1.Wealth and Independence

The accidentof sex made Amelia Earhart front-page news. After her arrival in New York, she received thousands of letters, telegrams, and invitations. They grew in piles about her feet. Some of the letters hailed her as a “gallant pioneer”; others called her a “foolhardy nitwit.” Those that began, “The presence of your company” had to be accepted or refused.

Thirty-two cities asked the three fliers to visit them. Overnight Amelia became the native daughter of Boston, Kansas City, Chicago, Des Moines, Los Angeles, but she still claimed the place where she was born, Atchison, Kansas, as her native city. Taking the advice of Hilton Railey, GP, and others, the heroes of the hour decided to accept the invitations of New York, Boston, and Chicago.

The receptions were wild, frantic, tumultuous. The American people gave the fliers the same thunderous acclaim they had given Charles Lindbergh one year before. The two men and their woman passenger were showered with ticker tape and torn telephone books, and they were given the keys to each city in turn.

The festivities over, Amelia sought to retire into peaceful seclusion, but she soon realized that she had become, undeniably and perhaps irrevocably, a public figure. Opportunities were offered to her which could not be ignored. G. P. Putnam presented her with a contract to publish her account of the historic flight, manufacturers wanted her to endorse their products, and an offer for the syndicated rights to her story promised her$10,000. Amelia quietly made her decisions, and within a few months she had earned more than $50,000.

Never had she even dreamed of making so much money. She was now financially independent, and this new freedom meant that she could act and do exactly as she pleased. Yet the new wealth plagued Amelia’s conscience. If, as she painfully realized, she did not deserve the fame for having crossed the Atlantic, how could she accept the fortune that came with it?

New feelings of guilt compounded with the old. She would have to regain her self-respect by someday flying solo across the Atlantic, or die in the attempt. She could not live with the nickname “Lady Lindy” for simply having been a passenger; she, too, would have to be a “lone eagle.”

For the writing of her book Amelia accepted the hospitality of George Palmer Putnam and his wife at their home in Rye, New York. There, with the solicitous guidance of her publisher, AE studied her log of the flight and her many notes; then, slowly and carefully, she began to join one word to another. The job of writing, she discovered, took much longer than she had planned, much longer than the actual time of the flight, which was twenty hours and forty minutes. She dedicated the book, aptly called20 Hrs., 40 Min., to her hostess, Dorothy Binney Putnam.

Amelia had often been warned about GP; mutual friends had told her that he would not hesitate to divorce his wife if he thought AE would capitulate to his charms. But in 1928 Amelia did not seem particularly interested in any man, although she had become the center of a triangle of men that included GP, Hilton Railey, and Samuel Chapman.

Samuel Chapman, according to some sources, was supposed to have been her fiancé, even at the time of theFriendshipflight; yet such a commitment was denied by her, most emphatically, when she was approached on the subject by a reporter in Boston. “No,” she said to him, “I am not going to announce my engagement. I have seen Samuel Chapman since I have been here,but I have seen a great many other people also.” GP, who had been acting as a buffer between AE and the press, clearly indicated that the subject was closed.

Pressed further about plans to get married at any time, Amelia announced: “You never can tell what I will do. If I was sure of the man, I might get married tomorrow. I am very sudden, you know, and make up my mind in a second.”

Despite this comment, many years before AE had decided that marriage for her would never be an escape. Even in her teens she had observed that too many girls used it for a storm cellar, that, afraid to meet life head on, they ran from their first real problems to hide behind a husband.

Amelia had assumed an attitude of almost imperial independence; about men and a possible husband she was never sudden. It was not until three years later, and then with considerable reluctance, that she became Mrs. George Palmer Putnam. She had learned to go it alone, without any reliance upon any man. She had become, in spite of appearances to the contrary, a “loner.”

Hilton Railey, her discoverer and manager, had developed a deep and abiding affection for Amelia, and in spite of tentative signs of encouragement from her when they were in England and returning home on thePresident Roosevelt, he was still deeply in love with his first wife and had every intention of remaining that way. Over the years that followed, there continued between them a strong friendship, and it was Railey who was the first to speak seriously to Amelia about GP.

It was just before he discontinued his connection with her as her unpaid manager. During Amelia’s welcome in the harbor of New York, Commander Byrd had asked Railey for his help in financing the forthcoming expedition to the Antarctic as soon as he could break away from theFriendshipcelebrations. A few days later, in Amelia’s hotel room in New York, Captain Railey jotted down on a piece of paper the one word “brushfire,” and gave it to AE. He told her to consider it as a code word and touse it whenever she needed help in warding off George Palmer Putnam. Amelia grinned, took the paper, folded it, and put it in her purse. She never found the need to use it.

While she had been writing20 Hrs., 40 Min., AE was approached for many new endorsements. The one she remembered and talked about the most, because it was the funniest, was the offer to sponsor canned rabbit; the “stunt” was to haveherpicture on the can. A promotion which she did agree to, however, was one to help finance Commander Byrd’s next expedition. Although she was a non-smoker, Amelia signed a statement for a cigarette advertisement.

For her endorsement she received $1,500, which she immediately gave to Byrd. It was a gesture of good will that Commander Byrd deeply appreciated; later he presented her with copy number two of the limited edition of his book,Skyward.

