East to the Dawn (62 page)

She would usually stand chatting until the committee rescued her from the enthusiasm of her admirers, cheerfully autographing programs and answering questions. She was as well unfailingly polite to reporters, going out of her way to let them interview her. As she tried to explain once to Katch, furious because a reporter was interrupting their lunch, the reporter should not only be treated with patience but given lunch, too. “Ask her to come in. She has her living to earn, too,” Katch remembered Amelia saying to her, and Katch grudgingly had been forced to set a place for her at the table.

There was a round window just about this size in their house in Rye that must have given Amelia and George the idea for this picture.

Courtesy of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, and Muriel Earhart Morrissey.

Amelia with some of the other entrants in the First Women's Air Derby. From the left: Mary von Mach, Maude Keith Miller, Gladys O'Donnell, Thea Rasche, Phoebe Omlie, Louise Thaden, Amelia, Ruth Elder, Blanche Noyes, and Vera Dawn Walker. Courtesy of fhe International Women's Air and Space Museum.

Boston gave Amelia a royal welcome after the Friendship flight. Here she is greetingher mother, Amy. Courtesy of Corbis-Bettmann.

With Gene Vidal, father of Gore. They were the closest of friends. Amelia helped convince Franklin Roosevelt to appoint Gene the Director of the Bureau of Air Commerce. Courtesy of Corbis-Bettmann and Gore Vidal.

Working on a dress for her line of designer clothes for active women. The line was carried by thirty department stores across the country.

Courtesy of Corbis-Bettmann.

At the beginning of the Bendix transcontinentalrace, Floyd Bennett field, June 30, 1933. Amelia and Ruth Nichols were the first women to fly in the race. Amelia had problems with her plane, but beat Ruth by over a day. Courtesy of Corbis-Bettmann.

Two of Amelia's endorsementendeavors. Above: 1928. Amelia posing before a Plymouth. Chrysler hired her to be their first celebrity spokesperson. Left: 1928. Amelia agreed to do this Lucky Strike ad because she wanted to donate the proceeds to Commander Richard Byrd's expedition to Antarctica. The editor of
McCall's,
Otto Wiese, was so put off by the advertisementthat he withdrew his offer of employment, and Amelia went to work for Cosmopolitan.

Courtesy of Corbis-Bettmann.

After announcing that he was going to rest at Hyde Park, his Hudson river estate, and would have no visitors, Franklin Roosevelt invited Amelia and George and their houseguests, Amy and James Mollison, for Sunday brunch. Amy and James, English aviators, were still recovering from a crash landing in Bridgeport, Connecticut after having flown the Atlantic. July 30, 1933. From the left: Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia, James, Amy, FDR. Courtesy of FPG International Corp.

Amelia and Eleanor Roosevelt, on the occasion of the National Geographic Society lunch honoring Amelia in Washington, March 2, 1935. Courtesy of Corbis-Bettmann.

The famous portrait by Edward Steichen, taken for Vanity Fair magazine, May 1932.