- Amelia Earhart (1898-1937). Her lifetime coincided with the pioneer years of aviation, and its exciting newness at every stage exactly suited her. She is shown here with the autogiro, a small, light craft widely celebrated in the late '20s and early '30s. (Sometimes called a forerunner of the helicopter, it had greater maneuverability, safety, and economy than either the 'copter or light planes.) As a nurse's aide in Canada in World War I, Earhart became interested in aviation. She moved to California and worked for the phone company to pay for flying lessons—and a plane. She was the first woman to fly the Atlantic (1928), but as a passenger. She was the first woman to solo that trip in 1932. She twice broke the transcontinental speed record and was first to solo from Honolulu to the mainland (1935). She disappeared on a round-the-world research flight in 1937, presumably having gone down in the Pacific. Alternate theories have been publicized ever since, but none of them ever proven. She wrote several books and married her publisher/promoter George Putnam, with the agreement that they would keep their own names and split household expenses.
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