Learning Something New

Amelia Earhart: Queen of the Air

Amelia Mary Earhart is probably the most famous woman pilot in history. She was born in Kansas in 1897. That was before airplanes even existed. She loved to play with her sister, Muriel, who everyone called Pidge. Amelia’s mom wanted her girls to have adventures. During the early 1900s, some people thought girls should stay at home and let men have jobs and do dangerous, exciting things. But Amelia’s mom didn’t want her girls to just follow the rules other people made. Amelia’s mom wanted her girls to have adventures.

Amelia and Pidge liked to climb trees. They also hunted rats and loved to go sledding down snowy hills. These were not things girls were supposed to do. One day Amelia and her uncle made a wooden ramp, kind of like a roller coaster. Amelia rode down the ramp in a wooden box. The wooden box crashed and broke. Amelia’s lip was bruised but she was so excited. She shouted, “Oh, Pidge, it’s just like flying!”

When Amelia was in high school, her family moved to Chicago. Amelia went to Hyde Park High School and took lots of science classes. After she finished school she wanted to find a job. She kept a scrapbook of newspaper articles about women who had interesting jobs. She liked some of the jobs that men did. She thought those were more exciting.

After Amelia finished high school, airplanes were still new. In 1920, Amelia and her father visited an airfield. She took her first ride in an airplane. She said, “By the time I had got two or three hundred feet off the ground I knew I had to fly.”

Amelia learned to fly. She bought a used, bright yellow airplane that she called “The Canary.” On October 22, 1922, Amelia set a world record for female pilots. She flew higher than any woman pilot had before.