26. Amelia Earhart- The Lindy Lady

An American aviator, Amelia Earhart was the first women pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as well as the first person to fly over both the Atlantic and Pacific. Earhart first decided to learn to fly when she had her first plane ride for which was only for 10 minutes at a long beach air show. This experience changed her life. She was not from a strong financial background family. So, she earned money from various jobs like photography, truck-driver. She spent all those earned moneys to get flying lessons from one of the pioneer aviator of that time, Anita Snook. Her dedication towards achieving her passion led her to become the 16th women to be issued pilot’s licence in 1922 by the world governing body for aeronautics, “The Federation Aeronautique”.

In 1928, Earhart wrote a book about aviation. Through the promotion of her book, Amelia became very active in women’s fashion as well. After this, she became a celebrity and started doing endorsements and got acceptance in public eyes. She accepted the position of editor in Cosmopolitan Magazine. Later she became a promoter for Transcontinental Air Transport, which later termed as Trans World Airlines and was also a Vice president of National Airways.

She was given a name, “Lindy Lady”, because of her successful landing of the flight ‘Friendship’ which she never appreciated. She wrote “the more forcefully it is demonstrated that they can and do fly”. She became the second person to fly solo across the Atlantic after four years of the flight ‘Friendship’.

Earhart’s final flight was in the year 1937. During the took off from Oakland, they experienced some periodic problems across the Pacific and landed in Hawaii for some repairs. After three days they finally took off the plane from Hawaii but something went wrong. Amelia lost her control and looped the plane on runway. There they didn’t get much injury but after that when Amelia went ahead nearby Pacific Ocean, the fuel was running low because of that they couldn’t connect through radio with the control room. Slowly they lost the connection and disappeared. After many searches, Amelia finally declared dead in 1939.

“Amelia always wanted an equal marriages and she wanted an equal opportunity in all occupations and she wanted equal pay for equal work”, said Amy Kleppner, Earhart’s younger sister.