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Amelia Earhart standing under nose of her Lockheed Model 10-E Electra by Underwood & Underwood –

15 Interesting Facts About Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart was an American aviation pioneer and writer. From an early age, Earhart was the ringleader while her sister Grace Muriel Earhart, two years her junior, acted as the dutiful follower. Amelia was nicknamed Meeley and Grace was nicknamed Pidge; both girls continued to answer to their childhood nicknames well into adulthood. Their upbringing was unconventional, as Amy Earhart did not believe in raising her children to be nice little girls.

Earhart graduated from Chicago’s Hyde Park High School in 1916. Throughout her troubled childhood, she had continued to aspire to a future career; she kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in predominantly male-oriented fields, including film direction and production, law, advertising, management, and mechanical engineering. Here are 15 interesting facts about Amelia Earhart.

1.  Amelia was one of the first aviators to promote commercial air travel

Commercial aviation is the part of civil aviation that involves operating aircraft for remuneration or hire, as opposed to private aviation.

In 1929, Earhart was among the first aviators to promote commercial air travel through the development of a passenger airline service; along with Charles Lindbergh, she represented Transcontinental Air Transport alongside Margaret Bartlett Thornton and invested time and money in setting up the first regional shuttle service between New York and Washington, D.C, the Ludington Airline.

2. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean

Amelia Earhart in airplane by Harris & Ewing –

After Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, Amy Guest expressed interest in being the first woman to fly or be flown across the Atlantic Ocean. After deciding that the trip was too perilous for her to undertake, she offered to sponsor the project, suggesting that they find another girl with the right image. While at work one afternoon in April 1928, Earhart got a phone call from Capt. Hilton H. Railey, asking,  if she would like to fly the Atlantic with him. 

Since most of the flight was on instruments and Earhart had no training for this type of flying, she did not pilot the aircraft. Earhart reportedly received a rousing welcome on June 19, 1928, when she landed at Woolston in Southampton, England. Read more about the 10 Famous Women Pilots. 

3. Amelia was elected as the first president of The Ninety-Nines

The Ninety-Nines International Organization of Women Pilots, also known as The 99s, is an international organization that provides networking, mentoring, and flight scholarship opportunities to recreational and professional female pilots.

Founded in 1929, Amelia Earhart was elected as their first president in 1931, and the organization has continued to make a significant impact in supporting the advancement of women in aviation since its inception.

4. Earhart wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences

Photo of Amelia Earhart in 1935 by NBC Photo-NBC Radio –

Earhart was a successful and heavily promoted writer who served as aviation editor for Cosmopolitan magazine from 1928 to 1930. She wrote magazine articles, newspaper columns, and essays, and published two books based on her experiences as a flyer during her lifetime. 

Her books include; 20 Hrs., 40 Min published in 1928 was a journal of her experiences as the first woman passenger on a transatlantic flight. The Fun of It published in 1932 is a memoir of her flying experiences and an essay on women in aviation.

5. Earhart became the 16th woman in the United States to be issued a pilot’s license

Earhart’s commitment to flying required her to accept the frequent hard work and rudimentary conditions that accompanied early aviation training. To complete her image transformation, she also cropped her hair short in the style of other female flyers. Six months later in the summer of 1921, Earhart purchased a secondhand bright chromium yellow Kinner Airster biplane, against Snook’s advice, which she nicknamed The Canary. 

After her first successful solo landing, she bought a new leather flying coat. On October 22, 1922, Earhart flew the Airster to an altitude of 14,000 feet, setting a world record for female pilots. On May 16, 1923, she was awarded a pilot’s license by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.

6. Earhart received the United States Distinguished Flying Cross 

Amelia Earhart, center by Harris & Ewing –

Earhart made a nonstop solo transatlantic flight, becoming the first woman to achieve such a feat. She received the United States Distinguished Flying Cross for this accomplishment. 

The Distinguished Flying Cross is a military decoration of the United States Armed Forces. The medal was established on July 2, 1926, and is currently awarded to any persons who, after April 6, 1917, distinguish themselves by single acts of heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight.

7. Earhart is generally regarded as a feminist icon

Earhart was a widely known international celebrity during her lifetime. Her shyly charismatic appeal, independence, persistence, coolness under pressure, courage and goal-oriented career along with the circumstances of her disappearance at a comparatively early age have driven her lasting fame in popular culture. 

