Tasha Keethler
July 26, 2018
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart was born Amelia Mary Earhart on July 24th, 1897 to Amelia Otis Earhart and Samuel
Stanton Earhart in Atchison, Kansas. She was defied all typical traditional gender roles. She did
anything and everything from playing basketball, to taking an auto repair class and finally
attending college in a time that going to a college or completing anything that she did was
completely unheard of. Amelia even served as a red cross nurse’s aide during world war one in
Toronto, Canada. While she was in Toronto, Canada she began watching pilots train at a
local airfield.
When she returned to the states she pursued Pre-Med at Columbia university in New
York. She then took her first airplane ride in December of 1920 in California with the
famous World War One pilot Frank Hawks. She was forever enthused. In January of
1921 she started flying lessons with a female flying instructor Neta Snook in order to pay
for those classes she worked at The Los Angeles Telephone Company as a filing clerk.
She had managed to save up enough money to buy a secondhand airplane which she had
named it “The Canary”.
By the end of the year 1921 in December to be exact she had passed her flight test
earning herself a license for National Aeronautics Association. Two days after earning
her license for flying she participated in her first flying exhibition at the sierra airdrome
in Pasadena, California. Ever since then she set many prestigious records. In 1922 she
became the first woman to fly above 14,000 feet solo, so not even a year after she had
received her license. In 1932 she became the second person but most importantly the first
woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. For that trip she left on May 20th, 1932 from
Newfoundland, Canada and arrived a day later in a cow field located near Londonderry,
Tasha Keethler
July 26, 2018
Ireland. Upon returning to the united states Congress awarded her the Distinguished
Flying Cross. A Military decoration awarded for heroism or extraordinary achievement
while participating in an aerial flight. She was the first woman to receive this award.
Amelia Earhart made the first nonstop solo flight by a woman across the united states
starting in Los Angeles, California and ending in Newark, New Jersey the flight took a
total of 19 hours to complete. She also was the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the
United States mainland in 1935.
Amelia Earhart worked to constantly promote opportunities for women in aviation. Inq
1929 placed third in the all-women’s air derby the first transcontinental air race for
women. Amelia Earhart helped to form the ninety-nines an international organization for
