris L. Rich: Amelia Earhart. A biography. Smithsonian Institution , Washington DC 1989, ISBN 0-87474-836-4 .
  • Susan Ware: Still missing. Amelia Earhart and the search for modern feminism. Norton, NY 1993, ISBN 0-393-03551-4 .

Web links

Commons : Amelia Earhart  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Amelia Earhart  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Amelia Earhart: The Fun of it . Academy Verlag, Chicago 1977, p. 30.
  2. ↑ Goldstein & Dillon, 1997, p. 54
  3. ↑ Wind on Earhart's Wings , published 2010, accessed April 9, 2018.
  4. ^ Amy Patterson-Neubert: Public to get first look at Amelia Earhart's private life. (English; there it says literally: “ reluctance to marry ”). Online on Purdue News , accessed August 3, 2010.
  5. ↑ "Newly Discovered Amelia Earhart Letter Shows Her Wild Side." ( Memento from February 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), online on Wireless Flash News from February 25, 2003, accessed on August 2, 2010. In the English original, a Letter quoted verbatim: “ I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any midaevil [sic] code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly. ”
  6. ↑ Ronald D. Barley : Amelia Earhart . Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2010, p. 105 .
  7. ↑ Amelia Earhart, Lockheed Model 5C Vega Special. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, accessed January 11, 2015 .
  8. ↑ Ronald D. Barley: Amelia Earhart . Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2010, p. 125 .
  9. ^ Dillon, Katherine V .: Amelia: the centennial biography of an aviation pioneer . 1st ed. Brassey's, Washington [DC] 1997, ISBN 978-1-57488-134-9 , pp. 150 .
  10. ↑ Earhart, Amelia , on encyclopedia.com
  11. ↑ Biography , on ameliaearhart.com
  12. ↑ a b H.AC van Asten: European Journal of Navigation, Volume 6 No. 2 2008. (PDF; 10.6 MB) July 2008, accessed on October 23, 2011 (English).
  13. ↑ Dozens heard Amelia Earhart's final, chilling pleas for help, researchers say - Times Union. In: timesunion.com. Retrieved July 27, 2018 .
  14. ^ Richard Pyle (April 1, 2007). Amelia Earhart case leaps to life in diary (in the print edition: p. A-8). Los Angeles Times (accessed October 10, 2008)
  15. ↑ Did world circumnavigator Amelia Earhart die as a hermit? At Spektrum.de on March 9, 2018
  16. ↑ Amelia Earhart Mystery Solved? 'Investigation Junkies' to Launch New Expedition , on abcnews.go.com:
  17. ↑ Photo series Where is Amelia Earhart , accessed on April 9, 2018.
  18. ↑ Traces on Nikumaroro. In: sueddeutsche.de . December 21, 2010, accessed October 13, 2018 .
  19. ↑ DNA tests on bone fragment inconclusive in Amelia Earhart search. Retrieved May 13, 2019 . CNN US News from March 03, 2011.
  20. ↑ The mystery of the missing aviation pioneer apparently solved orf.at, March 9, 2018, accessed March 9, 2018.
  21. ↑ Jennifer Raff: Have we really found Amelia Earhart's bones? March 16, 2018, accessed April 2, 2018 .
  22. ↑ The Origin of the Nikumaroro Sextant Box ( English ) October 26, 2018. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  23. ^ Emergency landing on the atoll , in Berliner Morgenpost
  24. ^ Christiane Heil: Missing Amelia Earhart: The skeleton of Nikumaroro. Article in the FAZ from July 1, 2012.
  25. ↑ Has Amelia Earhart's plane been found on the ocean floor? nydailynews.com, accessed August 22, 2012.
  26. ↑ The Amelia Earhart Mystery Stays Down in the Deep ( English ) The New York Times . October 16, 2019. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  27. ↑ Does This Photo Show Amelia Earhart After Her Plane Disappeared? , on history.com, accessed July 9, 2017
  28. ↑ Justin McCurry Jamiles Lartey in New York: Blogger discredits claim Amelia Earhart was taken prisoner by Japan . In: The Guardian . 11th July 2017.
  29. ↑ cf. Amelia Earhart (role) ( Memento from November 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) by Amelia Earhart in the Internet Movie Database (IMDb; accessed April 16, 2018)
  30. ^ MacCarthy life 2010 , accessed April 9, 2018
  31. ^ Ship directory of the Todd Houston Shipbuilding Corporation, Houston TX ( Memento of October 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  32. ↑ Program of the ship's christening on the website of the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (pdf)
  33. ↑ Dates and names of the Earhart Corona on planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov (English)
  34. ^ Lutz D. Schmadel : Dictionary of Minor Planet Names . Springer, Heidelberg 2003, 5th edition, p. 331 (English)
  35. ↑ The family threatens to take legal action because of Frida-Kahlo-Barbie orf.at, March 9, 2018, accessed March 9, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Earhart, Amelia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Earhart, Amelia Mary (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American aviation pioneer and suffragette
DATE OF BIRTH July 24, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Atchison , Kansas
DATE OF DEATH after July 2, 1937
Place of death Pacific Ocean