06/05/2025
An article in the June 2nd issue of THE NEW YORKER magazine headlined “Amelia Earhart’s Reckless Final Flights” is an excerpt from a book titled The Aviator and The Showman, scheduled for release on July 15th. The subtitle for the article describes the author’s premise: “The aviator’s publicity-mad husband, George Palmer Putnam, kept pushing her to risk her life for the sake of fame.”
The good news is, the book is apparently not a conspiracy-fest or a worshipful paean. She correctly presents Earhart as an incompetent pilot and Putnam as a jerk. The bad news is her characterization of their relationship, and the premise of the book, is invalid. Earhart did not need to be pushed to risk her life for the sake of fame. As her friend and fellow record-setting aviator Florence “Pancho” Barnes wrote:
There were at that time, dozens of more competent women pilots than Amelia but because of her disappearance and all of the publicity that surrounded her last flight, she achieved her great aim, to be the most famous woman pilot.
Earhart was a willing accomplice in Putnam’s ruthless promotion of her celebrity. Elinor Smith, one of the dozens of more competent women pilots than Amelia, wrote that Earhart achieved her fame through “gut-courage that transcended the sanity of reason.”
The New Yorker excerpt, and presumably the rest of the book, is rife with factual inaccuracies, unsubstantiated rumors, and common myths. Even the proof-reading is sloppy. Earhart and Noonan had to pass notes to communicate due to “the thunderous engine.” It’s not surprising that the article ends with:
“Roughly twenty hours after the Electra took off, it went down somewhere in the Pacific. The location is still unknown. The ocean has kept its secret.”
We can think of a book Ms. Shapiro might find enlightening.