While Amelia was correcting proofs of her book, Lady Heath’s Avro Avian was finally delivered. AE kept the plane at the nearby polo field of the Westchester Biltmore Country Club in Rye. She was eager to test it out. Hastily she finished making her corrections and gave the proofs to GP.

The Avian was everything she wanted in a plane. It was small, light, maneuverable, and fast; it reminded her of her first airplane, the yellow Kinner Canary which she had owned in California, except that the Avian had two open cockpits in tandem. Amelia walked across the soft, firm grass to where the plane was parked. She lowered the panel from the left side of the rear cockpit, and holding her plain black dress against her legs, she climbed in. She buckled a white helmet under her chin and adjusted the goggles at her forehead.

She started the engine and watched for the instruments to respond while it idled, carefully checking the oil and fuel temperature and pressure and engine revolutions per minute—rpm’s. She fingered the strands of pearls about her neck and waited for the engine to warm up.

Amelia Earhart (Courtesy of the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences, New York).AE’s parents.AE, the fledgling flier.AE’s birthplace.AE after her first solo flight in an autogiro.Learning to fly. AE (right) and her first instructor, Neta Snook.AE and Lady Heath’s Avro Avian.AE at Southampton. TheFriendshipis in the background.AE, suddenly famous, signs her autograph at Burry Port, Wales.AE after her transatlantic solo, 1932.AE and the Lindberghs.Famous Fliers, 1928: (standing, left to right) Eielson, Wilkins, Chamberlin, Balchen, (seated) Stultz, Earhart, Gordon.AE and GP and the King and Queen of Belgium.AE and President Hoover, after he awarded her the National Geographic Medal, 1932.The Lockheed Electra, AE in the cockpit.Paul Mantz, AE, Harry Manning, and Fred Noonan before taking off for Honolulu from San Francisco, March 7, 1937, in the Lockheed Electra. (Courtesy The Smithsonian Institution)Fragment of wood about 23 inches long, possibly associated with AE’s last flight, 1937, found by Robert D. Weishaupt at Baranof Island, Alaska, in 1942. (Courtesy The Smithsonian Institution)Josephine Blanco Akiyama, who affirms she saw AE on Saipan in 1937.AE and Fred Noonan at Calcutta on the last flight.

Amelia Earhart (Courtesy of the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences, New York).

AE’s parents.

AE, the fledgling flier.

AE’s birthplace.

AE after her first solo flight in an autogiro.

Learning to fly. AE (right) and her first instructor, Neta Snook.

AE and Lady Heath’s Avro Avian.

AE at Southampton. TheFriendshipis in the background.

AE, suddenly famous, signs her autograph at Burry Port, Wales.

AE after her transatlantic solo, 1932.

AE and the Lindberghs.

Famous Fliers, 1928: (standing, left to right) Eielson, Wilkins, Chamberlin, Balchen, (seated) Stultz, Earhart, Gordon.

AE and GP and the King and Queen of Belgium.

AE and President Hoover, after he awarded her the National Geographic Medal, 1932.

The Lockheed Electra, AE in the cockpit.

Paul Mantz, AE, Harry Manning, and Fred Noonan before taking off for Honolulu from San Francisco, March 7, 1937, in the Lockheed Electra. (Courtesy The Smithsonian Institution)

Fragment of wood about 23 inches long, possibly associated with AE’s last flight, 1937, found by Robert D. Weishaupt at Baranof Island, Alaska, in 1942. (Courtesy The Smithsonian Institution)

Josephine Blanco Akiyama, who affirms she saw AE on Saipan in 1937.

AE and Fred Noonan at Calcutta on the last flight.

AE curled her long, tapering fingers about the stick and worked the ailerons and the elevator. She taxied down to the edge of the field, carefully easing on and off first the left then the right brake as she zigzagged across the close-cropped grass. She turned into the wind, held both brakes hard, pulled the stick all the way back into her middle, then revved up the motor to check out the magnetoes. She reached up and turned the switch: the rpm’s dropped within the minimum for first the left then the right, and finally held for both magnetoes. Amelia smiled in satisfaction.

With her left hand she slowly advanced the throttle. The prop blasted back hard and loud. Faster and faster the plane moved down the turf, and she eased the throttle ahead as far as it would go. She held the stick forward, bringing up the tail, then forced the plane to stay on the ground until it fought to get into the air. She pulled back on the stick. The plane clattered noisily off the ground. Amelia grinned. This little craft soared into the air quicker than the sandpiper she had owned in California.

Clearing the way ahead, she made climbing turns to gain altitude. At 10,000 feet she looked down, then out to the left and right and to the back and front. The sky was clear for acrobatics.

Stalls, spins, loops, rolls, Immelmanns: she skillfully commanded the plane through each maneuver. She slipped and climbed and dived swinging and dancing the Avian along the reaches of the sunlit sky. The plane handled perfectly. After an hour of skylarking over the polo field she felt that she and the plane were ready for a long flight, one perhaps to California and the National Air Races.

Amelia knew that she needed much more experience in the air before she could consider herself a qualified pilot. The cross-country trip, she finally decided, should season her for all kinds of flying—over large cities, plains, and mountains. Although she had never made such a flight before, her preparations, considering the distances involved, were happy-go-lucky and without design. She bought navigation maps and made her flight plan: she would fly over railroads, rivers, and big cities wheneverpossible; once she arrived in the Far West and the Rockies, she would then determine what to do. Summarily she announced her plans to the Putnams, thanked them for their hospitality, and was off.

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