Amelia Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 in Atchinson, Kansas. In 1908, Amelia saw her first plane at the Iowa State Fair. Amelia knew that flying was her destiny and she stepped into the predominately male world of aviation. In 1922, Amelia bought her first plane. In 1932, after earning her pilots' license, Amelia was asked to join Wilmer Stultz (pilot) and Lou Gordon (flight mechanic) on a trans-Atlantic flight. Twenty-one hours after take off, they landed safely in Europe; thereby making Amelia the first women to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. On an attempt to fly around the earth at the equator, something no man, let alone women, had ever attempted, Amelia vanished.

Although Amelia’s disappearance remains a mystery, her accomplishments are well known. She demonstrated that everyone has the ability to do more and more. Instead of giving up, she attempted to complete the impossible -- to prove that women can do anything they believe they can do. If it were not for women like Amelia, women all over the world would have less confidence and courage to do something that men usually do.

In most photographs of Amelia, she is photographed in or around her airplane -- often dressed in masculine-looking clothing. She is facing the camera, and the viewer looks eye-to-eye with her. She exudes confidence, determination and seems self-assured. She appears to be headstrong, which would make her appear "unfeminine" to society in the early 1900s.
 
 

Author: Bobbi Dawn LeGrand and Jilda Leigh Sharp
Last udpated: October 7, 2000