Booktv susan butler from 1997. Ms. Butler talked about her, east to the dawn the life of Amelia Earhart. The book examines her life and times and her marriage to publisher George Putnam who promoted his wifes adventures and feeds. Ms. Butlers book coincided with 100th anniversary of Amelia Earharts birth in and the 60th anniversary of her disappearance. This is about an hour. Cspan susan butler, author of east to dawn the life of Amelia Earhart, where did you get the title east to dawn . Guest oh, the title east to the dawn was my hactually my husbands contribution to the book. I had a very trendy title, Amelia Earhart, an extraordinary woman, and we decided it had to be something really much more interesting, and he came up with east to the dawn, which i thought was brilliant. Cspan whats it mean . Guest well, it means that her major flights were from west to east, and she was on her solo flight across the atlantic flying into the dawn. She was on her first flight, where she was just a passenger, from newfoundland to europe, flying into the dawn. And on her solo flight from hawaii to california, she was flying into the dawn. And then, of course, on the last flight, where she was lost, she was lost flying into the dawn. Cspan when did she live . Guest she was born in 1897, and this is the 100th anniversary of her birth. Cspan and when did you get the first idea that you wanted to write this book . Guest it was in the back of my head for years. I wanted to write a book about a remarkable woman, and she was the most remarkable woman that i knew. And i had a special reason, actually, because my mother was one of the early fliers, so she was kind of always there for me. Cspan and where did your mother fly . Guest she flew out of the red bank airport in red bank, new jersey, in the 30s. Cspan howhow much flying did your mom do . Guest well, she did a lot, but this isshe did a lot before the war and then, in the beginning of the war, before anything got really serious, she was in the Civil Air Patrol andand patrolled the jersey coast. Cspan do you fly . Guest no. Cspan did you ever think you wanted to be a flier . Guest i did. I thought about it, but by the time i was old enough to fly, it was after the war andafter the second world war, and i just kind of got onto other things. Cspan and i think it says in yourin thethe little bio about you that your mother was a member of the ninety nines . Guest she was a member of the ninety nines, yes. Cspan you say in the back of the book there are now 6,500 members of that group . Guest over 6,500 members. Cspan what is it . Guest itsits a womens flying organization. Itsitits really the flying organization where all the women join and then they support each other and they have various programs. Cspan got a picture here i wanna show you of two people. Who are these people . Let me see if we can get it here, this shot. Who are those people . Whoops. Guest thats eugene vidal and Amelia Earhart. Cspan and who is gene vidal . Guest eugene vidal is the father of gore vidal. He was the great love of amelias life. He was also the head of the bureau of air commerce, so he was the highest civilianthats the highest civilian post in aviation then. Cspan yin your book, you quote gore vidal. Did you talk to him about thisfor this book . Guest i interviewed him, yes, and thathe gave me this sensational quote. Cspan what was it about . Guest well, it was about my book. He says that he liked the book. Cspan but he also gave you some information that she used to wear mens underwear. Guest yes. She used to wear mens underwear and she didntshe was too embarrassed to buy it herself, so his father used to buy it. Cspan why . Why didwhy did she wear mens underwear . Guest well, it was more comfortable. Womens underwear at that pointwomen didnt wear slacks, they didnt wear pants, and so they wore kind of silk things that didnt work well under pants. Soso gene bought her, i think, jockey briefs that worked out better. Cspan now atiif we were alive during her mostyou know, when she was getting the most attention, what were people saying about her in this country . What kind of publicity, if you can relate it to today, did she get back in the 30s . Guest she wwouldve been a combination ofof the greatestlike, jeanne yeager. I di just dont know. Theresif i say that, there probably are people who have never heard of jeanne yeager. She was the most famous woman in america. Shes probably the most famous woman inin the world during her lifetime. She was catapulted to fame because she was the first woman to fly the atlantic when it seemed as it nobody could fly the atlantic without dropping into the sea. Andand then she went on to become a fine flier and she spent her life on the lecture circuit, in the public eye, deliberately, and then she wrote three books. I dont think theres anybody really in ouron our presentday scene who could possibly be all the things she was at the time. Cspan this cover you have and this photograph of Amelia Earhart comes from where . Guest its a pictureits just aaa picture of her aafter one of her flights. Im actually not sure which one itit comes from one of the archives. Cspan andand tell us about how big she was, i mean, how tall she was andand. Guest she was 58; she weighed 118 pounds. She was skinny. She was very goodlooking, except she had thick ankles. She hated her ankles, according to gore vidal. She was obsessed even when she was famous with howith her ankles, which is one of the reasons why she always wore pants, cause itit showed off the best of her figure and hid the worst. And she hadshe had absolutely beautiful handslong, tapering fingersthat her husband was in love with. Cspan how many times was she married . Guest just once. Shethere werethere were really two great loves in her life one she marriedand that was George Palmer putnamand one she didntthat was eugene vidal. Cspan George Palmer putnam was who . Guest George Palmer putnam was aaa publisher, a very good publisher andand aan extrovert, aan entrepreneur who was famous in his own right he was thehe was the publisher who snared lindbergh andwhich was the greatest