As Amelia Earhart wrote in a poem as a child, "I watch the birds fly all day, and I want to fly too." Earhart is a name and story familiar to many people around the world. She has achievement after achievement that shows how talented she is. A legendary story that not only broke records, but transformed society's current view of women of the time into a positive step forward. Amelia Earhart grew up to realize her lifelong dream: flying. Unfortunately, when he passed away in 1937, that dream ended, even if his effect on America was not. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay Amelia Earhart often foreshadowed what an extraordinary and talented woman she would become during her childhood. Earhart's mother, Amy, often wrote or spoke about how independent and self-sufficient Amelia was even at a young age (Fleming 7). As a child, Earhart happily stayed with her grandmother Otis during the winter months; the only problem was having to be gentlemanly. She was expected to wear dresses, have exceptional manners, and was strongly discouraged from doing many activities meant for boys. Despite this, growing up she was very much a "tomboy" and her father always supported her whenever she did something meant only for boys. This included allowing her to circumvent her grandmother's disapproval one winter while sledding. The girls went sledding on a sleigh with a chair built on top. This was safer and slower than the boy's flat sled which you had to lie down on. Earhart saw how the boy's sled moved much faster and convinced his father to build one for sledding. She was the only girl in town who sled on a boy's flat sled and she was proud of it too. At the Iowa County Fair, there was a roller coaster that immediately captured young Earhart's attention and heart. Unfortunately, she was not allowed to ride it because it was considered too dangerous for girls. After Earhart was barred from riding roller coasters at the fair, she created her own. She soon had most of the neighborhood children in her grandmother's backyard riding her roller coaster until Grandma Otis asked her to take them down and act more ladylike. Although imaginative, Earhart had some difficulties as a child. Edwin, her father, became an alcoholic and ruined their relationship, as well as profoundly affecting Amelia's life. His alcoholism led the family to go from living a wealthy life to having to move as he struggled to find work after showing up drunk and still drinking. He was no longer the same under the influence; he would snap and scream and break all the promises he made while sober. This was heartbreaking for both the Earhart girls and their mother. After high school and some college, Earhart visited her sister, Muriel, in Toronto and volunteered at a hospital. Before the visit he would be attending university to earn a medical degree, so he had many skills to offer the Canadian soldiers he was helping to treat. While in Toronto, she also enjoyed horse riding whenever she wasn't with her sister or working. Earhart loved watching planes take off and land when she rode horses at the Canadian Flying School. This is where he first discovered he wanted to fly. The first time Earhart got on a plane she couldn't sit alone in the cockpit. There had to be another man besides the pilot to accompany her in case she were to jump out. Women at the time were seen as weak and fragile, but Earhart wanted to take flying lessons,so he got a job in the post office to pay for them. Earhart took flying lessons from Neta Snook, a female aviator at Kinner Field. She felt it would be better to learn from another woman who understood how difficult it was for women to work in aviation at the time. At the time, Earhart contributed greatly to breaking and setting many records. This period has been called the golden years of aviation, many records were set by both men and women (Kjos 6). After purchasing his plane, a Kinner Canary, in October 1992, he wanted to see how high he could go. She set a new women's altitude record by flying at 14,000 feet. “Miss Earhart wanted to demonstrate that…women are just as capable pilots as men, and just as daring,” the Boston Globe reported. After she began to gain a small reputation, Earhart was asked to see if she wanted to seize the opportunity to be the first woman to cross the Atlantic. It would all be funded for her by someone who had a dream to advance women in aviation. Earhart was the first woman to fly from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back in 1928. She flew on a plane called Friendship with a couple of other people on this daring journey. Earhart did not fly Friendship; he just captained it. He constantly strived to break records, especially his own. “With her Vega she set the women's speed record by flying at 181 miles per hour. It set a new altitude record by climbing to 18,415 feet.” Earhart set records, then worked to break them all by taking on new challenges. Earhart wouldn't have been the first person to fly around the world, but she would have been the first person to fly around the equator. Many other pilots have flown north or south towards the equator, but not around the world on the equator. Earhart insisted that this was the correct and poetic way to fly around the world. While preparing for