Anne Morrow Lindbergh: First Lady of the Air

Few people know that Anne Morrow Lindbergh was an accomplished and innovative pilot in her own right. In fact, she was one of the defining figures of American aviation, a bright and adventurous woman who helped to pioneer air routes, traveled around the world, and came to be adored by the American public.

In this revealing biography, author and pilot Kathleen C. Winters vividly recreates the adventure and excitement of many of Anne's early flights, including never-before-revealed flight details from the Lindbergh archives. An intimate portrayal of a remarkable woman, Anne Morrow Lindbergh also offers a dazzling picture of the exciting and dangerous early years of aviation's Golden Age.







ISBN-13 : 9780230604117
Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date : 05/13/2008
Author : Kathleen C. Winters

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

This biography focuses on Lindbergh's flying career, which she embarked upon after her 1929 marriage to Charles Lindbergh, already a hero for his historic nonstop transatlantic flight two years earlier. Drawing on an admirable array of research, aviation historian Winters documents how Charles trained his young wife to serve as copilot, navigator and radio operator on their long pioneering flights. In their new plane, Sirius, the Lindberghs set a speed record for flying from coast to coast. Winters details their flight to China and a five-month global survey flight that would advance commercial air travel, adventures that Anne (1906-2001) wrote about in North to the Orient and Listen, the Wind. It's clear that Anne fell in love with flying as well as with her husband, a driven, demanding man. Charles insisted that she fly while pregnant and argued for greater aviation challenges as their family grew. Though this is not a comprehensive biography, Winters deals briefly with the well-known aspects of Anne's life including the kidnapping and murder of the Lindberghs' first son and Charles's flirtation with Nazism. Anne's important role in early aviation has not been treated as extensively elsewhere. B&w photos, maps. (Nov.)

Kirkus Reviews

Pilot and aviation historian Winters focuses on the neglected subject of Mrs. Lindbergh's work as copilot, navigator and radio operator on pioneering flights exploring air routes for the infant airline industry. At the time of her death, in 2001, Anne Morrow Lindbergh already seemed a figure from the yellowed headlines of the distant past. Her renown came early, with her 1929 marriage to the most celebrated hero of the 20th century. Its tragic second act included the most famous kidnapping/murder trial in U.S. history, but the bereaved mother recovered to write many bestselling books. Largely forgotten today, though publicly appreciated in her time, is her role as one of the early and important women in the almost entirely male world of aviation. Winters covers Morrow's sheltered early life as part of a wealthy, service-minded family (her father was ambassador to Mexico at the time she met Charles Lindbergh) and touches, sometimes more than briefly, on her marriage, the kidnapping and her literary career.

But the author devotes the bulk of this narrative to meticulously tracking the many flights Anne and Charles made on behalf of Pan Am. Her husband proudly identified her as "crew," but Anne was careful never to claim too much on behalf of her aviation exploits, even though they required undoubted skill and courage. She always maintained that for her, flying constituted first and foremost a refuge, helping to preserve the intimacy of a marriage subject to overwhelming public scrutiny. This makes her a tricky feminist icon, considered strictly as an aviator, and Winters, following her subject's lead, wisely never overstates the case. Anne's flying career ended in her early 30s. Near theclose of her long life, after finally receiving numerous awards honoring her contributions to aviation's golden age, she did concede that her years spent flying were, perhaps, her "most feminist period." A perfectly calibrated tribute to an early heroine of the air. Agent: Andrew Zack/The Zack Company.

Meet the Author

Kathleen C. Winters is an aviation historian as well as a certificated pilot and former flight instructor. Her articles have appeared in Woman Pilot, Aviation for Women, and Soaring magazines, and she has been a featured speaker at the Lindbergh Symposium in Ft. Myers, Florida. She lives in Minnesota.