publishing coup ofofof that era, and put him on the map. And he also published all the other explorers and adventurers he was really in love withwith the Great Outdoors andand aand adventurers. And when he kind of stumbled onto Amelia Earhart, he was just totally bowled over because she was everything. She wasshe was hisshe was his dream woman. Cspan wwhere did they meet . Guest well, they actually met when he interviewed her. He had been given the job of finding a woman to fly the atlantic in the place of amy guest, who had bought an airplane and planned to flyand be the first woman to fly the atlantic, and it was her notion that she would take off from the United States, fly to london, land in the thames in front of the houses of parliament, and it was going to be a gesture of friendship between the United States and england. So, therefore, she named the plane friendship. And she was from a very wealthy family and she was 55, very headstrong, very intelligent. And herher family didnt know what she was about. She kept it quite quiet, and she had commander byrd helping her organize this, and he found her the plane, he found her the pilot, he found her the copilot. And then when her family found out about it, they, not too surprisingly, hit the roof. And so they talked her out of it, and so she saidstubborn ladyshe said, well, ok. I wont do it, but then it has to beit has to continuethe project has to continue, and i want my place taken by an American Woman who will be a credit to her sex and a credit to her country, has to be somebody educated, a flier and a wonderful person, because there were various peoplevarvarious women who were trying to be that first womanwho wanted to be the first woman across the atlantic because they knew that theyd become the most famous woman in the world if they could just get on a plane. And there was one in particular, one woman by the name of mabel ball, who was just after the publicity and she was very good at getting publicity, and she had fashioned herself aaa vest ofa gold link vest with diamond buttons and a platinum collar, and she had huge diamonds on her hands and, as the New York Times said, just to be photographed upon landing in that outfit was, to her, the dream of a lifetime. And she was always shopping and doing all the things thatand garnering for publicity and doing all the things that amy guest thought was terrible. And there were other people also that wanted to be the first famous woman to fly across the atlantic, so for those reasons, amy guest had decided that she just had to do this. Cspan whwhowhere didwhawhat citizenship did amy guest have . Guest she was an american, although her husbher husband was english. Cspan and where did she live . Guest she lived inin london and in long island. Cspan what kind of a plane was it that they bought . Guest it was a fokkera fokker with three engineshugejust one of the biggest, one of the best planes of the day. Cspan pontoons . Guest pontoons. Cspan thats, oobviously, how they would land out on the thames. Andand werewere those the kind of planes that they flew in those days . Guest mmhmm. Cspan what year are we talking about here . Guest were talking about 1928. Were talking about the year after lindbergh. Cspan and what had he done . Guest lindbergh had wwanted something called the orteig, which had fired up the worlds imagination, which was to fly from new york to paris, and raymond orteig, a frenchman, had put up 25,000 to the first person who could accomplish this. And many tried, many died. Lindbergh was the first to succeed. Cspan and he flew from where to where . Guest he flew from Roosevelt Field to la bourget. Cspan and Roosevelt Field is located where . Guest long island. Cspan long island. And la bourget is in paris. Guest in paris. Cspan aand. Guest and. Cspan go ahead. Guest and it took him 33 hours. Cspan did he stop anywhere along the way . Guest no. Cspan and ithad any woman flownin 1927, that wouldve been, i guesshad any woman flown over the atlantic at all . Guest oh, no. No. Cspan not in any planes . Guest no. Cspan cause somewhere in your book, you say that back when flying was really active, in the early days, that 95 percent of the passengers were men. Guest yes. Cspan why was that . Guest well, because wwomen were afraid of flying, so one of the reasons whybutbut this comes later, a few years later, whenwhen airlines started to come into being, they decided that they had to give publicity to women so that women would begin to think that they could, in fact, fly and that men would realize that if women flew, they shouldnt be afraid of airplanes. Cspan well come back to the book in a moment. I wanna ask you a little bit about yourself. Where do you live . Guest i live inin pine plains, new york. Cspan where is that . Guest thats 100 miles north of the city. Cspan and how long have you lived there . Guest fifteen years. Cspan is this your first book . Guest yes. Cspan aand dwhat did you do for a living before you got into the bookwriting business . Guest i tried to make a living atat writing, but i really find it very difficult. Its almost impossible. Cspan how much education do you have . Guest ive gotten as far as a masters degree at columbia. Cspan in what subjects . Guest political science. Cspan and when you went about doing this book, where did you go to get the information . Guest well, i went wherever ititwherever itit took me i went out to ohio to visit katch challis, who was one of aAmelia Earharts dearest friends and cousins. I went to. Cspan alive . Guest well, she died after i interviewed her. Cspan what year did you interview her . Guest i interviewed her in 1989. Cspan so youve been working on this book for how long . Guest ten years. Cspan and what elsewhere else did you go . Guest i went to newfoundland, i went up to trepassey, and then i went to Harbour Grace to see the field where Amelia Earhart took off on her solo flight, and trepassey is where shewherewhere the friendship took off from. Cspan how hard is it to get to trepassey from here . Guest its not hard. Cspan how long does it take . Guest oh, i cant remember. Cspan and