Amelia (7 page)

This time, Earhart had no misgivings about the endless attention that followed her flight. The first woman to fly the Atlantic alone and the first person to fly across the ocean twice had earned the recognition. She had captured the record for the fastest crossing, thirteen hours and forty minutes, and the longest distance ever flown by a woman. The celebration went on for weeks.

Flown to London, she stayed with the American ambassador and visited the Prince of Wales, whom she had met the first time she flew in from America. This time, their conversation proved so engaging that the heir to the throne lingered, prolonging their encounter beyond the royal schedule. Then the prince’s father sent his greetings and congratulations by telegram. British high society eagerly lined up to meet this extraordinary young American.
Lady Astor
shared her privileged access by inviting Earhart to the derby at Epsom Downs where the refined audience greeted the aviatrix with delight.

Earhart’s celebrity treatment didn’t stop there. Her achievement opened doors of every kind: She was escorted to a special meeting with the elderly
George Bernard Shaw
, at that time one of England’s most esteemed writers.

Any achievement provokes jealousy from people who do not see sufficient reasons for praise. Earhart’s extraordinary accomplishment had its detractors. But seeing the expression of such pettiness is a pointed reminder of attitudes about gender roles in the 1930s. Comments like these continued to dog Earhart for her entire career. Here, in its entirety, is a report that showed up in the
New York Post
, soon after she landed in Ireland, and not Paris, as planned: “As we go to press, it appears that Mrs. Amelia Earhart Putnam has landed in Ireland after a non-stop flight from Newfoundland. She didn’t make Rome, as she hoped, or Paris, as Lindberg did. We think it an almost entirely silly and useless performance. About all she has proved is that well-known phenomenon of nature that a girl can’t jump quite as far as a boy can.”

Other leading figures who met Earhart came up with ways to honor her while advancing plans of their own. Gordon Selfridge, whose family owned the eponymous London department store, saw Earhart’s achievement – and her presence - as an opportunity with commercial possibilities. He arranged to have Selfridge’s take the lead in marketing a women’s fashion line that Earhart helped design. Recalling the challenge of figuring out how to dress for her own early flying lessons, Amelia had helped create clothing for active women. Now Selfridge wanted that “look” in his store. He went as far as exhibiting Earhart’s plane in his store.

Exploiting the moment further, Selfridge presented the famous American with an expensive wrist watch. Amelia, with requisite courtesy, gave Selfridge the watch she had worn both times she had flown over the Atlantic. Everything that happened in England was adding to Amelia’s fame. Dignitaries as well as huge crowds gathered in a frenzy of appreciation that touched her. Or so Amelia thought until she saw Paris.

Pilots know that airports need advance information about incoming flights. Amelia knew that the farmer’s field in Ireland where she landed had never been her destination; she had set out for Le Bourget airport, just outside Paris. Because she now understood that her unrealized plan had already made unusual demands on the target airport, she wanted to express her gratitude and go to France before going home. An enthusiastic fan from the aircraft industry had arranged her travel (by water, not air). By that time, George Putnam had arrived in the north of France, where Earhart now joined him before they went on to the capital together.

In Paris, she was given the French Cross of the
Legion of Honour
. Knowing the importance of appearance in the world’s fashion capital, Earhart presented herself to the French Senate dressed as a correctly stylish and thoroughly modern woman. Meeting the same high-level officials who had honored Lindbergh just five years earlier, she now received the same medal they had conferred on him. Photographs show her captivating the senators who look delighted by the exotic lady who stood taller than many of them. The cheering crowds that greeted her everywhere in France were huge and ecstatic.

Somehow, even before she left England for France, Earhart managed to finish her second book,
The Fun of It
. Thanks to guidance – and pressure – from Putnam, she had written most of the manuscript before she left.

The book’s final chapter could qualify for the world’s shortest summary of a particularly long flight: “Starting from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, on the afternoon of May 20, 1932, I landed near Londonderry in the north of Ireland the next morning, thirteen and a half hours after the takeoff. That, briefly, is the story of my solo flight across the Atlantic.”

