Amelia Earhart: Pioneering Feminist

Explore the life and legacy of Amelia Earhart through a feminist lens with historian Susan Ware.

For over 100 years aviation pioneers like Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart have pushed to go higher, faster, and farther, inspiring the American public through their boundary-pushing and record-breaking flight. While these accomplishments made them household names, their influence stretches far beyond aviation. This year’s Amelia Earhart Lecture in Aviation History will explore Amelia Earhart’s legacy from leading feminist biographer Susan Ware.

More than eight decades after her disappearance, the fascination with Amelia Earhart shows no signs of abating. It is through the lens of women’s history, especially the field of feminist biography, that her life looks the richest and most compelling. A feminist interpretation of Amelia Earhart’s life, one that she would have endorsed, does not dramatically change the details or the outcome of her career, but it shifts the field of focus, with particular aspects of Earhart’s life emerging as places worthy of pausing and lingering, while more familiar parts of the story can be quickly sped over. This slight shift in priorities opens up previously unexplored connections between the life story of this unique individual and the broader patterns of twentieth-century women’s lives.

The Amelia Earhart Lecture in Aviation History is sponsored by Pratt & Whitney.