Amelia Earhart

Hello! My name is Amelia Earhart, and I want to tell you the story of my life, which was one grand adventure. I was born in a big white house in Atchison, Kansas, on July 24, 1897. Growing up at the turn of the 20th century, girls were expected to be quiet, play with dolls, and wear pretty dresses. But my younger sister, Muriel, and I had different ideas. We preferred trousers to skirts and wild adventures to tea parties. We spent our days exploring our neighborhood, climbing trees as high as they would let us, and collecting interesting creatures like worms, moths, and toads. Our imaginations ran wild, and our greatest creation was a roller coaster we built ourselves. We attached a wooden crate to a rail we'd greased with lard and launched it from the roof of our toolshed. My first ride ended in a crash, but as I emerged from the broken box with a bruised lip, I felt an exhilarating thrill. I knew right then that I loved the feeling of soaring.

Even with my love for thrills, my journey to the skies wasn’t immediate. When I was just ten years old, in 1908, my father took me to the Iowa State Fair, and I saw an airplane for the first time. You might think I was mesmerized, but I wasn't impressed at all. It looked to me like a rickety thing of rusty wire and wood. I walked away without a second thought, completely unaware of how my life would one day be defined by machines just like that one. My family moved around quite a bit, from Kansas to Iowa and then to Minnesota, and I focused on my studies, especially science. I kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in fields that were usually dominated by men, like engineering, law, and film production. These women were my heroes, and they inspired me to believe that I could do something extraordinary, too.

My path to flying truly began to take shape during World War I. In 1917, while visiting my sister in Toronto, Canada, I saw the wounded soldiers returning from the battlefields in Europe. I felt compelled to help, so I trained and became a nurse's aide. I spent long hours caring for the soldiers, many of whom were pilots. I would listen, completely captivated, as they told me stories about their experiences in the air, describing the freedom and the danger of flying. Their tales planted a seed of curiosity in my mind. The real turning point, however, came on a sunny day in California in 1920. My father took me to an airshow, and for a small fee, a pilot named Frank Hawks offered to take people up for a short flight. The moment our plane lifted off the ground, leaving the world behind, everything changed. I looked down at the shrinking landscape below and felt a sense of peace and wonder I had never known. In just ten minutes, I knew with absolute certainty that I had to learn how to fly.

Flying lessons were expensive—about $1,000, which was a fortune back then. But I was determined. I took on any job I could find to save the money. I was a truck driver, a photographer, and a stenographer at a telephone company. Finally, in 1921, I had saved enough to begin my lessons. I soon bought my very own airplane, a secondhand Kinner Airster biplane. It was bright yellow, and I lovingly nicknamed it 'The Canary.' In that little plane, I spent every spare moment I had practicing and pushing my limits. In 1922, I used The Canary to set my first record, flying to an altitude of 14,000 feet, which was higher than any female pilot had ever gone before. It was a small victory, but it was mine, and it made me hungry for more.

Fame found me in a rather unexpected way in 1928. A publisher and promoter named George P. Putnam, who would later become my husband, was looking for a woman to be the first to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. The catch was, I wouldn't be the pilot; I would be a passenger. The pilots were Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon. While the journey was a huge media event and made me famous overnight, I felt like a fraud. I told reporters I was just 'a sack of potatoes' on the flight, a piece of luggage. The experience, however, lit a fire inside me. I vowed that one day I would make that same flight, but on my own terms—as the pilot. It took years of planning and finding the right aircraft. I finally chose a vibrant red Lockheed Vega 5B, a powerful and fast single-engine plane.

On May 20, 1932, five years to the day after Charles Lindbergh’s famous solo flight, I took off from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, aiming for Paris. The flight was more dangerous than I could have imagined. I flew through thick, dark storm clouds and icy fog that coated my wings, making the plane heavy and difficult to control. My altimeter, which tells me how high I am, broke, and a fuel leak started to fill my cockpit with gasoline fumes. After nearly 15 exhausting hours of battling the elements and my failing equipment, I knew I wouldn't make it to Paris. I saw land below and brought my plane down in a pasture. A farmer came running out and I asked him, 'Where am I?' He replied, 'In Gallagher's pasture... have you come far?' I had indeed. I was in Northern Ireland. I had become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. The world celebrated, calling me 'Lady Lindy,' and I hoped my achievement would help prove that women were just as capable as men in any field they chose.

After my Atlantic crossing, I continued to set records, becoming the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California in 1935, and then from Los Angeles to Mexico City. But I had one last, great adventure I needed to pursue: to be the first woman to fly around the entire world. In 1937, with my trusted navigator, Fred Noonan, I set off on this monumental journey in my new, advanced twin-engine plane, a Lockheed Electra 10E. I called it my 'flying laboratory' because it was filled with the latest technology. We successfully flew across the United States, the South Atlantic, Africa, and Asia, covering over 22,000 miles of the journey. The final and most challenging leg was the vast, empty expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

On July 2, 1937, Fred and I took off from Lae, New Guinea, for our next stop, a tiny, remote piece of land called Howland Island. It was a flight of over 2,500 miles, almost entirely over water. We sent radio messages as we flew, but our signal began to weaken. In one of our last messages, I said we were flying through cloudy weather and were running low on fuel. Then, there was silence. We vanished somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. A massive search was launched, but no trace of us or my plane was ever found. My life ended during that flight, but I don't want you to remember my story for its mysterious ending. Remember that I lived a life I chose, filled with purpose and without fear. I once said that 'adventure is worthwhile in itself.' I hope my story inspires you to be curious, to be brave, and to chase your own horizons, whatever they may be.