Amelia Earhart Writes Trailblazing Photographer and Journalist Margaret Bourke White on the “demonstration of what ability lurks within women”

A very rare letter of Earhart lauding what women can accomplish, and showing why she was an inspiration to women everywhere

In her brief life, Amelia Earhart became a record-breaking female aviator whose international fame improved public acceptance of aviation and paved the way for other women in commercial flight. She was also an inspiration to women in all walks of life, and made it possible for women to become involved in fields traditionally reserved for men. On her twenty-fifth birthday, Earhart purchased a Kinner Airster biplane. She flew it, in 1922, when she set the women’s altitude record of 14,000 feet. In 1928, publisher George Putnam – seeking to expand on public enthusiasm for Charles Lindbergh’s transcontinental flight a year earlier- tapped Earhart to become the first woman to cross the Atlantic by plane. She succeeded, though as a passenger. But when the flight from Newfoundland landed in Wales on June 17, 1928, Earhart became a media sensation. Putnam remained her promoter, publishing her two books: 20 Hrs. 40 Mins. and The Fun of It. In 1932, she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic – as a pilot – and became a symbol of what women could achieve. Her awards included the American Distinguished Flying Cross and the Cross of the French Legion of Honor. In 1929, Earhart helped found the Ninety-Nines, an organization of female aviators.

Margaret Bourke White was a pioneering female documentary photographer and photojournalist. She was known as an architectural and commercial photographer for the first half of her career, representing corporate clients and highlighting the success of industrial capitalism with black and white images of steel factories and skyscrapers. In 1930, she became the first foreign photographer permitted to take pictures of the Soviet Union. In 1933, NBC commissioned her to create a monumental photo mural about radio for its rotunda at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, then considered the largest photo mural in the world. The success of her corporate commissions led her to work at Fortune magazine in the 1930s. She took the photograph of the construction of Fort Pack Dam that became the cover of the first issue of Life magazine. She was the first female staff photographer at Life. The second half of her career represents her transition to photojournalism, beginning with her work during the Depression documenting the people of the Dust Bowl. She was the first American female war photojournalist, photographed the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, and was with Patton’s Third Army in the spring of 1945 when she famously documented the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. She also covered the Korean War for Life magazine in the early 1950s.

Earhart and White connected in 1933, when White sent Earhart a photograph of the new George Washington Bridge. The two women were then amongst the best known women in the United States, and that photograph is now a famous one.

Typed letter signed, on her personal letterhead, Rye, New York, August 31, 1933, to Margaret Bourke White, thanking her for the photograph, but more importantly expressing her strong feelings about the abilities of women. “Dear Miss White, I have just returned from out of town to find your gift of the beautiful span. I think you have caught the spirit, or what should be the spirit, of the Washington Bridge subtly and exactly. Thank you for sending it – as an example of photographic art, and also, as a demonstration of what ability lurks within women.”

An extraordinary letter from one of America’s most famous women to another. This is just the second time in four decades that we have seen a letter of Earhart about what women can accomplish, and this one is more expressive.