Lady Aviator Amelia Earhart is unfortunately perhaps best remembered for her disappearance in the South Pacific in 1937, never to be found. Five years earlier, however, in 1932, she was the first female to cross the Atlantic on a solo flight, replicating Charles Lindbergh’s historic 1927 crossing. But neither were the event that catapulted her to fame.
Four years before her own historic solo feat, Earhart’s first history-making flight—the one that cast her into the limelight—was as a passenger. The flight was that of The Friendship, piloted by Wilmer Stultz with mechanic Louis "Slim" Gordon. Although she kept the ship’s log (from which the title of this memoir was taken), Earhart said afterwards she might well have been a sack of potatoes for all she really contributed to the success of the flight. It did, however, make her the first woman to cross the ocean in an airplane.
20 Hrs., 40 Min. is Closest We have to Amelia Earhart's Autobiography
20 Hrs., 40 Min. is, as its subtitle suggests, the story of Our Flight in the Friendship. Had Amelia Earhart returned from her later ill-fated flight and gone on to live the rest of her already-impressive life, she no doubt would have written quite an adventure-filled autobiography. As it stands, 20 hrs 40 mins, is the closest thing readers have to her own life story.
Fortunately for readers, the book is not limited to the story of the flight; Earhart spent the first third of the book detailing the early years of her life, as sort of a lead up to what would be, at that time, the culminating event of her young life. Of course, upon writing this memoir, she didn’t know that, four years later, she would make even bigger news as a solo pilot. Her Atlantic crossing in The Friendship brought her worldwide fame, a ticker-tape parade and a nationwide lecture tour. That same year, she also wrote this book in a matter of weeks.
The memoir is written in an easy, often witty voice, a voice that shines through in its consistently modest tone. As Anthony Brandt notes in his introduction to 20 Hrs., 40 Min., "you would not know from it that the flight made her enormously famous." Neither would it be recognized in her tone the danger she faced, or the fact that three women had already died attempting to achieve this feat.
The flight of The Friendship was "relatively" uneventful. At one point, the cabin door flew open and had Earhart and Gordon not been quick, they'd have fallen 2,000 feet into the ocean. When the ship landed in Burry Port, England, it was essentially out of fuel. None of this seemed to faze its only passenger much, and her short log entries reflect that.
Earhart Reflects on Women in Aviation and the Future of Aviation
What is much more intriguing about this memoir are both Earhart's later, interspersed commentaries (some accompanied by drawings) and her reflections on those things in her early life that led her to this moment. The author also gives readers her view on women in aviation as well as a looking forward to its future.
Because Amelia Earhart's 20 Hrs., 40 Min. is written in her own words, and she seemed to have a very natural way with them, readers will feel lucky to have gotten a little peek at who this now legendary adventuress really was.
Earhart, Amelia. 20 Hrs., 40 Min.: Our Flight in the Friendship, 1928, 2003, National Geographic Society, 182 pages.
Dale Van Every - Dale Van Every is a freelance and fiction writer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He earned his Masters Degree in English Literature from ...
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