{"id":8178,"date":"2025-10-04T01:06:29","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T01:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=8178"},"modified":"2025-10-04T01:06:29","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T01:06:29","slug":"recalling-amelia-earharts-1936-lecture-at-princeton-high-school-shaw-local","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=8178","title":{"rendered":"Recalling Amelia Earhart\u2019s 1936 lecture at Princeton High School – Shaw Local"},"content":{"rendered":"


This photo appeared in the Bureau County Republican on April 2, 1936, to promote Amelia Earhart\u2019s upcoming lecture at Princeton High School on April 7. It shows Earhart with her Vega 5B single-engine airplane, \u201cOld Bessie.\u201d <\/span>(Shaw Local News Network)
News stories published toward the end of January have told the world about the possible discovery of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart\u2019s long-lost airplane on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.
Whether it turns out to be true or not remains to be seen, but for local residents, the news brings to mind Princeton<\/a>\u2019s brush with the famed female pilot about 88 years ago.
Fifteen months before she disappeared during her attempted around-the-world flight, Earhart found herself on a lecture tour that brought her to the Princeton High School auditorium.
\u201cThe lure of flying is the lure of beauty,\u201d the 38-year-old pilot told a Bureau Valley Civic League audience on Tuesday evening, April 7, 1936.
Earhart \u2013 5-foot-8, slim, gray-eyed, with fair, wavy hair kept short \u2013 had racked up a series of impressive aviation firsts ahead of her Princeton appearance. Wearing a brown crepe dress with a satin jacket and egg shell trim, Earhart \u201cimpressed her listeners as much with her charm as with her intellect,\u201d according to a story in the Bureau County<\/a> Republican.
\u201cHer voice was well modulated and her stage presence most pleasing,\u201d the Bureau County Republican reported, adding an admiring nod to her \u201ckeen sense of humor.\u201d
Earhart tickets were the hottest item in town that April evening. The Civic League, in a BCR story the previous week, sternly announced it had to refuse numerous requests for tickets from nonmembers eager to see the first woman to fly the Atlantic alone and the first person to solo over the Pacific from Honolulu to California.
In those days, about 1,000 people could fit in the PHS auditorium. Those fortunate enough to gain admittance heard Earhart tell of her flights \u201con starlit nights, through billowy clouds, as well as during rain storms, and in daylight over water and landscape.\u201d
Ironically, Earhart drove, not flew, to Princeton for her 8:15 p.m. appearance, having arrived late in the afternoon. She was in the midst of a busy lecture tour. During the previous six months, according to the BCR, she had traveled to 30 states from Massachusetts to California, averaging 4,000 miles of driving a month. Biographer Susan Butler writes that Earhart was paid $300 a lecture.
Earhart, who was introduced by Dr. K.M. Nelson of Princeton, made two key points during her lecture: first, that aviation would and indeed must play an increasingly important role in America\u2019s commercial and social life.
\u201cShe states that her flights as well as those of other air explorers all help to build more firmly the foundation on which future aeronautic development rests,\u201d the BCR reported.
Second, Earhart called on women, through aviation and other non-traditional fields, to advance above and beyond society\u2019s limited expectations in the 1930s.
\u201cWomen should strive for goals outside of what is ridiculously known as their sphere, if they are to become persons. Women must do for themselves what men have already done for themselves,\u201d she said.
While it was not widely known, Earhart was making plans to fly around the world at the time of her Princeton lecture. On July 24, less than four months later, she took possession of a brand new twin-engine Lockheed Electra 10E airplane in California \u2013 the same plane which, the following year, carried her and navigator Fred Noonan more than 22,000 miles on their ill-fated journey. They disappeared over the Pacific en route from New Guinea to Howland Island on July 2, 1937. Separate searches organized by the U.S. Navy and George Putnam, Earhart\u2019s husband, proved fruitless.
Wrapping up her lecture at PHS, Earhart described how she typically got ready for her epic air journeys.
\u201cThe speaker declared that two-thirds of the success of any expedition depends upon the preparation, and that in all of her major flights she confers with a technical adviser who is usually a pilot in whom she has confidence,\u201d the BCR reported.
\u201cMiss Earhart also maintains that since mental hazards are one of the greatest obstacles, all worrying should be done at least two months before the expedition gets underway, and in the line of worry, it has always been her endeavor to overcome, not overlook, risks.\u201d
For Amelia Earhart, greatness as a pioneering aviator and advocate for women is her lasting legacy. For Princeton, the story of its brush with Earhart\u2019s greatness is worth remembering.
Author\u2019s note:<\/b> Sources for this article are Bureau County Republican archives; \u201cEast to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart,\u201d by Susan Butler; \u201cThe Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia Earhart\u201d by Mary S. Lovell; the 1927 PHS Tiger yearbook; and Wikipedia.
\u2022 <\/b>Jim Dunn, who retired as editor and general manager of the Bureau County Republican in 2020, is president of the Bureau County History Center Board.<\/i><\/p>\n

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This photo appeared in the Bureau County Republican on April 2, 1936, to promote Amelia Earhart\u2019s upcoming lecture at Princeton High School on April 7. It shows Earhart with her Vega 5B single-engine airplane, \u201cOld Bessie.\u201d (Shaw Local News Network)News stories published toward the end of January have told the world about the possible discovery of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}