why newfoundland . Guest newfoundland juts outif you look at a map of north america, you see that newfoundland juts out as far east asits the furthest eastern point. Its the closest to europe. Cspan and so when youre writing the rulebooks, you hadyou could do that. I mean, if youre going from north america, youd find that point that would be the closest to europe . Guest yes. Yes. Manyesparticularly the fthe field inin Harbour Grace was a Takeoff Point for many planes. Cspan where else did you go for your information . Guest well, i spent a lot of time at the Schlesinger Library in cambridge. Cspan why there . Guest well, because they had most of the Amelia Earhart mmaterial that was given by the family. Andand then i went to medford, massachusetts, where Amelia Earharts sister, who is still alive, lives. Cspan how old is she . Guest she was born in 1900. Cspan shes still alive . Guest shes still alive, and she was very helpfulvery helpful. Cspan which sister . Guest whitsthere were just the two of them. Cspan whatand her n. Guest it was Muriel Morrissey. Cspan yeah. Guest her name is Muriel Morrissey. Cspan and what did. Guest and her daughter was very helpful, too. Cspan and what did Muriel Morrissey remember . Guest well, it wasnt so much what Muriel Morrissey remembered, although she remembered a great deal. It was more getting from her a feelinga feeling of whatof what their life was like. And also, she pointed me in quite a few new directions so that i came up with more new material. Cspan what was their life like . Guest when they were children . Ameliatheirtheir lithe two of them had, in their youngfirst childish years, very different lives, actually, because amelia was sent to live with her grandmother in atchison, kansas, cause her grandmother was quite elderly and lonely, although she did have a husband. He washe was a bit withdrawn and thered been a few deaths, and so she was sent to live in atchison with her grandparents and comfort her grandmother. And muriel lived in kansas city, but they were always very close and they were always together in the summer and there was a lot of visiting back and forth. Cspan what year did you fvisit muriel . Guest i visited muriel in 87 and then i visited her subsequently a few more times. I would keep going back and she would keep opening her door for me. She was very helpful. Cspan and you say she sent you inin new directions. Guest mmhmm. Cspan give us an example. Guest well, she helpedshe sent me to her daughter, whomwho also opened the door to more leads, and so i ended up finding more cousins who gave me letters, and so i hadi had letters from cousins that had never been found before. And then besides that, then i had the katchwhen i visited katch challis, i hadi was given, after katch died, by her daughteri was given diaries. The diaries were fabulous, the diaries ofof katchs sister, wholucy, who lived with amelia when she was older awhenwhen she was married. Cspan what different cities did Amelia Earhart live in . Guest let me see, she started out inas an adult or as a child . Cspan just herin her life. Guest because, as she said, she rolled around a lot when she was a kid. She lived in atchison, kansas; kansas city, kansas; des moines, iowa; st. Paul, minnesota; boston; new york. She went to columbia. Cspan i remember philadelphia she went to schooldid she go to school in philadelphia . Guest well, she didnt actually, but herher family originally came from philadelphia, yeah. Cspan california . Guest oh. Cspan where . Guest . Absolutely. She ended up in california in the taltalooka Lake District outside of la. Cspan so as you went about your task, how much other literature had been written about Amelia Earhart, how many other books . And were you looking for a new angle . Guest there are tons of books about Amelia Earhart. I mean, itiim stunned when iifif i had realized how many books there were, i probably wouldnt have started. The literature about her isisis getting longer all the time, too. The thing is thatwhat i found is thatthe book showed a continuing or possibly even a growing interest, which ii hadactually hadnt realized. I think there are probably right nowi see a growing interest maybe just because im so involved with Amelia Earhart. But i found that the books were really interesting, but you cant rely on books if youre a biographer. You have to go back to sourcessource material. Cspan so whats different about this book compared to all the other books you read . Guest well, i hadi had thetheit sounds corny to say, but i had the real details of her life, which i found were missing, and iit took a lot of digging, took a lot of interviewing and it took a lot of time because it isnt the kind of thing you can force. Youyou cant even figure out where youre going to go until each thing happens. And thfor instance, gore vidal had told me that there was a lost biography and he knew about it because the woman was a friend ofofof his fathers as well as of amelia, andand he had spent time with her. And she had advised him about how to go about publishing his first book, and thathis first book was accepted and her first book was turned down, so hed do this, so he said to me that there was this lost biography. And i suppose that he told other people because, really, its no seit was no secret, but i just happened to find it. So i had this lost biography and then, of course, i had to rewrite the whole book again. Cspan when did you find it, and when did you have to start rewriting . Guest well, that was a few years ago, and i wasi was in the schlesinger and i hadi was not eveni wasnt thinkingid just really given up on it, and then as i was going out, i saw that they had recently gotten the papers of janet mabey, who was thisthis woman that had written the biography. And it was just that, and i turned on my heels and went back in and. Cspan whatswhat was new . Guest it was details. It was, again, details. She hadshe was there, and so sheshe was there and she interviewed people that had known amelia, and so i had suddenlyat my fingertips, i had anecdotes, things that really happened, not just the general things