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Women’s History
Amelia Earhart: Opening the Skies for Women
Famous for her achievements in aviation, few know that Amelia Earhart“caught the flying bug” during her formative years in Toronto, Canada while working as a nurse’s aide to wounded soldiers. As today is the anniversary of Earhart’s transcontinental solo flight across America (Aug 24–25), I celebrate her many achievements.
Amelia Earhart was a pioneering aviator and an influential figure in aviation history. Today, she is largely remembered for her mysterious disappearance in 1937 over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to circumnavigate the globe with co-pilot Fred Noonan. We should not, however, let their disappearance obscure Amelia’s many achievements.
Born in Atchison, Kansas, Amelia Earhart enjoyed a mildly affluent upbringing. After she graduated from high school, her parents sent her to a finishing school in Philadelphia. During the Christmas break of 1917, she travelled to Toronto to visit her younger sister Muriel who was attending St. Margaret’s College.
While sightseeing, Earhart caught sight of the many wounded soldiers in the streets. “For the first time I realized what the World War meant,” she later remarked. “Instead of new uniforms and brass bands, I saw only the result of four years of despair and struggle; men without arms and legs, men who were…
