AN
AERIAL PHOTO FROM HER HISTORIC TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHT OF 1928
AMELIA EARHART. Signed Photograph, no place, no date.
An aviator
from 1921 on, Amelia Earhart was catapulted to fame in June 1928 when
she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. Flying with Wilmer
Stultz and Louis Gordon in a plane called the Friendship, she
left Newfoundland on June 17, and the three landed in the water off
Wales some twenty-four hours later.
In the
last stage of their trip, they flew over the S.S. America,
which was sailing in the Irish Sea. This 8½" x 6½",
black-and-white photo was taken looking up from that ship, and it shows
the Friendship in the sky above the vessel. The photo also
shows a part of the ship's deck, with some of its rigging, its lifeboats,
a lifesaver bearing the ship's name, and a sailor all visible. In a
light area near the center, Earhart has inscribed the photo to the America's
captain: "To Captain Fried in memory of the morning of June
18, 1928 Amelia M. Earhart."
In her
book, The Fun of It, Earhart explains that when she and her
companions spotted this ship, it was heading in a direction that made
them uncertain about their own path. They tried to drop a message on
the deck, asking the captain to paint the bearings on the deck for them
to read, but were unsuccessful. They found out afterwards that the ship
was the America, and Captain Fried, Earhart notes in her book,
"told me that every time he had learned of a contemplated crossing
by air he had seen to it that bearings were painted on the deck every
two hours in the hope that the flyers might come his way. But none ever
had. Of our flight he had heard nothing in advance so his paint pots
were not in readiness. For this lack of preparedness he afterwards apologized
to me profusely, and, I understand, has since kept cans of paint ever
ready to serve in a similar emergency." (See Earhart, The Fun
of It [New York, 1932], pp. 78-80.)
Earhart
and her companions decided to trust their own observations, and they
continued on their way, spotting land shortly after this. The flight
made Earhart an instant celebrity and launched her as a symbol of aviation
and women's rights. She went on to make a solo transatlantic flight
in May 1932, to set many other aviation records, and to work in a variety
of ways to promote aviation and women's full participation in it.
The photo
has mounting traces on the back, but the recto is in very good condition.
A few letters of Earhart's first name are a bit light, where the ink
did not adhere well to the photo, but the rest of her inscription and
signature are clear. Interestingly, Earhart initially wrote the wrong
date, and she has overwritten one number to change it from June 19 to
June 18.
This
is the only signed photo of this historic flight that I have seen. $9500.00
Click
here for an image of this item
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