that we all know. Cspan go back towe started talking about her husband or whowhen she met the man that she was going to marry, George Putnam. Was he married then . Guest yes. Cspan what were the circumstances . Guest he was married to dorothy binny putnam, who, by all accounts, is quite a woman in her own right, and her granddaughter has just written a book about her. Butand theyshe and amelia were first friends andand amelia was enormously grateful to her in 1928. In fact, she dedicated her first book to her because she thought shed been so helpful. But then she had other interests, actually. Dorothy. Cspan male interests. Guest dorothy binny putnam had other male interests, and it became obvious that george palmPalmer Putnam was simply mesmerized by amelia, and so they got divorced and then amelia was not too happy about having anything to do with a divorce, but he overcame all her objections andand they eventually got married. He had to propose to her a number of times by his own admission before she agreed. She was notshe was not actually planning on getting married. Shed alwaysas a child, she andand her cousins, the challises, lucy and katch, had always had great dreams and plans for exciting careers. Theyd never really had any plans for great marriage, but he talked her into it. Cspan they married in what year . Guest 1931. Cspan so were still in 28, where shes going to take that first trip. Guest ok. Cspan but theprobably oughta do this now in case we forget it. Guest yeah. Cspan when they got married, there was a letter that you publish here. Guest yes. Cspan . To her husbandtobe. Guest yes. Cspan . From her. Has that been published before, by the way . Guest yes, it has. Cspan and it readsill read just a little bitthere are somethis iswhen did she give this letter to him . Guest the morning of the wedding. Cspan the morning of the wedding. Guest morning of the wedding. Doesnt seem to have fazed him a bit. Cspan dear g. P. , there are some things which should be writ before we are married, things we have talked over before most of them. You must know again my reluctance to marry, my feeling that i shatter thereby chances in work which means toso much to me. I feel the move just now is foolish as anything i could do. I know there may be compensations, but i have no heart to look ahead. In our life together, i shall not hold you to any medieval codecodecode of faithfulness to me, nor shall i consider myself bound to you similarly. whats she saying here . Guest shes sayingshes saying that shes not going to be faithful to him and that he doesnt have to be faithful to her, that he has to let her have her freedom, and. Cspan and she also writes please let us not interfere with the others work or play, nor let the world see our private joys or disagreements. In this connection, i may have to keep some place where i can go to be myself now and then, for i cannot guarantee to endure all the confinements of even an attractive cage. what was your reaction when you read that, by the way . Guest i thought it was absolutely fascinating. I mean, i thoughtfor me, it kind of showed the steely hand in the velvet glove, which i think ii wrote, butbecause it wascan you imagine doing that with an enormouslyi mean, it came from an inner need, but it was also iina very gutsy thing to do and it shows that she had to be the way she was and damn the consequences. Cspan now we were talking about 1928, when the selection was made to fly over the atlantic. They got married in 1931. Guest mmhmm. Cspan and what was the year that she died or the plane went down . Guest 1937. Cspan so were talking about a period here ofvery short period of about nine years. Guest very short period. Cspan and she was how old when she died . Guest thirtynine. Cspan is there anyby the way, is there any question in your mind thatthat she died during the flight . Guest no, absolutely none. Cspan and did youhow far did you go to research that, by the way . Guest iwell, aaactually, i think ive comeititi found it as definitive source as there is, which isi camesomebody told me about the writings of a japanese woman by the name of fukiko ioki, who had been a very good writer, who had written a book about it andand an article, and shed been the bureau chief of newsweek, so were not talking about somebody that is inconsequential or doesnt know what shes doing. I just wish her book was translated. And she ran down every single lead that she could find because she didntfrom the Japanese Point of view, she just wanted to find out whether, in fact, japan was the perpetrator of any of the crimes that theyve, over the years, been accused of being. And so she interviewed every Single Person starting with the people thatfred warner, who had started the whole thinginterviewed and in no case was everwas there ever any corroborating evidence thatthat the japanese had ever picked her up. In fact. Cspan and what year did she write that, the japanese reporter . Guest she wrote it in the 1980s. Cspan and you had to have it translated . Guest i had parts of it translated and then theand then ii was lucky and i found out where she lived, soshe lives inin wallkill, new york, and so i called her up andand we talked. Cspan can you still get an argument started about what happened to Amelia Earhart in this country . Guest oh, sure. I cant believe it, but there are still peopletherei think there are always people who are just mesmerized by theby what mightve happened. The conspiracy theories on every single event in United States history cant seem to bei mean, they just keep rising up again. Cspan in 1928, when George Putnam met her and they started selecting the person to go on the friendship, how visible was Amelia Earhart in the country then and what did she do . Guest she was a social worker at Denison House in boston. And she flew in her spare time. She had been in the papers a couple of times because she was a pilot and she had done a publicity stunt for Denison House. But she was notshe was just kind of a local celebrity. She was not wellknown at all. Cspan and how didthen diddid she get into this mix of who was going to be chosen . Guest well, that was just pure luck. Theamy guest had told the lawyer, familyfriend lawyer, david lehman, to find somebody to take amto take her place. And he was trying to decide what to do next, it being a little bit out of his line of work. And then George Putnam heard about it through somebody else and went to see him, and said that he would like to try and find that woman andi mean, it was just right up his alley cause its the kind of thing that hed been doing. And so david lehman said, ok. Sure, you know, have a go at it. and that afternoon, according to putnam, a friend of his from boston popped into his office, a publicist friend of his. And so putnam said, look, this is thisthis is this most interesting thing thats happening right now. Lets findlets find this woman flier. Lets find this woman whoto take the place of amy guest. and then, of course, he could see all the possibilities and it was a really exciting project. Soso he, in factin effect, had assigned hilton railly, and hilton lived in boston, went back to boston that afternoon, and he asked a friend of his iifif his friend knew anyanybody in boston in the aviation world. And, really, there was only amelia in boston. So they asked her down in new york and they interviewed her, and she was perfect and everybody fell in love with her. In fact, david lehman liked her so much he wasfor one moment, amelia felt, asafter she wrote about it later, she was afrshe was afraid that he liked her so much, he was afraid to send her because she might die. So she had to kind of pull back and. Cspan was she going to fly the plane or ride in the plane . Guest she was just going to ride in the plane. There were two pilots and she was just going to be the passenger. She hoped to be acactually to get her hands on the controls, but she never did. Cspan so it. Guest but she wabut she was more, actually, than just a passenger becausewhether or not they had originally planned to do this, i dont know, but by the time the plane took off, she wasthey had given her authority to run the project. She was, in other words, in control. Cspan and how big a deal was it that the flight was even going to happen . And how public was it . Guest until it took off, it wasnt public at all. When it took off, then all of a sudden, the world knew about it and every reporter that could get on a planenot a plane, excuse me, but every reporter that could get up there did, so that by the time she was in trepassey, there wasthe publicity was in place. Cspan now had she sold her story to any newspaper . Because i know you talk about later on, she sold a bunch of stuff to the New York Times. Guest well, putnam did. George Palmer Putnam did. She was a writer even then. She had sold aa story to the bostonian, which was the local boston magazine, andand on the basis, i suppose, of that, orhe had sold her story to the New York Times. So she was writing her story. While she was on the plane, she was keeping a log. When shewhen she landed ininwhen she landed in burry port, walesbut when she got to london, she handedshe handed a story, a finished story, which was published in the papers the next day. Cspan did they have an trouble on that flight . And how many people were on it . Guest there were three of them that were on it. Theythe only trouble they had was that they only had 700 gallons of gasoline because they were in aa plane which had been fitted out with pontoons. Pontoons dont reallytheyre not efficient. Once you have pontoons, they cant lift as much as wheas the wheels that they replaced. So although they should have been able to take double the amount of gasoline that they took, they had a great deal of trouble even gettingeven becoming airborne, as happened often in those days because the planes were underpowered andand the pontoons were just a terrific strain. So they didnt have any really Serious Problems except they werent sure, of course, where they were. When they finallyand then the engine started to sputter. And they were all afraid thatthat they were going to be lost at sea. And then they finally landed in burry port, wales. Cspan how long did it take . Guest it took 20 hours and 40 minutes. Cspan and thats the name of a book. Guest thats the name of her first book. Cspan and if i remember correctly, when she died, that that trip was already in its 20th hour and like 14 minutes. So it was very close. Guest it wasactually, id never thought of that. Yes. Yes. Cspan thethe later aroundtheworld trip. Guest yeyeah. Thethethe last leg of it. Cspan the last. Guest the last leg. Cspan the lastyeah. Guest yeah. Cspan the last leg. Guest nobody really knows howhow manyguessbut it was 20, 21, 22 hours. Nobody knows how long. Cspan now on that first trip, why do we remember her name, and dont remember the two fellows she was flying with . Guest well, its so amazing its justit just shows that this state of the worldthethe worlds mindset at the time. It happened immediately, immediately whenwhen she landed. Nobody paid any attention to wilmer stulstultz andand lou gordon. They just didnt pay any attention to them at all. And she was continually saying, look, i was just a passenger. I didnt do anything. and then, you know, later she said, i was just a sack of potatoes. i mean, she was always with her arms around them trying to push them forward. And it was just this stunned amazement of the world that athat a woman had been able to do this or that she hadnt passed out or that she hadnt died. It just seemedit just seemed too incredible to believe. Cspan you have ain different places of the book, you show us how many people were dying in those years. Guest it wasoh, unbelievable. Cspan can you tell uswhawhat are some of the statistics . Guest well, after lindbergh, because lindbergh was in may ofof 27, 18 planes took off. Both sides of the atlantic, 18 planes took off. And three made it. Cspan what happened to them . Guest well, most of them died. Most of the people died. Cspan why were they doing this . Guest well, because it was like climbing everest. It wasit was just the most exciting thing that could happen. Cspan was it expensive . Guest hugely