Amelia Earhart: Heroine Of The Skies

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Amelia Earhart: Heroine of the Skies “Once the prize was in hand, obviously there was one flight which I most wanted to attempt- a circumnavigation of the globe as near it’s waistline could be” (Earhart 2). She was born in Atchison, Kansas in 1897. Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic and the first to attempt the world. She was often disincluded in flying opportunities simply because she was a woman, but she didn’t let that stop her from flying. Amelia Earhart’s spunky and adventurous childhood inspired her to fly, she proved that women could fly as well as men, and she was recognized as an inspiration to women. Amelia Earhart’s spunky and adventurous childhood inspired her to fly. Earhart´s homelife had impacted the…show more content…
In time aviation was a mean from escape from an increasingly troubled home life and was a place where she could be herself (41). Earhart's father Edwin suffered from increasingly poor health, and Earhart suffered from the guilt of the loss of her mother's money (Lovell, 45) Earhart had bought a plane with the help of her mother, but when she was suffering financial problems she stopped flying. Although Earhart went through a bumpy childhood, she was inspired by flying (Lovell, 47). Earhart’s spunky and adventurous childhood inspired her to fly. At the age of ten she saw her first plane at the Iowa State fair in Des Moines, there she saw joy hops: taking passengers for short rides, teaching even hardier students to fly, and giving exhibitions (2). In 1919, Earhart experienced her first flight on a joyhop by Frank Hawks. However, despite her love of flying, Earhart had abscesses in the nasal passages that had created a deep seated sinus infection that caused a great deal of pain, which stopped her from flying for a long period of time (Lovell 46). Lovell explains that Earhart’s careful upbringing enabled her to tread the fine line…show more content…
Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. Stevenson explains, Earhart began by taking flying lessons from Neta Snook, and gained practice by flying in air shows. George Palmer Putnam signed Earhart as the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. Earhart served as a standby co-pilot and kept a flight log as they progressed. For the flight, they used a propeller seaplane named the Friendship. After being in the air for twenty hours and forty minutes she was called “First Lady of the Air” (2). Blythe Randolph says, “The Atlantic is a difficult ocean to fly. In the north, where the distance is shortest, the climate creates a severe weather hazard. In the south, where a gentlier climate prevails, a greater distance forms the obstacle” (107). Earhart had flown the Atlantic, the first woman to accomplish such a feat (Randolph 71). Earhart was now known for being a female pilot. The global flight changed her image. Earhart say’s,“After the pleasant accident of being the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air, I was launched into a life full of interest” (6). Stevenson explains, June 1, 1937 was Earhart’s most ambitious flight. Her and her co-pilot Fred Noonan set flight to circle the Earth along the equator (2). Randolph explains, to save weight on the plane they had left their life preserves and rubber boat behind. They were not going the direction of the linear and they only had hours left of gas. The last contact

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