What Was The Impact Of Amelia Earhart In The 1920's

On May 21, 1932 a small, tattered plane touched ground on a pasture near Londonderry, Ireland. An Irish farmer left tending his cows to find where the rumbling noise was coming from, and in his backyard he found an airplane and a young woman by the name of Amelia Earhart. The man drove her five miles away to the nearest telephone, and over a quick phone call to New York, she proclaimed, “I did it!” After 15 hours and 2,026 miles, Amelia Earhart had set a new record (Bailey, 201). Amelia Earhart’s flight as the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean was a defining event in American history because it was a feat in the field of aviation, created greater opportunity for women, and made her into an inspirational celebrity for the
next century. Throughout the 1920’s there was a time of post-World War I prosperity, until the stock market crashed and plunged America into a period known as the Great Depression.
The national debt rose 40 percent of GDP, the debt in relation to the average income per person, resulting in the highest it had ever been (There could be trouble ahead). Because there was no money reserved as a precaution for a depression, the economic damage was the worst it could be in the situation. Banks went into a panic and pulled their money out of the economy; therefore, the money necessary to restore the economy was in reserve. During the Great Depression in the United States, unemployment captured one in four people and the government tried to control wages and prices with the hopes of hindering the rising rates of unemployment; however, this only obstructed the recovery (There could be trouble ahead). Amidst the gloom of the Great Depression, accomplishment’s like Amelia Earhart’s added positivity into American
society. Despite Earhart’s achievement, it would not have been possible without the invention created by the Wright brothers: the airplane. Wilbur and Orville Wright never graduated from high school, yet they became two inventors that changed history. They educated themselves on the field of aviation and took to studying the air and flying creatures, such as vultures. They built a lightweight engine, propellers connected with bicycle chains and gears, and stitched together cotton fabric to create wings. To test their hand-sewed wings, they even built a wind tunnel to stimulate the effects of flying. On December 1903, at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina, they flew the first airplane the world had ever seen (Weinstein). Even though it was only in the air for a short time of a minute, it was an accomplishment that affected the structure and mechanics of aviation forever. They created the very first airplane in 1903, which by 1932, had transformed into an automobile that could fly for 15 hours. Amelia Earhart was born July 24, 1898 in Kansas.
Her father was a railroad attorney, so as a child she traveled a lot. When she was 19 years old, she attended Ogontz School in Philadelphia; however, after a trip to see her sister in Canada, she saw the need for assistance in the war. Immediately, Earhart dropped out of school and enlisted as a nurse for the Red Cross during World War I (Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum). After serving a few years as a nurse for the soldiers, her parents convinced her to move to California with them. In 1920, while in California, her and her father attended an airshow for stunt fliers in Los Angeles. At the airshow, she persuaded her father to let be a passenger on a flight, and she fell in love with airplanes (Bailey,
202). In 1921, she took her first flying lessons from Neta Snook, a forerunner aviatrix, and in 1922, Earhart bought a Kinner Airstir, her first airplane (Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum). From there she set records upon records and became a renowned pilot. On May 20-21, 1927, a first for aviation occurred when Charles Lindbergh flew non-stop unaccompanied across the Atlantic. He flew from New York to Paris in his plane, The Spirit of St. Louis, and sparked the “age of transatlantic flight” (Bailey, 203). All the while, Amelia Earhart was in the process of learning how to fly and gaining experience while flying solo. In 1928, George Palmer Putnam asked Earhart to fly the Atlantic as a passenger aboard the plane, Friendship (Bailey, 203). She accepted and flew alongside Wilmer Stultz and Louis “Slim” Gordon, becoming the first female passenger to fly across the Atlantic, gaining the title, “Lady Lindy” (Potter). Upon returning she published a book about her flight titled 20 Hrs, 40 Min (Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum). Although she became popular for this event, it was not good enough for Earhart, she said, “I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes” (Potter). She wanted to do more.