expensive. Cspan now you say here, ii wrote this down, twelve months after, 55 people tried in 18 planes. Three made it, one came close, and the rest failed. guest yeah. Cspan when was her next flight . Andand whwhen did she actually fly herself . Guest five years to the day after lindbergh, may 21st, 1932. Cspan now married to George Putnam. Guest now married to George Putnam. It had always bothered her thatthat she hadnt flown the plane herself and that she was so much in the public eye and everybody attributed things to her that she thought she hadnt earned. And she was always ai mean, she wasshe had a very serious side, although she didnt let it show all that much. But she wanted to earn her spurs. She felt she hadnt. So she decidedit was somethingeverybody was calling it the lindbergh trail. Everyevery woman inreally, every woman flier wanted to do what lindbergh had done and be the first woman to solo the atlantic. And nothere hadnt been anyin fact, nobody had gonehad flown the atlantic alone after lindbergh, man or woman. But the women, particularly, were on the lindbergh trail and there were quite a few american women who had planes and were trying. One womanone woman, ruth nichols, an american from rye, new york, had actually tried and she had crashed before she ever got up to newfoundland. And there were a couple of others in the wings waiting, getting their planes ready. And amelia decided that she was going to do it. She didnt tell anybody. She was always a very selfpossessed, selfcontained person. And so she had the whole thing organized. And exactly five years to the day after lindbergh, she took off from Harbour Grace, newfoundland, andand fland spanned the atlantic and that took 141 2 hours. And although she had stalthough her plan was to land at la bourget and the American Ambassador and everybody else had gone out to la bourget to wait for her, she didntshe didnt make france because the winds went against her and she was also having all kinds ofof equipment instrument problems. Cspan what kind of plane did she fly . Guest she was in aa lockheed vegasingleengine lockheed vega. Cspan who paid for it . Guest well, she did. By this time, she was very much of aof a onewoman industry. She wasshe was on the lectlecture circuit and she was probably, i suppose, the most highly paid woman going around the country. Cspan you say in 1935, she was the mostthat was her most productive year, that she spoke 136 times before 80,000 people at 300 a lecture, grossing 40,000. Guest yeah. That wasthat was big bucks in those years. Cspan and you also point out that a stenoa stenographer then was paid 20 a week. Guest i know. Its amazing. Cspan what would that vega plane have cost if you bought it . Do you know . Guest i think it would probably have cost aboutabout 15,000, but thats probably a guess on my part. Thethe lockheed electra that she bought in 1937 cost, fully equipped, 73,000. But that was a much bigger plane. Cspan youin chapter 17, you sayyou lead off asby saying, by 1934, amelia had become so involved in her various projects, lecturing, fashion designing. guest mmhmm. Cspan starting airlines. guest mmhmm. Cspan running the ninety nines. guest mmhmm. Cspan encouraging flying competitions and signing on to teach at purdue, that she barely had time to fly. go through a little bit of all that so we can see whatall the Different Things she was doing. Encouraging flying competitions, what was that . Guest well, she was very involved in this womens flying organization, the ninety nines, so she was alwayswhenever they were doing anything, she was always spending time with them. She was always working with other women toshe gave trophies for various races. Cspan would it bei mean, i know you talk about the bendix, which. Guest she flew in the bendix. Cspan and whatwhat was the bendix . Guest the bendix was a transatlantic flight which was theit was the most exciting transatlantic flight. Cspan a race . Guest race. Excuse me. It was a race. It wit was the big race. It was the one that got all the publicity. It was started byVincent Bendix gave the prize. It was started by a man called henderson because he wanted to push planes and push pilots. So hehe got Vincent Bendix to give a prize for the fastest transcontinental flight. Cspan do they still do the bendix . Guest i dont think so. If they do, i dont know about it. Cspan fashion designing. Rightright in the middle of all the other stuff shes doing. Guest right in the middle of all the stuff, she decided that she was going to design wearable womens clothes. She was sick of clothes that werent wearable and she thought it would be a Good Business enterprise. And she loved getting into new businesses. She was always trying differentDifferent Things and so there she was. She wasshe decishe decided to design womens clothes, but she was going to put shirtsand at that point, womens shirts were blouses, and so she designed shirts that were with long enough tails so that if they stood on their head, as she said, they stheythey would still stay tucked in. And then she used parachute silk for the blouses. Andand then she just did very wearable clothes. Cspan now i remember flying northeast airlines. Guest yeah. Cspan out of this town to boston. Guest yeah. Cspan and i think it went to the eastern airlines, then to usair, i canti dont know how all the. Guest yeah. Yeah. Cspan mergers went. Thats an airline she started . Guest yeah. She was oneshe was the first vice president. Yeah. There were four of them. They sat around their house in rye andsam soloman andand Amelia Earhart and gene vidal and paul collins, and they each threw in 10,000 and they started northeast airlines. Cspan did she work there . Guest yeah. She did. Cspan for how long . Guest oh, about a year. About a year. Cspan and then the last thing is signing on to teach at purdue. Why is that significant . Guest well, iits very significant because, to me, i mean, i think its kind of a hallmark of her personality. I think it shall of a sudden, elliott, who was the president , met her and was totally mesmerized by her and wanted to get her on the purdue campus. And