TIGHAR
Amelia Earhart Search Forum => General discussion => Topic started by: Don Yee on February 14, 2022, 08:34:04 PM
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I'm teaching a class this fall and was thinking of including a biography of Earhart for my students. Any opinions on what might be some of the better ones? I'm looking for a focus on her roots and her path to her becoming an icon (warts and all). I'm not looking for anything focused on her disappearance or the technical side of her flights.
Thanks,
Don...
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Good Morning Don,
My personal favorite is Susan Butler's "East to the Dawn." It's a rather hefty tome and you didn't specify your students grade level so it may be too much for them. It does, I think, a good job of explaining AE's early life and how she came to be the icon she is now.
Just my opinion. . . .
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In my opinion, all of the Earhart biographies are too worshipful. That said, my recommendation would be East to the Dawn by Susan Butler.
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Great minds......
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Don...I know there are alot of biographies and books out there on Amelia Earhart, and her childhood home in Atchinson, Kansas to her learning to fly and her infamous adventures, and then her disappearance. One of things I have come to love and appreciate is looking at the Amelia Earhart Collection at Purdue University online. Something your students most likely would appreciate and write about.
http://collections.lib.purdue.edu/aearhart/?_ga=2.141600178.1445572242.1644967033-280360575.1644967033
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Good Morning Don,
My personal favorite is Susan Butler's "East to the Dawn." It's a rather hefty tome and you didn't specify your students grade level so it may be too much for them. It does, I think, a good job of explaining AE's early life and how she came to be the icon she is now.
Just my opinion. . . .
Sorry, I should have been more specific. These are college freshman for an interdisciplinary course. Oddly enough in my searching Butler's book was the one I had considered. I did want to make sure there were no other contenders. I've been listening to Keith O'Brian's "Fly Girls" which has Earhart as one of the women flyers he profiles. Not knowing much of her history I am finding that he does not paint her a saint. I'll be interested to see how Butler does. Thanks.
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Good Morning Don,
My personal favorite is Susan Butler's "East to the Dawn." It's a rather hefty tome and you didn't specify your students grade level so it may be too much for them. It does, I think, a good job of explaining AE's early life and how she came to be the icon she is now.
Just my opinion. . . .
Thanks. This look interesting especially as it would allow the students an element of discovery on their own. I'll keep it in mind.
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I've been listening to Keith O'Brian's "Fly Girls" which has Earhart as one of the women flyers he profiles. Not knowing much of her history I am finding that he does not paint her a saint.
When I went to New Zealand to read in the Western Pacific High Commission archives, I learned how narrow my view of women aviators had been.
I thought the whole world admired Earhart as much as the United States does.
Among the Sikhs and Fijians, there was not one bit of interest in AE.
In New Zealand, they had Jean Batten, "The Garbo of the Skies." (https://nzhistory.govt.nz/people/jean-batten)
England produced its share of excellent women pilots, too.
Earhart's death was a good career move. It kept her forever young. Poor old Jean Batten, who had done amazing solo flights, had the misfortune to grow old and ended up in a mass grave for paupers in Majorca.
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Jean Batten, Beryl Markham, Lady Heath, and Amy Johnson were far better pilots than Amelia, but they weren't married to George Putnam.
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Jean Batten, Beryl Markham, Lady Heath, and Amy Johnson were far better pilots than Amelia, but they weren't married to George Putnam.
Louise Thaden?
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Louise Thaden?
And many others. I was thinking specifically of non-American female long-distance record setters.
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Biographers do tend to become enamored of their subjects, sometimes embarrassingly so.
It's remarkable how well Amelia's marketing has held up over the years.
When I was in 7th grade, I found and read David Goes to Greenland and David Goes to Baffin Land, by David Binney Putnam. It's his wife we see with Amelia in Miami in 1937. I was about the same age David had been when he went to the Arctic, and my father having spent time in Greenland and having a love of the region, of course I imagined myself having an adventure like that. They went on the famed schooner Effie M Morrissey (which still exists) with the greatest of arctic skippers, Captain Bob Bartlett, in command. Now I wonder who really wrote the books and how much George may have been promoting young David.
LTM,
Don