Amelia Earhart (1897-1937) in 1928 was the first woman to fly (as a passenger) across the Atlantic, and in 1932 the first woman (and second person, after Charles Lindbergh) to fly solo and nonstop across that ocean. She flew many record flights, published several books, and accomplished much for women in aviation before attempting, on June 1, 1937, an around-the-world flight from Miami, Florida, in a twin-engine Lockheed Electra. She and navigator Frederick J. Noonan were flying from Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island when they disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937. An exhaustive sea and air search, ordered by President Franklin Roosevelt, was unsuccessful in locating Earhart and Noonan. James A. Mollison (1905-1959) was a pilot who set many records either flying alone, or with his wife Amy Johnson. Both Mollison and Johnson also served in the Air Transport Auxiliary during World War II. Flying in his Bellanca 28-90 Flash Dorothy, Mollison set a transatlantic speed record in October 1936.

NASM.1989.0096

Arranged and described by Patricia Williams, 1989. Updated and encoded by Jessamyn Lloyd, 2021.

1936-1937

Edward Frosdick, Gift, 1989, NASM.1989.0096.

0.05 Cubic feet (6 photographs)

This collection is in English.

No restrictions on access

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Photographs

Collection is in original order.

This collection consists of six black and white photographs, each measuring 2 by 3 inches, all taken at Khartoum, Sudan. Four of the photographs are of Amelia Earhart and her Lockheed Model 10-E Electra (NR16020) taken during a refueling stop at Khartoum, on June 13, 1937, during Earhart's attempted around-the-world flight. These photographs feature some hand-tinting. Another photograph, taken on November 30, 1936, is of James A. Mollison's Bellanca 28-90 Flash Dorothy. The sixth picture is one of the donor, Edward Frosdick, posed standing in front of an airplane wearing a flying helmet and goggles, taken around the same time period.

Photographs

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Earhart, Amelia, 1897-1937

1937 Khartoum Aviation Photographs, NASM.1989.0096, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

National Air and Space Museum Archives