By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development
The pilot has come in for a landing. In this case, the pilot is the famous aviator Amelia Earhart (or her replica in the form of a bronze statue), and her landing place isn’t an airport — it’s the nation’s capitol.
Amelia Earhart was recently honored by the State of Kansas by having her statue placed in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol building.
Statuary Hall is that area of the capitol that displays statues depicting people representing all 50 states. Each state is authorized to send two statues to this collection. Kansas recently replaced one of its statues with one of Amelia Earhart, who captured the world’s attention as a pioneer in aviation.
With support from the Atchison Amelia Earhart Foundation, her statue was unveiled in the National Statuary Collection in July, 2022.
Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison on July 24, 1897. She must have been quite the adventurous child. One time she and friends built a homemade roller coaster by greasing boards with lard and suspending them from the top of a toolshed. Amelia made the trial run on this roller coaster in a wooden crate and crashed part way down.
She came up with a torn dress and split lip but a big smile, proclaiming, "Oh! It's just like flying!"
During World War I, she worked as a nurse’s aid at a military hospital and heard the military pilots talk about their flights. Amelia’s interest grew when she attended an airshow in Canada.
In 1921, Amelia Earhart took her first flying lessons. Six months later, she bought her first plane.
Amelia went on to make history: She was the first president of the Ninety-Nines, a women's aviation organization; the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic; first woman to fly solo coast-to-coast; and the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the mainland.
Through her husband, a publisher, she published several books and articles. She designed fashion clothing and had her own luggage line. She received many honors, including the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress, before disappearing on an ill-fated attempt to fly around the globe.
So what is Statuary Hall and how did Amelia Earhart come to land there? Statuary Hall goes back to the 1860s when a south wing was added to the U.S. Capitol building. The House of Representatives moved into its new chamber where it still meets today.
The House was debating what should be done with the former chamber that it had vacated. A suggestion came from Rep. Justin Morrill of Vermont. (This was the same congressman who authored the Morrill Act that authorized land grants for public higher education and under which Kansas State University became the nation’s first operational land grant university.)
Morrill suggested that the former House chamber become a place to display statues from each state. His suggestion was adopted. Every state was allowed to have two statues.
One might ask, who were the two statues from Kansas? Would you guess, George Glick and John J. Ingalls? When I led capitol tours years ago, our visitors would ask, “Who are those guys? Never heard of them.”
I learned that George Glick was a one-term governor of Kansas and John J. Ingalls was a long-time Senator during the late 1800s.
In 2003, Kansas became the first state to change its two representative statues. The Kansas Legislature voted to replace Glick and Ingalls with statues depicting Dwight D. Eisenhower and Amelia Earhart, provided the statues were funded with private money. Ike was placed there in 2003 and Amelia followed in 2022.
The Atchison Amelia Earhart Foundation paid for the statue of Amelia. The foundation is also working toward opening an aviation museum in her honor. That would be a wonderful addition to the rural community of Atchison, population 10,885 people. Now, that’s rural.
For more information, see www.ameliaearharthangarmuseum.org/foundation.
This pilot has come in for a landing – that is, landing a spot in the Statuary Hall collection in Washington DC.
We commend the Atchison Amelia Earhart Foundation for making a difference by honoring her legacy. I hope Amelia’s ideals keep flying high.