But the point of that succinct account was not lost on anyone who read her first book. It had described her experience as a passenger aboard
Friendship
in 1928, the flight that left her knowing she must make a solo transatlantic crossing. That book’s title was
20 Hrs. 40 Min., Our Flight in the
Friendship.
In Earhart’s second book, the speedy account of her solo flight invites a comparison to the earlier one. As modestly as possible, she points out how much faster she flew alone.

In a promotional coup, Putnam arranged to have a recorded version of Amelia’s speech when she landed in that farmer’s field in Ireland. As he planned, early copies of Earhart’s second book included the recorded speech, packed inside the back cover. Also thanks to Putnam’s planning,
The Fun of It
would be on bookstore shelves within weeks of the flight’s completion.

Since Earhart’s flight had symbolically joined two continents, other countries in Europe moved quickly to invite the world’s most famous American woman. After France, Italy wanted to be part of the euphoria and show its appreciation of a modern marvel. At the invitation of
Benito Mussolini
, Earhart visited Rome and also the Vatican, where she met the pope. Next she went to Belgium to receive that country’s highest award, the Cross of the Chevalier of the Order of Leopold. While there, Earhart had lunch with the king and queen.

On June 15, Earhart and Putnam sailed to the United States on the
Isle de France
. The reception was enthusiastic. Parades and cheering came first, then an invitation from the White House. Numerous newspapers reported that President Herbert Hoover would present Earhart with a gold medal from the National Geographic Society.

A front-page story
The
New York Times
noted the importance of the moment for women, even if the headline could have been mistaken for a tame announcement from the society page: “Geographic Society Honors Mrs. Putnam.”

The story explained that after Hoover presented Earhart with the gold medal, Congress made her the first woman to receive the
Distinguished Flying Cross
. The
Times
story recounts what had been a day of high-level visits including lunch at the White House.

The afternoon’s honors had started with a stop at the United States Senate. According to the newspaper, Mrs. Putnam “stood in the well of the Senate chamber, one of the few women ever to enjoy the privilege of the floor.” Earhart’s presence was exceptional, considering that no woman had yet served in the legislative body.

Just minutes later, Earhart was taken to the House of Representatives where she was cheered by its membership. After being dinner guests at the White House, Earhart and Putnam went to Constitution Hall with the president and the first lady. When President Hoover took his turn to speak, he concentrated on Earhart’s character as the explanation of her achievements and part of the American character: “She has been modest and good-humored. All these things combine to place her in spirit with the great pioneering women to whom every generation of Americans has looked up with admiration for their firmness of will, their strength of character, and their cheerful spirit of comradeship in the work of the world.”

Even if she understated her own accomplishments, other people understood the depth of her bravery. As Vice President
Charles Curtis
put it, Earhart had shown “heroic courage and skill as a navigator at the risk of her life.” And she herself chose to frame her achievement as important for all women. In her view, the flight was proof that women were equal to men in “jobs requiring intelligence, coordination, speed, coolness, and willpower.”

An experienced writer, Earhart knew how to adapt her brief comments to her audience and the occasion. In recognition of the values of the National Geographic Society, she rewarded listeners with details that would appeal to adventurers, including some pilots: “I am often asked if I was afraid at any time during the flight. The answer is that there was no time to be afraid. I was just too busy – and too interested in the problem at hand.”

At the same time, she needed to show her awareness of the risks involved: “Flying a plane for five hours and more in storm, fog, and darkness is enough to keep a pilot quite occupied. And then with me there was the added complication of having my altimeter fail, so that after two hours out of Harbor Grace I never knew my exact height above sea level. A weld in the exhaust in the manifold began to burn through before midnight, which might have resulted seriously.”

