Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
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F ront Runners Boston welcomed her with a bouquet as the first woman to be flown across the Atlantic, but Amelia Earhart wouldn't remain a passenger for long. lady lindy H er skill as a pilot took Amelia Earhart across the Atlantic, but it was a car that first transported the Kansas native to New England. In 1924, after a cross-country road trip, Earhart arrived in Boston, where she would spend many years of her life. She found employment as a social worker at the Denison House. She also became a member and then vice president of the National Aeronautic Association and routinely flew out of the newly established Dennison Airport in Quincy. In 1928, publisher George Palmer Putnam, Earhart's future husband, picked her as the first woman to be flown across the Atlantic. Putnam had already published several books by Charles Lindbergh and knew that Earhart's account of the flight would be a best seller; her book 20 Hrs., 40 Min.: Our Flight in the Friendship was published in 1932. Friendship, the plane for Earhart's trip, was piloted by Wilmer Stultz and Louis "Slim" Gordon, while Earhart fastidiously kept the flight log. The threesome left Boston for Canada on Friendship, bringing ham sandwiches from the Copley Plaza Hotel with them, and departed on their journey across the Atlantic a few days later, on June 17, from Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland. When they landed at Burry Port in Wales nearly 21 hours later, six policemen were needed to hold back the throng of excited onlookers. Earhart was welcomed with great fanfare when she returned to Boston soon after. Four years later she completed another crossAtlantic flight, this time on her own. In 1937, however, during her attempt to become the first woman to fly around the globe, Earhart's plane disappeared in the South Pacific. But local fascination with the aviator hasn't ceased. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery has helped finance trips to look for her plane in the Phoenix Islands, most recently in July 2012. Earhart and her plane might one day make it back to Boston after all. BC 12 PHOTOGRAPHY BY KEYSTONE-FRANCE/GAMMA-KEYSTONE VIA GETTY IMAGES GLAMOROUS, FEARLESS GLOBE-TROTTER AMELIA EARHART ARRIVES BACK IN BOSTON IN 1928 AFTER HER FIRST CROSS-ATLANTIC FLIGHT. BY JESSICA LANIEWSKI BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM 012_BC_FOB_FR_LSpring13.indd 12 4/10/13 10:49 AM