Amelia Earhart

 http://ameliaearhartfacts.com/

By today’s standards, Amelia Earhart would not be considered an adventurer just because she was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean solo. However, in the 1930’s Earhart defied almost all of the standards set for women at the time; this combined with her skills as a pilot is a definite reason to consider her an adventurer. Earhart saw her first plane when she was ten years old but she wasn’t impressed until she was taken for a ride by pilot Frank Hawks; from then on Earhart was hooked on flying. However, since she was a woman it was not considered to be conventional for a woman to fly a plane and therefore she had to work in secret to learn to fly and eventually become the first woman and second person to fly across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932. Earhart won numerous awards and continued to break records until her death when she attempted to fly solo around the world in 1937.

            Personally, I consider an adventure to be an activity or action that breaks the norms and societal expectations that are typically in place. Since Amelia Earhart did this not only by flying but also in her personal life, I would consider her an adventurer. She also placed a large degree of risk into her life by flying planes because they were not exactly the safest vehicles at the time. Therefore, to echo some of the definitions we thought of in class, Earhart was: doing something she had never done before, risking her life and breaking societal norms in order to be an adventurer.

The Official Website of Amelia Earhart. Biography. Retrieved Oct. 3, 2010,  from http://www.ameliaearhart.com/about/bio.html. 

--Ruby