his round-the-world flight, he told everyone that he was doing a test flight, a.k.a. a “shakedown.” He did this to keep the crowds of fans and press away for when it took off. Earhart was not completely alone during this difficult, never-before-taken flight; route planning, navigation and position determination was Fred Noonman. They planned to stop every thousand miles to refuel and rest; she called it hopscotch. During Earhart's first attempt to fly around the world, she crashed in Hawaii, delaying her flight with repairs to the plane (Fradin 2). The flight was again delayed when the left engine caught fire on the ground in Tucson, Arizona. After flying for a while, bad weather delayed them again. Ultimately, Amelia and Fred had to take off during a sandstorm to continue their flight. As they flew over the Bermuda Triangle, it rained so hard that they had to fly blind for hours as the paint was stripped off by the pouring rain. 'Flying blind' is just as scary as it sounds. They could not see very far and could easily go off course and not be able to have enough fuel for the next stop. At the time, there were very limited and primary navigation tools to help them weather the storm. It also didn't help that Earhart had recently obtained this plane and wasn't as familiar with the controls as she should have been. Amelia and Fred were headed to the Howland Islands during the storm when they got lost. In Earhart's radio messages to a ship near Howard Island, she says, "Cloudy, cloudy weather." Then: “Petrol is running out. We are flying at a thousand feet” (Fradin 3). After the storm passed, many ships and planes searched for them, but nothing was found. Even now, the details of the disappearance are still a mystery. It is widely acceptedthat the plane probably crashed into the Pacific, people were getting bored of all the big, flashy headlines about yet another record being broken. It was only thanks to George Putnam that Earhart's fame was anything but short-lived. What would happen was that many flyers at the time had their big moment, but then someone else would break another record by making the "big moment" yesterday's news. But this was not the case with Earhart, instead, she became a well-known and influential pilot. She was so influential that after writing to President Roosevelt, Earhart managed to have an airstrip built for her on Howland Island (Fleming 90). A private runway built to help her refuel on one of her flights. Before the 1930s, men were the only people to fly because it was thought to be physically impossible for women to fly. Earhart intended to create a group of women pilots, "Called Ninety-Nine because it began with ninety-nine licensed women pilots, provided support to its members, and advanced the science of aviation." After the creation of this group and the establishment of talented women within it, by the end of the 1930s there were almost a thousand female pilots. While she may not have been the first woman to fly, her accomplishments and records have earned her the title "First Lady of the Sky." As Eleanor Roosevelt observed, “She aided the cause of women by giving them a sense that there was nothing they could not do.” Amelia Earhart was more than just a pilot; he also had a faculty position at Purdue University. Here she helped women make strides and break more barriers. “They centered on Miss Earhart's belief that women…really had choices about what we could do with our lives,” one student recalled. “Study what you want,” she advised girls (Fleming 84). “Don't let the world make fun of you.” The students loved it and loved being guided and supported to do what they wanted. Earhart was so influential that she increased the number of female students attending by fifty percent. Earhart still has great lasting effects on America today. He has made films and written books about her. One of Earhart's planes is on display in her honor at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. He lives on through his story told countless times. His work still inspires many to do the seemingly impossible, to take risks and break barriers. For example, Linda Finch, an American woman, recreated Earhart's flight using the same plane and was covered by media around the world. Finch had admired Earhart and wanted to be like her. “Your accomplishment is an inspiration to children across America. We've come a long way in the 60 years since Amelia Earhart flew. One thing hasn't changed: the need to follow our dreams," Vice President Al Gore said after Linda completed her flight. Finch also wanted to show today's girls and women how much they can accomplish. "She's my hero," said Lashay Morris, a fourth-grader at Prescott Elementary School in Oakland. “She represents women. They can do a lot of things that men can do.” Evidently, she has had the same effect on the young minds of girls as Amelia did. Keep in mind: This is just one example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a custom essay. Earhart's effects on America were great and last to this day, from her feminist work to her exceptional abilities. of flying. She passed away doing what she loved: flying and breaking records. Earhart worked hard to learn to fly and worked even harder to become an extraordinary pilot. It was one,=44669.