by Susan Butler
Having, by reason of their history, scant faith in their own business judgment, Amy and Edwin had begun to rely on Amelia’s. On her suggestion, they decided to make an investment in a gypsum mine in Nevada that Peter Barnes, a friend of Amelia’s, had purchased the fall of 1921. In spite of the fact that it was Amy’s money, her role appears to have been totally passive. Amelia and Edwin went out to Moapa, Nevada, to see Peter and the mine. They arrived on site after a heavy rain, were almost engulfed in a flash flood, and watched Peter die as the rushing water caught and overturned his truck loaded with gypsum. Amelia wrote to her sister back east at Smith, “Peter is drowned, the mine seems irreparably flooded, and all of mother’s investment is gone. We are still reeling from the blow.”
They had to resort to extreme measures just to get by. Amy decided to do what she had set out to do in St. Paul—take in boarders—and this time she followed through. One of them was Sam Chapman, twenty-nine years old, from Marblehead, Massachusetts, who had recently graduated from Tufts. Tall and thin, with dark brown hair, and blue eyes, he was an engineer. He appeared to share Amelia’s appetite for knowledge and her admiration for whatever was new. There is no record of his flying with Amelia, but they played tennis and discussed books and philosophy. They discovered they were both idealists and shared a common concern for the inequalities of society; they went to at least one Industrial Workers of the World meeting together.
Sam loved Amelia’s spirit, her daring, her independence. For her part, Amelia found herself seriously interested in him. He was kind and considerate, and there was something else that appealed to her—theirs was a relationship of two equal people. Sam would never dominate her the way Edwin did Amy. Amelia began dropping his name into the letters she wrote Muriel at Smith. She began thinking about marriage, not right away, but sometime in the future.
That June, following the mine disaster, Amelia sold her plane to a former flying instructor named Maynard Morley and began casting about for a fulfilling career that paid well.
Becoming a flying instructor herself would apparently have solved all Amelia’s money problems, but teaching, in spite of the example of Neta, was a chancy occupation in those years. The particular risk in teaching was due to the fact that all the training planes of the period were, without exception, locked into dual control mode—so that if a student sitting alone in his cockpit froze at the stick, he could send the craft crashing to earth. The number of students who had killed themselves and their instructors was a constant source of anxiety. It had been brought forcefully to Amelia’s attention almost the first moment she arrived in Los Angeles and fell in love with flying: Clifford Prodger, an internationally known test pilot with an awesome six thousand flying hours to his credit, had been killed on an August day that summer of 1920 up at Redwood City when one of his students had lost his head, frozen at the stick, and sent the plane diving into the earth. When the wreckage was examined, it was found that Clifford had bent his steel stick with his hands in a desperate and futile effort to break the student’s hold over the plane. The only way to deal with the problem, according to Amelia, was for the instructor to keep a belaying pin of sorts about, with which to knock the student unconscious. Teaching was therefore never an option for her, averse as she was to ceding control of her life in any circumstance to someone else.
In her search for a paying occupation that would leave her time for flying, Amelia had been investigating photography studios and had actually been offered a part-time job in one studio. Although she had not taken it, she decided it was a promising way to make money and decided to study photography. Thorough as usual, she worked to become good at her new trade, photographing ordinary objects to get unusual effects. For a while her favorite subject was garbage cans. She photographed the garbage can on the cellar steps, the empty garbage can alone on the curb—“I can’t name all the moods of which a garbage can is capable.” She went into business with a fellow student, Jean Brandreth, making “home portraits,” but their subjects demanded so many sittings, they didn’t make any money. She became adept at filming with a motion picture camera as well as still camera. Once she had the great good fortune to be driving by just as an oil well started gushing, and she sold the resultant film to a local real estate promoter. In June 1923 she went to work for an established commercial photographer and there learned how to develop color film. But the studio ran into financial problems and “nearly became bankrupt.” She left in October, disillusioned with the moneymaking potential of the profession.
