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Amelia Earhart’s love for aviation began in Los Angeles, where she took her first flight and pursued her newfound passion.
Laurie Gwen Shapiro, author of the new book, “The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam and the Marriage that Made an American Icon,” joined AirTalk, LAist 89.3’s daily news program, to discuss the pilot’s meteoric rise and tragic end and also to share some lesser known details about her life.
Earhart’s legacy: Earhart’s legacy as a pioneering aviator is well documented. She was the second person ever to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, achieving the great feat in 1932. She is also the first woman to do it solo.
A hub for aviation: In the early 1900s, L.A. became a hub for aviation enthusiasts. Stunt performers, law enforcement, military, even movie stars — it seemed everyone wanted a pair of wings, and in response, small airport and airfields began springing up. It was around this time that a young Earhart ventured out to L.A. during her summer break while attending Columbia University to visit her father who was living in downtown L.A. at the time.
An undated picture taken in the 1930s of American aviator Amelia Earhart looking trough the cockpit window of her plane.
First flight: In December 1920, Earhart convinced her father to go with her to a local airport — Rogers Field, which at that time was located off Wilshire Boulevard — and to take a flight. He obliged, and as the story goes, her love for flying was born. Earhart took up flight lessons with a woman named Neta Snook.
“She actually became a bit of a local celebrity,” Shapiro said.
Amelia in LA: Earhart was hooked. While pursuing her flying license, she held other careers like photography, truck driving, and stenography. While women like Earhart may have had the desire and skillset to fly, men had many more hours under their belt, having just returned from World War I.
“There was no path for a woman to make money except for stunt flying,” Shapiro said.
“She actually became a bit of a local celebrity.”
— Laurie Gwen Shapiro
A star is born: After her summer in L.A., Earhart went back east, but California would continue to play a role in her career. She began breaking records, stunning the world, and her celebrity and status reached meteoric levels. Eventually, in 1932, she followed her husband, who worked at Paramount Pictures, back to Southern California, where he had bought a house in Toluca Lake. Shapiro explained the reaction when Earhart visited him on a lot at Paramount.
“All the movie stars were just flabbergasted. ‘Amelia Earhart is in the cafeteria!?'” Shapiro said.
Five year’s later, in 1937, roughly 17 years after her first flight in L.A., Earhart set out on what would be her last flight in an attempt to become the first woman to circumnavigate the world.
You can listen to author Laurie Gwen Shapiro’s full conversation about her new book “The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam and the Marriage that Made an American Icon” here:
The soaring life of Amelia Earhart, detailed in a new book