How Amelia Earhart's Boston connection helped her soar to fame

Ameliia Earhart — In a March 10, 1937 file photo American aviator Amelia Earhart waves from the Electra before taking off from Los Angeles, Ca., on March 10, 1937.

July 08, 2022

Updated August 07, 2023

This week, a special encore edition of Under the Radar:

You may know the name "Amelia Earhart," the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, but it's likely you don't know that she lived and worked right here in Boston. This was the city where Earhart flew to worldwide fame — but her local connections have often been overlooked.

To mark her birthday, July 24, celebrated as "National Amelia Earhart Day," we're taking a look at who she was before becoming a famous pilot, and how her life in Boston facilitater her to the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become the pioneering female aviator.

GUESTS:

Susan Ware, author of “Still Missing: Amelia Earhart and the Search for Modern Feminism,” and Honorary Women’s Suffrage Centennial Historian for the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Keith O’Brein, author of “Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds And Made Aviation History,” and former staff writer for the Boston Globe.

This segment originally published on July 16, 2021.