Amelia Earhart: 16th female licensed aviator and so much more

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Deciding who was going to follow Eleanor Roosevelt, the first in this series (started on 42 Sidenotes), was easy.

Amelia Earhart.

She took Eleanor Roosevelt along on flight and inspired ER to learn to fly. That didn’t happen (FDR didn’t relish the thought) but they did become close friends.

Like Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart was a formidable woman who knew what she wanted and went after it, and who knew what she was prepared to tolerate and what not and made both abundantly clear.

Before I dig into my usual sections, let’s address what detractors love to point out.

Detractors love to point out that she wasn’t as skilled an aviator as her fame implies.

Quite apart from the fact that this is disputed among historians… Who cares? What if there were (and I’m sure there were)? I mean, what if there were tennis players out there more skilled than Serena Williams who didn’t seek the limelight?

It does not detract one iota from either woman’s track record.

Other detractors love to point out that she didn’t always participate in operating an aircraft on a journey that made her “the first woman to [x]”.

Like her first Atlantic crossing. Amelia Earhart readily admitted she didn’t do the flying: “Stultz did all the flying — had to. I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes”. (So there!) According to some she was promised a chance to fly, but the men, Stultz and Gordon, flew the whole way.

Oh, and it was the press who actively ignored both men, focusing on the female passenger as the hero for their stories. They probably figured (unsurprisingly) that would sell more papers than the men. (So double there!)

Besides, it’s irrelevant for the record (books). In 1932 she flew solo and nonstop across the Atlantic. That made her the second person to do so after Lindbergh and the first woman. For which she received the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society straight out of the hands of president Hoover. (So triple there!)

C’mon now, do I really have to spell it out?

Whatever her aviation skills, she put women aviators on the map in the public eye. Her public profile drawing attention to aviation as a viable option for women who wouldn’t otherwise have considered it. And by that alone paving their way into the field — making it less of a fight to get in.

She did more than that.

She wasn’t simply a public figure, she was vocal in her advocacy for women in aviation. She also co-founded the “Ninety Nines”: an international organization of women pilots whose aim was to support and network female aviators.

To me that’s the definition of a trailblazer. Not merely someone who achieves something, but someone who’s enabling others to do the same.

Oh golly, there’s so much. Unfortunately, a lot of it is overshadowed by her tragic disappearance on one of the last legs of her round the world trip with her navigator Fred Noonan.

For one because she refused to live by patriarchal rules:

• She declined Putnam’s offer for marriage 5 times. The 6th time, she relented. Partially. She suggested they’d try it first for a year.

• She refused the “good wife” script. She wrote her husband to be a letter telling him she was unconventional and the marriage might not last. Some quotes:

  “You must know again my reluctance to marry, my feeling that I shatter thereby chances in work which means most to me.”
  ”I shall not hold you to a medieval code of faithfulness to me, nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly.”

• When she did marry George Putman, she kept her own name. She treated the marriage as an equal partnership. She kept her finances separate from her his.

In the early 20th century! I can’t but love and admire that.

She was an outspoken feminist and actively advocated on behalf of other women:

• She co-founded the “Ninety Nines” to support women pilots.

• She was active in the National Women’s Party and lobbied Hoover to get the Lucretia Mott Amendment written by Alice Paul accepted. Her words to Hoover:

  
  I know from practical experience of the discriminations which confront women when they enter an occupation where men have priority in opportunity, advancement and protection. In aviation the Department of Commerce recognizes no differences between men and women licensed to fly. I feel that similar equality should be carried into all fields of endeavor, so that men and women may achieve without handicap because of sex.
  

  As far as our country is concerned, in every State of the Union today there are discriminations against women in the law. I join with the National Woman’s Party in hoping for the speedy passage of the Lucretia Mott Amendment, which would write into the highest law of our land that ‘men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.’ Your own statements on equality of opportunity make me believe you understand our desire.

• She was a career counselor at Purdue for female students and a technical advisor for the aeronautics department.

The rest is in the tasty tidbits section.

She joined the staff of Denison House, Boston’s oldest settlement house. There she worked with adult immigrants and their children. Educating them on English and local customs.

Uh…

Truly. I don’t know. I searched. I directed an AI to find me stuff about her that I wouldn’t like. It turned up a few things. I had another AI fact check them. Only two stood the test.

One was the 1928 transatlantic “first”. I covered that one under “Detractors”.

The other was that before the final trips, she had the trailing antenna removed from her airplane. It’s the antenna needed for low-frequency radio, which includes the 500 kHz band for distress calls and direction-finding. It meant she couldn’t use that band. Some point to this as reckless behavior. It may have been. It may not. The fact stands, the motive for it is debatable and debated. With her and her navigator gone, we’ll never know.