she thought it was a wonderful idea and i think she would have probably spent the rest of her life doing that, being at purdue, because she was a sa strong feminist. Although she didnt come across as one, she had very strong beliefs. And what she always wanted to do was to get women to be the best that they could be. She wanted them to lose their sense of inferiority. She was always trying to enhance womens selfesteem. And there she wasshe was offered a job to be on the faculty ofofof purdue, to be a consultant for careers for women. Well, of course, she was a huge hit and she was there and theand the girls justjust adored her. And i thinki think it was probably very satisfying for her and i think it would have taken more and more of her time. Cspan you say that purdue got involved with a Research Foundation and was there a time where they were even going to buy her a plane . Guest well, they kind of did. They kind of did buy her a plane. Two of the wealthy alumni who were head of the purdue Research Foundation each kicked in 20,000 and thenso that gave her thekind of enough to buy the lockheed electra. And then equipment manufacturers gave her the rest. Cspan so at this point in her life, in the 34, 35, 36 time frame,how many other flights did she get involved in . And when did she start doingthinking about the aroundtheworld flight . Guest well, lets see, she flewshe flew fromin 1935, she flew from hawaii to oakland, california. That. Cspan in the electra . Guest no. In a vega. Cspan a vega . Guest in a vega. And that was the first solo flight on thatover that piece of water. Cspan for anybody . Guest for anybody. Cspan and, by the way, along the way, shecoming close at all to crashing . Guest no. No. Cspan no Serious Problems . Guest no Serious Problems. No. And thenand then later in 35, she flew to mexico city, which is quite high, its 7,500 feet, and thenwhich means from an altitude, ititair is thinner, its hard to load up enough gasoline. So then she flew from mexico city to Newark Airport and that was a first. Andfor solo, man or woman, nonstop. And for that, she went into the record books again. So she had these great solo flights. Cspan when did Eleanor Roosevelt get interest in her . Guest when she met her. Cspan when . Guest oh, she met her right after theafter roosevelt was elected for histo first his first term. Cspan 32. Guest in 32. Yeah. Cspan and there was a time where Eleanor Roosevelt wanted her to fly her all around the United States . Guest yes. Yes. Cspan what happened . Guest well, she would have, except that she wanted toto have ato have abe able to fly her around so that she could publicize the arthur dale project, which was subassistance housing in virginia. And the administration and Rexford Tugwell werent really ready to have Eleanor Roosevelt do it right then. They were still arranging things. This was quitequite new and quite radical. And i think probably tugwell didnt really want her to do it so he put it off and thenand then other commitmentstime commitments interfered. Cspan bbut you said at one point, iiif i remember correctly, that Eleanor Roosevelt wanted to learn to fly and sh. Guest oh, before that, she wanted to learn to fly. Cspan but i. Guest oh, when she first met amelia, she wanted to learn how to fly and she wanted amelia to arrange it. And so amelia got her a student pilot licenseorganized a student pilot license for her. Andand everything was going on absolutely beautifully. Shed organized whoever was going to teach her and then eleanor told franklin and franklin said, forget it. cspan no deal. Guest no deal. Cspan at one point, again, in your book, you say that she held the nation in the palm of her hand, including the president of the United States. Guest yeah. Cspan and you learn as you read that the navy had offered to refuel, as she flew around the world, all these kinds of things. Tell us about the last flight. How did that come about and whatwhat time of year was it . Guest well, she always wantedas she told her friend, herher flying friend, louise thaddon, she just wanted to do it because she thought it would be fun. And sheit was the only flight that she undertook forin a sense, she said for a selfish reason because itshe just wanted to do it. And so she wanted to do it at theshe wanted to go around the world at the worlds waistline, 27,000 miles around the equator, which would mean that she wouldnt have tothere were no time constraints. It simply had never been done because there werent that many people that had flown around the world. Andbut it was a huge undertaking. She hoped to do all kinds ofof experiments andandwhile she was doing this trip. She wanted to see whthe fatigue factors and she had all kinds of general things that she was hoping to figure out. Cspan still married to George Putnam . Guest always married to George Putnam. Cspan and whats the relationship with gene vidal during all this time . Guest well, its very difficult to organize a trip likeofof that magnitude. I mean, it was very difficult to organize a trip of that magnitude. Besides the fact that she had to have gasoline shipped to various places around the world, because you couldnt rely on anything, she had to get permissions from every country that she flew over. And, basically, eueugene vidal really organized the trip for her. He put the department of commerce at herat herfor herfor her to use. He assigned aanan exnavy pilot who worked for the department of commerce by the name of bill miller. He basically assigned him toamelia to run interference. Cspan but at the time, she had helped get gene vidal the job. Guest she had helped gene vidaldefinitely, shed helped gene vidal get the job. She not only helped gene vidal get the job, she helped him to keep the job because at one point, washington being washington, there were some senators that thought they had a betterbetter man for the job. And they were pressuring Franklin Roosevelt to fire eugene vidal, at which pointand at one point, roosevelt actually issued an order sayingsaying that he was going to fire vidal and put in somebody else. And when amelia heard about it, she sent