The real reason Amelia Earhart is so famous

Do you recognize this record-breaking pioneer of aviation? How about this one? Still no? Okay, okay. How about now? Yup, that's Amelia Earhart, enjoying a ticker tape parade in her honor. She's often thought of as the first or the greatest female pilot of her time. Her accomplishments are widely known, among them being the first woman and second person ever to solo nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. She was a daring and ambitious pilot, but so were her peers. Like Louise Thayden, still the only pilot ever to hold the women's speed, altitude, and solo endurance records simultaneously. In 1929, she won the Women's Air Derby, the first women's transcontinental air race. Her friend and rival Amelia Earhart placed third after wrecking early on in the race. Or consider Ruth Nichols, who held three simultaneous flying records in 1931. That year, she flew higher, faster, and farther than any woman in the world. Amelia's contemporaries were some of the best pilots at the time, but they faded into obscurity, while Amelia, a pretty average pilot in comparison, became a legend in her lifetime. So, what set her apart from the other record-setting female pilots, some of whom were measurably better at flying? It was all planned that way. The year was 1927. American aviator Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean, and people went wild. Aviation was becoming an American obsession, and Lindbergh was an instant hero. He was even Time Magazine's first ever Man of the Year, and that was an opportunity for George Palmer Putnam, an influential American publisher, to cash in on the aviation craze. He persuaded Lindbergh to write a book about his historic flight. We was a massive success, and Lindbergh's three-month promotional tour made him one of the most recognizable celebrities in the world. Soon after, wealthy socialite Amy Phipps' guest acquired a powerful tri-motor airplane so she could become the first woman But her family refused to allow something so dangerous, so she decided to sponsor a young aviatrix to go instead. She asked GP Putnam to find her the right sort of girl to make the historic flight. Putnam settled on a 30-year-old social worker and enthusiastic amateur pilot named, you guessed it, Amelia Earhart. With her short hair and boyish good looks, she struck a strong resemblance to American icon Charles Lindbergh. Putnam saw an opportunity for another bestseller. For Amelia, it was an opportunity to realize her dream, a career in aviation. She didn't actually touch any of the controls during the flight. She rode as a passenger and became the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air in 1928. Pilot is none other than America's Miss Amelia Earhart, world's leading lady flyer. It catapulted her from relative obscurity into international headlines. And that was all orchestrated by George Putnam, who was already working with a lot of male aviators on record-setting flights and publicity. So he was a master of that. Putnam soon had Amelia working on a book about her flight. He organized a publicity tour and fed her new nickname to the press. Lady Lindy. She flew, she lectured, and also wrote an aviation column in Cosmopolitan Magazine, which she used as a platform to promote aviation and to encourage other women to enter the field. She even endorsed products like Lucky Strike cigarettes and a line of designer luggage to finance her flying career. In 1931, Amelia reluctantly married George Putnam and together, they worked to further her career through publicized record-breaking. Record-setting, making headlines was the way people were making a living in aviation, and that's what Amelia did. She often said, I set a record and then I lecture on it. She wanted to fly, and she did what she needed to do to make it happen. See, at the time, there was no such thing as commercial aviation or professional flying. After World War I, surplus planes could be bought cheap, and they were mostly used for mail-carrying, smuggling, and something called barnstorming, a shockingly reckless practice of public air stunts. Barnstormers traveled from town to town, taking people up for rides and pulling off maneuvers that terrified and delighted crowds in newspapers. It was a dangerous practice, but it was the only way to make money as a pilot and gain flying experience in the early 20s, and it actually helped launch the careers of some of America's greatest aviators, including Bessie Coleman and Charles Lindbergh. As barnstorming eventually fell by the wayside, record-setting and exploration became the media's fixation with flying, and that's exactly what Amelia and her contemporaries set out to do in order to support their careers. That era is known as the golden age of flight, so all this record-setting was exciting everyone and getting people to be familiar with aviation, consider it as a form of transportation, and invest in it. So these early pilots served a purpose to make it familiar and get people excited about it. Amelia Earhart Putnam lands at Newark after her ethical 2,500-mile hop from Los Angeles, breaking Ruth Nichols' distance record and setting a new time mark for women. It took me about 19 hours and a few minutes to make the trip. I wish I could have done it faster. Amelia was very comfortable with the press. She learned very early how to talk to them. You know, when she was flying, she looked very much like a man, but when she was on camera, she came across as much more soft-spoken, so in that way, she didn't threaten her audiences, even though she was doing this extraordinary thing, making a career in aviation. But Amelia wasn't satisfied with being a passenger in the historic flight that made her famous. She referred to her role in it as a sack of potatoes and wanted to change that, so she decided to become the second person ever to solo the Atlantic Ocean. Putnam began making the arrangements, and on the fifth anniversary of Lindbergh's daring flight, Amelia took off in her red Lockheed Vega, eventually touching down in Northern Ireland. Here you see Lady Lindy, whose triumphant solo flight across the Atlantic is the admiration of the whole world. What a wonderful woman, and isn't she like Lindbergh? She had made this really courageous flight. People were still routinely getting killed flying across the Atlantic Ocean, so the fact that she did that on her own really gave her credibility. The reaction was crazy, but it had been crazy for Charles Lindbergh, too. Amelia went from amateur pilot to national treasure in just four years. Her publicity campaigns not only crafted her image as the premier female pilot, they also allowed her to keep flying. And while she might not be the most skilled pilot of her time, 80 years since her disappearance, she's still the most enduring. Miss Earhart was acclaimed for her competitive daring, but also admired for her grace and charm. She was the hold of headlines for almost 10 years. Here at the height of her fame, she arrives at New York City Hall, America's top woman pilot, a woman who asked no quarter in competing in the world of men. In 1937, Amelia Earhart...