These are not comprehensive by any means! Nor do they reflect Amelia Earhart’s take on any of them. They include names that caught my eye and the labels “friends” and “foes” are to be taken very loosely.

Friends

• Her mother Amy Earhart supported her in her every ambition.

• George Putman, her husband, also acted as her PR manager. She could have done far worse. He was one of the US’ most successful promotors in the 1930s. He also published Charles' Lindbergh’s autobiographical account of his early life and solo nonstop cross-Atlantic flight. It became a blockbuster.

• Eleanor Roosevelt became a close friend.

• Wealthy Thomas Humphrey Varney financially backed many of her aviation adventures. A recent (2025), as yet uncorroborated biography (by Gwen Shapiro) portrays him as her sugar daddy who wanted to marry her.

• Alice Paul wrote the Lucretia Mott Amendment which Amelia Earhart promoted and lobbied Hoover to get accepted.

Foes

She also had her foes (who doesn’t) but interestingly, her foes are not exactly undisputed:

• In contrast with her mother, her grandmother reportedly opposed her aviation and other ambitions. There’s only a single source (that I could find) though about this conflict between the two generations before her.

• Beryl Markham supposedly was a resentful rival. But this isn’t reflected in any of the mainstream biographies so likely is a click-bait type ‘fact’ from an eager YouTuber.

• George Putnam. Yes, her husband. His ambition supposedly pushed her toward riskier, more interesting (for publication) flights. While you could interpret some recent biography reviews this way, it’s interpretation, not fact.

She was unconditionally unconventional and adventurous and didn’t let set backs keep her down:

• She created and ran a clothing line “Amelia Fashions” with practical clothing for active women. Wrinkle free dresses, skirts, pants, and more. She also deliberately created and nurtured a “one of the boys” image. It’s why she’s remembered as a style icon described as “unusually dressed in jodhpurs… yet looked thoroughly feminine.”

• As a girl she was nicknamed Meelie, climbed trees, hunted rats, collected insects.

• She enlisted her uncle Carl Otis to help her, Muriel (her sister), and the boy next door, to built a homemade rollercoaster. The toolshed was its starting point. She crashed and proclaimed “It’s just like flying!”.

• She was the 16th woman to receive an official Fédération Aéronautique Internationale pilot license in 1923.

• She attended six high schools in 4 years and still graduated.

• She wrote books and lectured widely.

• She enjoyed listening to opera while flying.

• After attending a formal dinner at the White House, she absconded together with Eleanor Roosevelt, commandeered a plane and flew to Baltimore. Both women still in full evening attire with white gowns and gloves.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act.
The rest is mere tenacity.
The fears are the paper tigers.
You can do anything you decide to do.
You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process, is its own reward.

‘nuf said.

I had a lot of fun putting this article together. The absconding with Eleanor Roosevelt story made me smile from ear to ear. And it’s still there (wonder when it will fade).

What we can all learn from her is to live life on your terms.
To know what you want and go for it.
To pick yourself up and dust yourself off when you falter (and falter you will).
To go after and advocate for what you believe in.

Yes, she had powerful and wealthy friends. That made achieving what she wanted to achieve easier, sure. But she still had to and did go out and do it herself.

My take: don’t wait for permission or recognition.

Give yourself permission to do and recognition for doing what you believe in.

Live long and prosper.

Sources

• https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/people/earhart-amelia/

• https://historyfacts.com/famous-figures/fact/amelia-earhart-had-her-own-clothing-line/

• https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/earhart-timeline/

• https://meaww.com/amelia-earhart-day-marriage-prenup-feminist-icon-george-palmer-putnam-relationship

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P._Putnam

• https://www.huffpost.com/entry/amelia-earhart-letter-to-fiance_n_4591561

• https://feminist.org/news/september-22-1932-amelia-earhart-lobbies-for-the-era-at-the-white-house/

• https://womensenews.org/2003/06/amelia-earhart-marries-george-palmer-putnam/

• https://archives.lib.purdue.edu/agents/people/1133?page=1

• https://msmagazine.com/2020/09/22/feminist-history-september-22/

• https://www.recall.it/summary/aviation/the-physics-that-doomed-amelia-earhart

• https://www.countryreports.org/articles/amelia-earhart

• https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/amelia-earhart-stories

• https://www.timeforkids.com/a8/this-is-amelia-earhart/

• https://csoarchives.wordpress.com/2024/02/01/remembering-amelia-earhart-2/

• https://www.thehenryford.org/collections/explore/artifact/427489?AssetId=THF255745

• https://www.ameliaearhart.com/quotes/