Why amelia earhart is important

To help pay for those lessons, Earhart worked as a filing clerk at the Los Angeles Telephone Company. Later that year, she purchased her first airplane, a secondhand Kinner Airster. Earhart passed her flight test in December , earning a National Aeronautics Association license. Two days later, she participated in her first flight exhibition at the Sierra Airdrome in Pasadena, California. Earhart set a number of aviation records in her short career.

Her first record came in when she became the first woman to fly solo above 14, feet. In , Earhart became the first woman and second person after Charles Lindbergh to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Later that year, Earhart made the first solo, nonstop flight across the United States by a woman. She also became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the United States mainland in She became the first president of the organization of licensed pilots, which still exists today and represents women flyers from 44 countries.

On June 1, , Amelia Earhart took off from Oakland, California, on an eastbound flight around the world. It was her second attempt to become the first pilot ever to circumnavigate the globe. She flew a twin-engine Lockheed 10E Electra and was accompanied on the flight by navigator Fred Noonan. The pair reached Lae, New Guinea, on June When they reached Lae, they already had flown 22, miles.

They had 7, more miles to go before reaching Oakland. It was the last time Earhart was seen alive. She and Noonan lost radio contact with the U. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. She was the second person to accomplish this transatlantic journey - the first was Charles Lindbergh. Earhart flew from Canada to Ireland in May of , and earned the respect and admiration of aviation enthusiasts around the world.

She later became the first woman vice president of the National Aeronautic Association. New York City became her next destination, where she briefly enrolled as a medical student, before joining her parents in California.

In , Earhart attended an air show with her father in California and went up in a plane for the first time. With money from odd jobs and help from her family, Earhart paid for flying lessons and eventually purchased her own plane, a yellow Kinner Airster, which she called The Canary. Earhart would go on to set many aviation records, including the new altitude record for female pilots 14, feet, approximately 4, meters. She was the first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress.

Earhart was the navigator for the pilot and co-pilot. The plane, named Friendship, successfully flew from Canada to Wales. The flight took about 21 hours.

Because the war effort needed a larger workforce, more women had an opportunity to work for the military. Women were mechanics and flight controllers as well as pilots and also held other supporting jobs. Despite this growth in opportunity for women in the aviation industry, women pilots today are still vastly outnumbered by men.

Women make up an estimated 7 percent of pilots in the workforce today. While the numbers are small, the progress is apparent, and we can thank Earhart and the female pilots of our past for blazing the trail for these women to participate in the world of flight.

To learn more about records related to Amelia Earhart at the National Archives visit our website. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Amelia Earhart prior to her last takeoff, What would you think I should do? On May 18, , Dr. Elliott, sent a letter to Earhart in which he outlined the details of her proposed position at the university. Through this Center will be attempted the stimulation and orientation of women and men?

The document made it clear that Purdue recruited Earhart mostly as a mentor and role model for women, not for her knowledge of aviation and engineering. Yet again, she did not see this as an insult, but rather a challenge.

Before officially starting her position at Purdue, Earhart visited the campus several times. While discussing the results of these questions during her lecture, Earhart stated:.

Seven percent were undecided. The reasons given for seeking employment were first, not economic necessity as you might suppose, but to achieve professional success to have the mental stimulus of accomplishing something ; second, to attain personal independence; and third, because of economic necessity. These results are very interesting, since women as a whole have not had enough experience to know the joy of independent work as men know it.

If Earhart, who had no teaching qualifications and no college degree, was worried about what she could contribute to Purdue, she certainly now had her answer. When Elliott formally offered her the position as Counselor in Careers for Women at Purdue, she accepted the position with minimal deliberation.

She had wisdom to share with the female students at Purdue and she was determined to make an impact on their lives. Figure 6: Amelia Earhart helping Captain G. Haskins teach a class in aerial navigation to aerodynamics students at Purdue, April 20, That, however, was never her primary reason for coming to the university, as she was much happier spending time educating female students. Unfortunately, not everyone was as excited as President Elliott was to have Earhart at Purdue.

The climate when Earhart arrived was less than friendly toward the female students and there was obvious condescension toward them from the men on campus. She was disappointed to learn that while there usually were at least a few freshman women who enrolled in engineering, they almost all dropped out of the program by their junior year — usually because they encountered unwelcoming attitudes from the male professors and students.

Because it was so hard for female students to succeed in traditionally male fields, such as engineering, agriculture and business, most female graduates found jobs in home economics. Earhart herself also received negative attention from male professors and students, and even some women, for her outspoken ideas.

Some even felt she did not belong on campus because she was poorly educated. Male students were also often irritated with Earhart for her independent nature that she passed on to her students. She preached the message: graduate, establish a career, and then get married. They drank in her every word as she informally discussed her views on education, marriage and life in general.

Not only did Earhart deeply influence her students, but they affected her as well. By the time she attempted to fly around the world in , Earhart had not only made a profound impact on Purdue University, but Purdue had definitely deeply influenced her life too. Earhart was truly unique: a walking example of an independent woman in the first half of the twentieth century.

She encouraged other women to seek careers outside the home and be independent from their husbands. During her career, she repeatedly proved that women could perform alongside men in many endeavors. She set altitude records for autogiros, an early precursor to the helicopter April , and she broke numerous speed records for women.

In May , she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and the first person ever to cross the Atlantic twice. She was the first person, male or female, to fly from Hawaii to California in January and the first person to fly solo from Los Angeles to Mexico City in April Had she completed her last flight, Earhart would have been the first person to fly around the world at the equator Amelia Earhart may not have labeled herself a feminist, but she espoused feminist beliefs and motioned women to assert themselves in male dominated spaces.

She fought continually throughout her career to show the world that she, and, by extension, her gender as a whole, was capable of many accomplishments when given the chance. She encouraged females to follow her lead and take advantage of any chance to better themselves.

Earhart believed that if women wanted equality, they would have to be assertive. Her position at Purdue University as Counselor in Careers for Women was the culmination of her career, where she was able to share her philosophies with an eager audience and shape the minds of young women before they entered the world.

Earhart used the fame from her flying endeavors as a platform for her feminism. Women must try to do things as men have tried. Earhart offset her femininity with an inculpable dose of masculinity, balancing her reserve and candor, all of which made her the embodiment of an individualistic feminist and the perfect spokesperson for women.