Oklahoma City, OK: Museum of the 99s

Location:
4300 Amelia Earhart Road
Oklahoma City, OK 73159

http://www.museumofwomenpilots.com/ Here's a video of the Museum of the 99s
Hours of operation:
Monday - Friday 10am - 4 pm
Saturday and Sunday Closed
Holidays Closed

Admission Rates:
Adults $5.00
Seniors (60+) $4.00
Military (with ID) $4.00
Students (K-12) $3.00
Ages 4 and under Free

Groups:
Call 405-685-9990 for reservations. Groups of 10 or more receive a 10% discount off of regular admissions price.

Amelia Earhart, by Kathleen C. Winters

Amelia Earhart: The Turbulent Life of an American Icon, by Kathleen C. Winters
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010
216 pages plus references, bibliography and index
Library: B EARHA,A

Description
When Amelia Earhart vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 during an attempted around-the-world flight, she was at the height of her fame: Adored by the public, she counted celebrities and politicians among her many friends and was idolized by women across the globe. She remains a fondly remembered object of fascination today, as her mysterious disappearance continues to inspire fevered speculation and regular attempts to locate her crash site.

This nuanced and often surprising biography by acclaimed aviation historian Kathleen C. winters moves beyong the caricature of the spunky, preternaturally gifted pilot to give us a more complex portrait of Earhart.

Drawing on a wealth of interviews, flight records, and other extensive new evidence, this book traces Amelia's unconventional childhood as the daughter of a spendthrift railroad lawyer and recounts her growing passion for aviation, her rocky first flights, and the remarkable series of events that transformed her into a household name almost overnight.

It shows us a spirited adventuress and flawed heroine who was frequently reckless and lacked basic navigation skills, but who was also a canny manipulator of mass media. Even as other spectacular pilots went unnoticed by the public, Earhart and her husband - the publisher and impresario George Putnam-worked to establish her as an international celebrity, devising ever-more daring stants that culminated in her infamous last flight. Sympathetic yet unsentimental, and filled with gripping accounts of Earhart's exploits, this biography helps us to see a global icon with fresh eyes.

Amelia Earhart Gallery: Hawaii

1935: Amelia Earhart giving a talk in Hawaii.

Amelia Earhart Photo Gallery: Amelia in her Autogiro

In 1932, Amelia flew an autogyro across country. This photo was taken in Los Angeles.

Amelia Earhart portrayed in graphic novel: "This Broad Ocean"

Here's the link to the story:
Earhart flies again, graphically speaking

MONTPELIER – When Sarah Stewart Taylor was asked to choose a woman to profile for the latest graphic novel by Vermont's cartoon college, there was easily one name that quickly rose to the top of the list.

"I've always been fascinated by Amelia Earhart," said Taylor, a fiction novelist from Hartford. "Her disappearance in 1937 really appealed to me, partly because I am a mystery writer."

But for Taylor's first graphic novel, "Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean," which was produced by the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction and features art by North Carolina's Ben Towle, she instead focuses on an earlier flight by the aviation legend: The June 1928 flight across the Atlantic from Newfoundland to Wales.

That 20-hour flight made her the first female passenger (the plane was flown by pilot Wilmer Stultz) to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

Taylor said her first instinct was to focus on the 1937 flight that ended in Earhart's disappearance, but in her research about the woman she was continually drawn to the drama of the 1928 flight.

The 78-page graphic novel begins and ends in the tiny fishing village that Earhart lands in to refuel before the Atlantic trip. Weather and other problems left her and her pilot stranded in the village for two weeks. Meanwhile, several other female pilots also begin eyeing the prize of being the first woman to fly across the Atlantic.

Read the complete article at the link above.

And purchase the book for your daughter's birthday, unbirthday, graduation present, or what have you:

Soundtrack to the movie Amelia [Earhart]

Don't know how good the movie is (I confess I haven't seen it...I would have if it had focused more on her flying and less on the love triangle between Putnam and Vidal) but according to collectors of sound tracks (www.filmscoremonthly.com) it's a beautiful score. Composer Gabriel Yared.

Amelia movie trailer, starring Hilary Swank

Here's the 1.54 minute trailer for Hilary Swank's new movie, Amelia, coming out October 23, 2009.



and if you want to learn more about this iconic aviation figure before October, check out these books from Amazon:



or watch this video

Hilary Swank stars as Amelia Earhart

I've been doing some research on Amelia Earhart lately, and just now came across the fact that a movie has been made of her, to be released in 2009, presumably. It's currently in post-production.

Hilary Swank stars as Amelia Earhart, and Ewen McGregor stars as Gene Vidal (a good friend of Amelia's and father of Gore Vidal). Richard Gere plays George Putnam, Amelia's husband, and Mia Wasikowska plays Elinor Smith.


Will be interesting to see how the movie unfolds. Amelia Earhart was 23 before she started flying, and never wanted to get married. George Putnam was divorced by his wife (who got remarried about a month later), and married Amelia. It was a marriage of convenience - Amelia sends a letter to him pointing out that she doesn't expect him to be exclusive to her, or she to him - he is just going to promotoe her flying career.

In their early years together they were apparently quite fond of each other, but according to Doris Rich, Amelia was sick of him by the start of her final round the world flight...he was selfish, bombastic, etc. etc.

Just because it was a marriage of convenience doesn't mean Putnam was a "beard." By all accounts Amelia was heterosexual, quite attractive in person, and vivacious around friends (pace those photos of her which make her look like a thin stick) she had many male friends, at least one, Gene Vidal, linked to her romantically after her marriage to Putnam.

How good of a flyer was Amelia? Doris Rich comments quite a few times that she wasn't very good at landings....and Elinor Smith, quoted years later, wasn't impressed with her either. However, she and Jackie Cochran were firm friends, and although Edna Gardner Whyte didn't think she should be racing pylons, the two of them were friends as well.

I'll cover Amelia's life in more detail in an article I'm writing for the Winged Victory: Women in Aviation website (http://winged-victory.com).

As far as the movie goes, this is actually the first I've heard of it - although it was apparently announced by Variety in 2008, and the IMDB entry already has a thriving message board about it. Looks very much like they're going to make it a triangle between Earhart, Putnam and Vidal...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1129445/

In 1994 there was a TV movie about Amelia starring Diane Keaton, with Rutger Hauer as Fred Noonan and Bruce Dern as Putnam. It was based on Doris Rich's book. It's out on VHS, but not DVD.




However, there's a few documentaries...

As for books, although Doris Rich's book was the first Earhart biography, I have some issues with it, which I'll cover in my article, however you can get it here:



A more recent biography, which goes into much more detail about Amelia's forbears, is

Amelia Earhart on Youtube

There's quite a bit of footage of Amelia Earhart at YouTube.


Last footageof Amelia Earhart




Where Is Amelia Earhart - a documentary

Amelia Earhart newsreel


Amelia christens a Terrapane, 1932



Amelia's Lockheed Vega - documentary on Earhart's legacy


Amelia Earhart song, First Lady of the Air


Amelia Earhart and Jerrie Mock

Video magazine added to Winged Victory webzine

http://thethunderchild.com/YouFlyGirl/YouTubeGuide/

is the URL for a new feature at Winged Victory. There are several videos at YouTube featuring women pilots - from footage of Amelia Earhart to documentaries on the WASP of WWII, to today's acrobatic pilots, to astronauts such as Shannon Lucid, Eileen Collins and Sally Ride, and I've created a "video magazine" to showcase those videos.

Check it out today!