Hundreds of articles and scores of books have been written about her life, which is often cited as a motivational tale, especially for girls. She is regarded as a champion of women’s rights and a feminist.  Read more on Important Feminists You Need To Know About. 

8. Amelia was very close friends with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt

Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt by Underwood & Underwood –

In the 1930s, as her fame grew, Amelia developed friendships with many people in high offices, most notably First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt shared many of Earhart’s interests and passions, especially women’s causes.

Roosevelt had a very close relationship with aviator Amelia. One time, the two snuck out from the White House and went to a party dressed up for the occasion. After flying with Earhart, Roosevelt obtained a student permit but did not further pursue her plans to learn to fly. Franklin was not in favor of his wife becoming a pilot. Nevertheless, the two women communicated frequently throughout their lives. Read more on the contribution of Eleanor Roosevelt to WWII. 

9. Earhart became a visiting faculty member at Purdue University

Amelia Earhart joined the Purdue faculty in 1935 as a consultant for these flight courses and as a counsellor on women’s careers. In 1937, the Purdue Research Foundation provided the funds for the Lockheed Electra 10-E Earhart flew on her attempted round-the-world flight.

Amelia was an advisor to aeronautical engineering and a career counsellor to female students. Purdue’s library system consists of fifteen locations. The Library houses the Amelia Earhart Collection, a collection of notes and letters belonging to Earhart and her husband George Putnam along with records related to her disappearance and subsequent search efforts.

10. Earhart was an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment

Amelia Earhart, center. White House, Washington, D.C by Harris & Ewing –

Amelia was a member of the National Woman’s Party and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment. The National Woman’s Party was an American women’s political organization formed in 1916 to fight for women’s suffrage. 

The Equal Rights Amendment was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. Proponents assert it would end legal distinctions between men and women in matters of divorce, property, employment, and other matters.

11. Amelia was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1973

The National Women’s Hall of Fame is an American institution incorporated in 1969 by a group of men and women in Seneca Falls, New York, although it did not induct its first enshrinees until 1973. As of 2021, it had 303 inductees. 

Inductees are nominated by members of the public and selected by a National Panel of Judges on the basis of the changes they created that affect the social, economic or cultural aspects of society. Induction ceremonies are held every odd-numbered year in the fall, with the names of the women to be honored announced earlier in the spring, usually during March, Women’s History Month. Read more on the most influential women of all time. 

12. Earhart was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1968

American aviator/pilot Amelia Earhart (1897-1937) standing by a plane dressed in overalls –

The National Aviation Hall of Fame is a museum, annual awards ceremony and learning and research centre that was founded in 1962 as an Ohio non-profit corporation in Dayton, Ohio, United States, known as the Birthplace of Aviation with its connection to the Wright brothers.

 In 2017 the annual induction was held in Fort Worth, Texas, as the organization began rotating the ceremony among various cities.

13. Earhart is ranked ninth on Flying’s list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation

She is ranked ninth on Flying’s list. Flying’s is an aviation magazine published since 1927 and called Popular Aviation prior to 1942, as well as Aeronautics for a brief period. It is read by pilots, aircraft owners, aviation enthusiasts and aviation-oriented executives in business, commercial and general aviation markets worldwide.

In addition, Earhart has several commemorative memorials named in her honour around the United States, including an urban park, an airport, a residence hall, a museum, a research foundation, a bridge, a cargo ship, an earth-fill dam, four schools, a hotel, a playhouse, a library, multiple roads, and more. She also has a minor planet, a planetary corona, and a newly-discovered lunar crater named after her.

14. Earhart disappeared while attempting to fly around the world with her navigator, Fred Noonan

Earhart and Noonan by the Lockheed L10 Electra at Darwin, Australia on 28 June 1937 –

During an attempt at becoming the first woman to complete a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937 in a Purdue-funded Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. 

The two were last seen in Lae, New Guinea, on July 2, 1937, on the last land stop before Howland Island and one of their final legs of the flight. She presumably died in the Pacific during the circumnavigation, just three weeks prior to her fortieth birthday.

15. Earhart’s disappearance remains one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history

Nearly one year and six months after she and Noonan disappeared, Earhart was officially declared dead. Investigations and significant public interest in their disappearance still continue over 80 years later.

However, there has been considerable speculation on what happened to Earhart and Noonan. Most historians hold to the simple crash and sink theory, but a number of other possibilities have been proposed, including several conspiracy theories. Some have suggested that Earhart and Noonan survived and landed elsewhere, but were either never found or killed, making en-route locations like Tarawa unlikely.