Amelia Earhart Month

AMELIA EARHART MONTH

1-31 January 2022

Each January, Zonta celebrates the life and legacy of Zontian and famed aviator Amelia Earhart. Amelia Earhart Day recognizes the day Amelia began her solo trip from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California.

Her flight on Jan 11, 1935 made her the first person to fly to the United States mainland from Hawaii. Since she had flown over the Atlantic Ocean five years earlier, it also made her the first person to fly across both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Amelia attended six different high schools. However, she was able to graduate on time.  She is fondly remembered as “Lady Lindy” because her slim build and facial features resembled that of Charles Lindbergh.  Earhart refused to don typical flying gear -she wore a suit or dress instead of the “high-bread aviation togs,” a close-fitting hat instead of a helmet, didn’t put on her goggles until she taxied to the end of the field and removed them immediately upon landing.

She developed a friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt, who wanted to learn how to fly. Earhart had planned to teach her, for which the First Lady even got her student permit. Earhart had such an impression on public that people often wrote and told her about naming babies, lakes and even homing pigeons “Amelia.”

The United States government spent $4 million looking for Earhart, which made it the most costly and intensive air and sea search in history at that time.

It is also an opportunity to raise funds for the Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellowship Fund, which has supported more than 1,600 women from 75 countries in reaching their educational and professional goals in the aerospace and space sciences fields since 1938.