Amelia Earhart (1897–1937)

It feels a little sacrilegious to not have loved this book. Amelia Earhart was an amazing woman, both as an aviator and as a woman blazing trails for other women in STEM (although they certainly didn't call it that back then). Reading about her desire to open up a makerspace (yes, I know I'm being anachronistic, you get the point) for women at Purdue was SO. FREAKING. COOL. And I have a feeling that, had Ameila made it back to California, all of her recollections about her groundbreaking show more flight around the world would have been edited and put together into a proper book.

As you know (SPOILER ALERT) Amelia did not make it back to California. Therefore, this book just ends. And it was almost entirely not edited by her husband, George Putnam (whom Amelia fondly refers to as "Mr. Putnam" in the book, very lovey-dovey), except in a few locations. This makes the book a bit hard to read at times. The narrative structure isn't very consistent. You'll get a chapter that's almost exclusively about the flight from one point to another, and then get a chapter that's almost all about a certain location, and some chapters go between one and the other so quickly that it's hard to figure out what's going on. I get it, the lady was too busy flying to write a book! She didn't live to fix things here and there after the fact! So I'll try to cut her some slack, but the book does suffer for it.

I spent a lot of time reading the book thinking about all of the changes that have been made in aviation since the 1930s. What would Amelia think about GPS, checking sectional charts on your iPad as you fly, airplanes that can break the sound barrier, and wide-bodied aircraft that can carry more than 600 passengers nearly around the world in such a short amount of time? I will try not to take any of these amazing things for granted when I fly (in a tiny little composite sport aircraft that weighs about 600 pounds soaking wet and can only carry 22 gallons of gas)! show less

An intriguing look at women in aviation and the pioneering days of flight as seen through the eyes of aviatrix Amelia Earhart. The main event in the book is the 1928 crossing of the Atlantic Ocean aboard “Friendship,” a Fokker F VIIb/3m. Co-pilots Wilmer “Bill” Stultz and Louis “Slim” Gordon were the two men who comprised the rest of the three-member crew. Amelia was not qualified for instrument flight and so did not pilot the plane; her job was to keep the log book for the show more flight.
Even though she was only a passenger, Amelia gained fame as the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by airplane. [It was a feat she would repeat some four years later, this time piloting her Lockheed Vega 5B for the solo flight.]

Amelia’s log book entries, along with her candid, insightful comments, make for fascinating reading. Although the flight is the centerpiece of the narrative, Amelia also discusses her aviation exploits, her nursing duties during the war, and her social work as she shares her thoughts on the development of aviation and its place in the American way of life. With more than sixty photographs reproduced throughout the book, the reader gains an added insight into the 1928 world in which Amelia lived.

Marion Perkins, the Head Worker at Denison House in Boston, wrote the discerning introduction. Amelia worked at the settlement; she hoped to give the children experiences to keep them young and to help them develop a zest for life.

There is no doubt that Amelia had a zest for life and her bubbly personality shines through in this engaging commentary. Her insightful reflections on aviation and the place of women in that field, born of a 1928 perspective, are interesting, thought-provoking, and perceptive. Since most readers know of the aviatrix’s loss on her round-the-world flight, this charming account holds an unintended undercurrent of poignancy.

Highly recommended. show less

I have always been fascinated by Amelia Earhart. I saw this book at a library book fair- very old, stamped discarded- and had to read it. Ameila was a very progressive woman, far ahead of her time. This book, which was really a travelogue of this last, ill-fated flight, showed her enthusiasm, courage and sense of adventure. She planned to return from her flight to Purdue University, where she hoped to encourage women to go into scientific fields. Womanhood lost a real trail blazer and a show more model for future woman when her plane went down. I just imagine all she could have accomplished if she had lived! show less

Last Flight is a book published in 1937 of Earhart's failed attempt that year at flying solo across the Pacific Ocean.

Published posthumously as a tribute, her husband, publisher George Palmer Putnam, edited the collection as Earhart's account of her ill-fated last flight around the world, begun in 1937. Compiled here are dispatches, letters, diary entries and charts she sent to her husband at each stage of her trip.

Earhart's writings cover the period from March 1937 up until her final entry show more on July 1, the day before her plane was reported missing en route to Howland Island in the South Pacific. The work is augmented by additional material written by Putnam, as well as a poem, "Courage", which Earhart had herself written.
Although credited to Earhart, historians have cast doubt as to how much of this book was actually written by Earhart and how much had been rewritten or embellished by Putnam. show less