a blistering telegramit was just before the 1936 election, Franklin Roosevelts secondterm election. And Amelia Earhart sent a blistering telegram to Eleanor Roosevelt saying thatthat if franklin fired gene vidal, she wasnt going to go onshe wasnt going to campaign. Aside from all the other things that she disapproved and it was a bad thing to do, she said, and furthermore, im not campaigning for franklin if this goes through. so within 48 hours, Franklin Roosevelt was having lunch with eugene vidals boss at the department of commerce, because the bureau of air commerce was atwas a subdepartment in the department ofof commerce, andandand he changed his mind. Andand within 48 hours, amamelia isis sending another telegram to missto Eleanor Roosevelt saying, thanks very much. Appreciate your help. cspan what was the date that they took off and where did theywhich way did they head . Because you talk about theyou know, the title of your book, east to the dawn. Guest east to the dawn. They originally took off from california and it was going to hawaii. And then from hawaii, it was going tobut thenthis is the last flightand then there was an accident. Taking offthe first time that she started on theirher aroundtheworld flight, there was aan accident as she took off forfor Howland Island from honolulu. She ground looped and the plane was damaged, and by the time it was fixed, quite a bit of time had gone by and so weather patterns had changed and she decided to change the direction of her flight. Cspan in. Guest so then she took offwhen she started again, she tshe took off from miami on june 1st. Cspan nineteen. Guest 37. Cspan the electra . Guest in the electra. Cspan how many people were on board . Guest just herself and fred noonan. Cspan what was her relationship to fred noonan . Guest just good friends. No relationship. Cspan and when they took off, 27,000mile trip, how many stops did they make before the crucial last flight . Guest i have to tell you the truth, ive never counted them. Cspan roughly, though. Would youis 10 or 15 flistops . Guest oh, yeah. Fifteen, probably. Cspan going whichwhere were their first stops out of miami . Which way would they go . Guest theirtheir firsttheir first stop waswas san juan, puerto rico. Cspan and then. Guest then they went down to south america; venezuela, natal and then across theacross to africa. And then they flew across africa and then they flewflew. Cspan pakistan. Guest pakistan and. Cspan yeah. Guest all those countries whose. Cspan india. Im looking at it right now. Guest and india. Cspan itsbut eventually, the last flight, where did itwhere did they leave from when shwhen the plane went down . Guest oh, im sorry. Lae, new guinea. Cspan lae, new guinea. Guest yes. Cspan how many days later was it . Do you remember . From the june 1st takeoff . Guest it wasi think it was 28 days latelater. Cspan and had the plane been performing ok . Guest theyve hadtheyd had minor difficulties with it. Thered been a couple of short circuits thein the equipment. Theyd had to go back several times when they were in bandung, indonesia. Cspan was thewas the world paying attention to this . Guest yes. She was a syndicated columnist for the Herald Tribune and every single time sheshe wrote aa dispatch, it was on the front page of the Herald Tribune. Cspan i wrote. Guest so the world was very much aware of it. Cspan i wrote somewhere where the New York Times, at one point, paid her 125,000. Is it for this flight or. Guest not for that flight. No. Cspan oh, that was Herald Tribune. Guest thethethis was syndicated by the Herald Tribune. Cspan what in the end happened . Guest in the end, nobody cannobody can know for sure. Itexcept thati mean, iinobody can know the details for sure. But certainly what happened was that there was something wrong. Navigation in those years was not as exact as it is now. I think there was probably an equipment failure. She couldntshe was not communicating with the people that she was supposed to on Howland Island. And the planeshe was circling she was definitely circling. They were going north and south theyd thought theyd gone far enough east and west. They thought theyd fartheydtheyd gone far enough. And so they were going north and southwas the last communication. And somewhere, somehow, when the plane ran out of gas, they crashed into the sea. Cspan what was the worlds reaction . Guest the worlds reaction was stunned amazement because she really had never had a problem before and they couldnt believe it. Her navigator was supposed to have been a very good navigator he was a good navigator. Later, speculation has always centered on the fact that he might have been drinking because he haddidhe had an alcoholic past. However, amelia was much too smart to have taken off with awith a pilot that wasnt inin shape. She was just too intelligent to do Something Like that. Cspan did you ask her sister muriel aboutwhat her reaction was when she lost her sister . Guest i didnt have to because shed already put it down. Cspan had she written a book herself . Guest yes. Shes also written a book. Cspan what was the toughest thing for you in doing this book . Guest the toughest thing. Cutting it down. I had so many more facts than i had room for. Cspan going to do another book . Guest sure. Cspan what on . Guest i havent decided. Im still decompressing from amelia. Cspan heres the cover of the book. Its called east to the dawn the life of Amelia Earhart, and the author is susan butler. And were out of time and we thank you. Guest thank you. We are in the gallery of the museum in polar landscape and art 1775 to 1812. The purpose of the expedition is to highlight the rich Cultural Heritage of the planets frozen frontiers, the alpine regions, the art take and antarctica. This is a photograph of the Greenland Ice sheet by a german artist otto becker dating from 2008 and exhibited sidebyside with a photograph by camille seaman also of the east greenland. Tremendously kind and moving introduction. That i have a chance to spend some time with you. I think i lost the coin toss, so
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.