NEWTOWN HISTORICAL SOCIETY SOARS WITH AMELIA EARHART

The decade of the 1930s was one of financial pain, but also of excitement, technological development, and expansion; Amelia Earhart was at the forefront of the latter three. The Newtown Historical Society will examine Earhart’s life in a program on March 8, 7.30PM, in the community room of the Booth Library, 25 Main Street (route 25). The presentation will appropriately be a one-woman show of Earhart’s early life, her celebrity years, and of course, the last flight, acted by Karen Tracy.

Amelia Earhart fell in love with aviation as a child, after viewing an air circus; the love of her life never left her. She managed to get flying lessons from Netta Snook, one of the first women aviators, and it was a steady climb from there. Though born to a wealthy family in 1897, her life was not always a rosy one. Her father was an alcoholic, her parents eventually divorced, and her own marriage could never match her love of being “up there.” At a time when the flapper was considered by many the heighth – or depth – of femininity, Earhart faced many barriers of gender discrimination. To Amelia it was all simply an obstacle to be overcome: “women have got to do the things men have tried. And if they should fail, their failures should be seen as challenges to other women.”

Amelia Earhart flew out of sheer joy, but she was always in pursuit of some record or another. She was the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air, and the first to do it solo. She held many women’s aviation “firsts,” and several distance and speed records as well. She would have a secure place in our history books under any circumstances, but the transformation to a mythic figure came with the still unsolved mystery of her last flight. She had set out to become the first woman to fly around the world, and the first person to do so at the equator, when she disappeared somewhere in the Pacific without contact and without leaving a trace.

Karen Tracy has been acting for over thirty years, off Broadway, and in regional and community theaters. Several years ago a director suggested she develop a one-woman show, and she has performed in that capacity for many historical societies, churches and community groups, including a previous performance for the Newtown Historical Society. She now concentrates her efforts on Earhart and Mark Twain’s Maid. When not treading the theatrical boards, Tracy serves as Vice President of Retail banking for the Newtown Savings Bank.

All Newtown Historical Society programs are free and open to the public. There will be a brief business meeting before the program to consider changes in the Society’s By-laws; please see the Society’s web site for details of the proposed changes, www.newtownhistory.org. Refreshments will be served following the performance. For further information please call the Society at 203-426-5937.