Amelia’s next foray was so unusual, in the 1920s for an educated young woman, as to be almost strange. She began driving a sand and gravel truck. Noting that a building boom was turning outlying airfields into housing subdivisions, she decided money could be made hauling paving and building materials for the burgeoning market. Lloyd Royer, a young midwesterner, a top-notch mechanic looking to get into his own business, was her partner in the enterprise. They bought a truck and proceeded to drum up business. The truck, a Moreland, was, since Amelia always bought the latest thing, state of the art. The Moreland Company, located in Burbank, was famous for producing the first trucks that ran on low-grade fuel and used more than a three-speed transmission; it gave a one-year guarantee. Amelia’s friends were less than impressed. Several, in fact, dropped her. Whether or not she was “ostracized by the more right-thinking girls,” as she claimed years later, there is no doubt that she was made to feel distinctly uncomfortable.
In the meantime Edwin was coming to the conclusion that the time had come to terminate his marriage. His interests hadn’t included Amy for a long time. His friends were now the members of the Church who had supported and encouraged him; his spiritual life was intertwined with them. But in spite of the fact that he had grown so far apart from her, in spite of his obvious indifference to her needs, in spite of the fact that he paid so little attention to her, Amy still clung to him. She still loved him and wouldn’t let him go. She would have gone on clinging to him forever, always hoping that he would change and that the marriage would get better. Finally he came to realize that if he were to separate his life from hers, he would have to make it happen. And he did; he forced the issue. Amy, Amelia, and Muriel moved out to 5314 Sunset Boulevard, then an area of small shops and modest houses on the east side of Hollywood.
In spite of the family troubles, Amelia was carefully and methodically putting money aside for a new plane—and not just any plane, but another Kinner.
Bert Kinner was now developing his own engines, had just put into production his own design, a 60-horsepower three-cylinder radial air-cooled motor weighing, at 150 pounds, just one pound more than the Lawrance. He finished the first engine in the spring of 1922; by September the motor was in production and the following year it was standard on the Airster.
The prototype engine, only 50 horsepower, was bought by David R. Davis, a wealthy entrepreneur who was an early backer of the engineer and industrialist Donald Douglas. (The Douglas Company was first called the Davis-Douglas Company; the first Cloudster turned out was called the Davis-Douglas Cloudster.) David Davis had intended to install the Kinner motor in the one-passenger monoplane he was designing, which he planned to fly between Los Angeles and his Imperial Valley ranch, but his plans changed, the plane was not built, and he had no immediate use for the finished engine.
Amelia, her finances considerably reduced, saw an opportunity and set about getting her Kinner. The method she resorted to was novel, not so much for the times but for her. Presumably at a reduced price, she bought Davis’s engine and somehow, undoubtedly with Bert Kinner’s help, “collected” an Airster to put it in. The engine, Amelia found, had a few flaws.
The greatest pleasure I found in my experience with Kinner’s motor was that of perhaps having a small part in its development. Its many little ailments had to be diagnosed and cured later. It smoked and spattered oil. Adjustment of a proper propeller was difficult. One of its eccentricities was an excessive vibration which tickled the soles
of the feet when they rested on the rudder bar, putting a new meaning into joy ride.
Three generations. In front, left to right: Amelia’s sister Muriel and Amelia. In rear: Amelia’s uncle, Carl Otis; her grandmother, Amelia Harres Otis; Carl’s wife, Anna; Amelia’s parents, Amy Otis Earhart and Edwin Earhart.
Courtesy of Muriel Earhart Morrissey.
Amelia as a young girl.
Courtesy of Corbis-Bettmann.
On Prince, the 12-year-old Indian pony that Amelia rode during the summers in Worthington, Minnesota.
Courtesy of Kenneth Clapp.
Amy and Edwin’s wedding photo. They were married at Trinity Church on October 16, 1895. After the ceremony, they went directly to the train station and were on the noon train to Kansas City.
Courtesy of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, and Muriel Earhart Morrissey.
Amelia “Millie” Otis with Amelia “Millie” Earhart. Amelia spent most of her childhood with her grandmother.
Courtesy of Corbis-Bettmann.
Graduation photo of Amelia that appeared in The Aitchpe, The Hyde Park School yearbook, 1915. She looks very prim and proper, not like her usual self, and the caption reads, “Meek loveliness is round thee spread.”
