- Amelia Earhart (1898-1937). A strong individual and often a loner since childhood, Earhart once chose her high school in a new city by interviewing various principals as to their facilities. As a teenage nurse’s aide in Canada in World War I, she developed a lifelong interest in medical science, social work, pacifism—and aviation. Living in California during her early twenties, she worked at the phone company and at a commercial photographer to pay for flying lessons. Later, as a social worker in Boston, she was approached by a group of public relations specialists to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic (1928). On that trip, she was a passenger, but she was the first woman to solo the trip in 1932. She twice broke the transcontinental speed record, and was first to solo from Honolulu to the mainland (1935). She disappeared in 1937 flying around the equator. Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan were presumed dead, but the disappearance has never been solved or explained. Earhart was an accomplished scholar, sportswoman, and author. Her publisher and promotional manager was George Putnam, whom she married in 1931, with the option of dissolving the marriage in a year if either wished to, and the household expenses to be split 50/50.
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