Her careful comments let her share with her listeners a sense of physical hardship, but, true to her upbringing, she did not complain; she offered a matter-of-fact description of a difficult experience. Finally, she had to be honest, admitting that, of course, the possibility of turning back had occurred to her: “Even if this trouble had been serious I could not have returned. The field at Harbor Grace is unlighted and difficult at best. To have turned back and attempted a landing in the dark would have meant an inevitable crack-up, with the added possibility of fire from my heavy gasoline load. Further difficulty during the night was the formation of ice on the plane when I tried to climb up on top of the bad weather. I had no choice but to keep below the altitude at which ice formed and above where I thought the water waited. And so I rather felt my way through the fog in this uncertain middle ground.”

In a few words, she had summarized what she went through, and she told the audience what she considered just enough. With great skill, she saved for last the ideas she considered most important, not for glorifying her personal valor or achievement: “I believe regular transatlantic air service is inevitably coming. How soon depends on many factors, perhaps chief of which is airplane design. I shall be happy if my small exploit has drawn attention to the fact that women are flying, too.”

Like its author’s feats, Putnam had arranged for Earhart’s book to break records for speed as it went through production, appearing in bookstores when the ink in the flight’s headlines was barely dry.

After Earhart completed her manuscript, Putnam began arranging for good reviews. The review in
The
New York Times
, appearing just a month after the flight, assured readers that the book was “intended solely for the reading of those who know little about aviation. Miss Earhart knows a great deal about it, especially as art and business, and her pages are full of the experiences. . . .”

Amelia returned to America, triumphant from her transatlantic flight in May, but America’s euphoria continued for the rest of the year. Los Angeles was hosting the Summer Olympics. Earhart traveled to California for the event. Her dear friend and fellow pilot Gene Vidal had also flown out. They had worked together on NYPWA Airline; his interest in aviation had not flagged, nor had his interest in Earhart.

The public wanted to know practical details about Earhart, including what she ate to keep herself strong and alert on a long solo flight. Her flying and eating habits did not change much over the years. Usually, she made sure to bring tomato juice, her favorite. For variety, she might drink hot chocolate or soup. Most of the time, she also had a hard-boiled egg. She preferred foods she could eat with one hand.

At that time, the news media respected boundaries in reporting the private lives of famous people. That’s why the public did not read scandalous stories about the relationship between Earhart and Vidal.

Of course, there were stories, unofficial and unconfirmed at the time. One such piece concerned the intimate subject of underwear.

Newspapers always assumed that articles about a woman pilot had to include details of how she dressed. (Stories of Rugh Elder are full of fashion.) But some details of Earhart’s clothing were not for public consumption, at least not in her day. According to Earhart’s biographer Susan Butler, Amelia wore men’s underwear on her long flights. But there’s more to it, says Butler. She wore boxer shorts given her by Gene Vidal. Her choice had to do with comfort. Since she found it too embarrassing to buy boxers for herself, she asked Vidal.

Other, more public evidence also points an intimate relationship with Vidal. Their attending the Olympics together fed the rumors, but gossipy stories about Earhart and a lover also had to compete with the accounts of her flight home after the Olympics. She set a new women’s record for the fastest non-stop transcontinental flight: Los Angeles to Newark in nineteen hours and five minutes.

Earhart could have rested on her laurels, but what she wanted most was to set more records. Nevertheless, she always found time for what she considered fun, which now included some of the world’s most famous people, starting with Eleanor Roosevelt.

Earhart heard from Mrs. Roosevelt months before they met. After her solo Atlantic crossing, it was Eleanor Roosevelt, rather than Franklin, who sent congratulations. He was governor of New York at the time, on his way to being elected president in November 1932. In those days, the inaugural ceremonies for the newly elected president and vice president were held in March, so by the time Earhart met Eleanor Roosevelt, she was living in the White House. The two women liked each other immediately, even before realizing how similar their ideas. Beyond that, Earhart was surprised at Mrs. Roosevelt’s interest in aviation. She wanted to go for a ride with Earhart. George Putnam loved the idea, sensing an opportunity for priceless publicity.