Courtesy of Hyde Park High School.
Amelia with her cousins, Katch Challiss (far left) and John Challiss (far right). Amelia is beckoning the photographer (her cousin Lucy) to come closer.
Courtesy of Patricia Antich.
Katch’s map of her favorite version of Bogie, the game Amelia dreamed up, always played in her grandparents’ barn in Atchison. Amelia, Katch, Lucy, and Muriel would sit in the old carriage in the barn and embark on dangerous and exotic voyages.
Courtesy of Patricia Atttich.
After graduating from Hyde Park High School, Amelia went to Ogontz, a finishing school outside of Philadelphia. The headmistress had a number of unusual ideas, among them that the girls should dress in their graduation gowns for Halloween. Here is Amelia in hers, October 1917.
Courtesy of Corbis-Bettmann.
Amelia went to Toronto for Christmas vacation to be with her mother and sister, and never returned to Ogontz. Instead, stunned by the sight of so many wounded soldiers, she decided to stay in Toronto and become a nurse. She lived with Muriel at the St. Regis Hotel, where this photograph was taken. Courtesy of Kenneth Clapp.
Both Louise de Schweinitz and Amelia were pre-med students at Columbia. Amelia involved Louise in aa number of escapades, including this one—climbing onto the dome of the Low Library, the focal point of the Columbia campus. Louise brought her Brownie camera. Courtesy of Louise de Schweinitz Darrow.
Amelia was engaged to Sam Chapman for several years. She broke off the engagement in 1928 after the Friendship flight. He never married, never got over her.
Courtesy of Corbis-Bettumann.
This is a self-portrait, taken by Amelia after she returned east from California, winter 1925-26.
Courtesy of Kenneth Clapp.
Amelia and Neta Snook, her first flight instructor, on the day of Amelia’s first lesson, January 3, 1921. Amelia is wearing her riding clothes, which Neta thought “a beautifully tailored outfit. ”
Courtesy of Oklahoma Air and Space Museum, and the grandchildren of Neta Snook Southern.
One of the publicity photos for Denison House, where Amelia was a social worker, that appeared in Boston newspapers. Amelia flew over Boston and Cambridge dropping passes for a fund-raising carnival for the settlement house. May 25, 1927.
Courtesy of Corbis-Bettmann.
Being greeted in Southampton, England. Amelia was only a passenger on the transatlantic flight of the Friendship in June 1928, but she was the fivst woman to make the crossing, and the world went wild. From the left:Amy Guest, who financed the flight; Louis Gordon (mechanic), Amelia, Bill Stultz (pilot), and Mrs. Foster Welch, the mayor of Southampton. Courtesy of Corbis-Bettmann.
After Amelia finished her speech at the Hyde Park High School, from which she graduated, she exited the stage by way of the piano so she could mingle with the students. July 1928. Courtesy of Corbis-Bettmann.
Amelia and George Palmer Putnam, shortly after their marriage, February, 1931. On the morning of the wedding, she handed George a letter listing conditions he must meet if he wanted to marry her. It didn’t seem to faze him a bit.
Courtesy ofAP Wide World Photos.
On May 21, 1932, exactly five years after Charles Lindbergh’s flight, Amelia became the second person to fly the North Atlantic solo. She was not only the first woman to make the flight, but the first person to fly the Atlantic twice. She landed in a pasture in Londonderry, Ireland. Courtesy ofAP Wide World Photos.
Townspeople of Londonderry greeting Amelia. Courtesy of Corbis-Bettmann.
By 1923 the Kinner field, the old Mercury field, and the Rogers field had been sold for subdivisions, for houses for the droves of people moving to Los Angeles who would that year make it the fifth largest city in the country. In February Bert Kinner moved his operation to a new field in nearby Glendale, which became upon completion the nearest airfield to downtown Los Angeles. It too was none too safe; its short twelve-hundred-foot runway was bracketed on one end by power lines and on the other by a peach orchard. Nevertheless, within a short time the Aero Club of Southern California and most of the local fliers, including Amelia, were flying out of Glendale, less than fifteen minutes from her new home on Sunset Boulevard, and it became the favorite site for most of the aviation segments filmed by the studios.
By now the Kinner Airster was the accepted, popular sport plane of the day, and Bert Kinner was in the happy predicament of being hard put to turn out a sufficient number to keep up with demand. Amelia’s prescience in selecting the avant-garde Airster two years earlier was vindicated everywhere she turned. As The Ace somewhat pompously put it, even Jenny owners—and Jenny was understood to include its Canadian sister ship the Canuck as well—“could now see the necessity of developing a smaller plane with a greater performance range to eventually supercede the ‘old faithful’ which is so prevalent at most of the flying fields today.” (On September 1, 1927, the U.S. Army would ground the Jenny forever, stating “Today they are obsolete.”)
The opening of the Glendale airport on Saturday, March 17, 1923, was marked by an air rodeo held under the auspices of the Aero Club of Southern California, the Commercial Aircraft Association, and the city of Glendale. All the usual local fliers were invited to perform, including Amelia, who was paired with the movie attraction of the moment, Andrée Peyre, a sloe-eyed film star just featured by The Ace on its cover attired in high boots, jodhpurs, leather jacket, helmet, and goggles. Brave as well as beautiful, Andrée, who came to Los Angeles in 1919 as an actress under contract to United Studios, had learned to fly from French ace Captain Étienne Poulet following the deaths of her three aviator air ace brothers in the war. When she arrived in Hollywood, she had taken further instruction from Earl Daugherty, who taught her stunting. She had just taken delivery on a new French-made Sport Farman, the hot plane of the hour.
Earl Daugherty led off the stunting in a Canuck; Amelia and Andrée were the second featured event. Although they shared equal billing, it is noteworthy, in that land of touchy egos where such things matter, that Amelia’s name ran first: “The Ladies Sportplane Special. Miss Amelia Earhart flying Kinner Airster, Miss Andrée Peyre flying Sport Farman.” It was particularly noteworthy since not only was Andrée more famous than Amelia, but her plane was better known. The Farman, also a 2-seater biplane, smaller than the Airster with a 23-foot wingspan and 150 pounds lighter at 450, was a marvelous machine that held the world’s record for range in speed—from a low of 15mph to a high of 87. And it came from a famous maker: another Farman, a Goliath, had held the endurance record in 1921.
The two women performed barrel rolls, loops, tailspins, and other stunts. They were followed by an accurate landing contest, balloon strafing by Frank Clarke (simulating the air battles of World War
I), a parachute jump from the wing of a plane by Miss Gladys Roy, a skywriting exhibition—Lucky Strike” would float across the sky, the work of a “master aerial penman”—and a Jenny Scramble (actually a five-mile race) among other events. There was an added event to the program: “If weather conditions are suitable, Miss Amelia Earhart, flying her Kinner Airster, will attempt to break the altitude record of 13,200 feet for plane equipped with 50 H.P motor,” which for some reason, presumably the weather, didn’t occur. (Her previous record of 14,000 feet had been made in her first plane, which had a 60-horsepower engine.) In May Andrée would briefly take the altitude record for women away from Amelia when she recorded 15,700 feet, then would lose it in July to Bertha Horchem of Ransom, Kansas, who would establish a record of 16,300 feet. But none of them took their records seriously—Lieutenant John Macready, in a Lepere biplane with a 400-horsepower Liberty motor, had gone up an astounding 34,509 feet.
The day before, the newly reorganized National Aeronautic Association issued Amelia an F.A.I, pilot’s license. She had passed the test on December 15, 1921. Under the aegis of the Aero Club of America, the test consisted of two parts. The first part was to check out a pilot’s ability to make a dead stick landing. Amelia had to cut the engine off at 4,921 feet (1,500 meters) above the ground, then glide and land within 492 feet (150 meters) of a predetermined point without restarting the engine. For the second part, Amelia had to make an uninterrrupted series of five figure eights around posts not more than 1,640 feet (500 meters) apart, at an altitude of not more than 656 feet (200 meters) above the ground. She also had to, upon landing, stop the aircraft within a distance of 164 feet (50 meters) from a fixed point.
