A new book exposes the shocking 'truth' behind Amelia Earhart's tragic story.
For nearly nine decades, Amelia Earhart has been praised as one of history's greatest aviation pioneers.
The story we've always known paints her as a fearless pilot who pushed boundaries and inspired generations of women to pursue commercial flight.
But a revealing new book is challenging everything we thought we knew about Earhart's legendary career, suggesting that behind her remarkable achievements lay a much darker truth about manipulation and the dangerous pursuit of profit.
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George P. Putnam, a powerful publishing tycoon, was married to Earhart for six years before her disappearance.
While their relationship has often been portrayed as a supportive partnership, a new investigation suggests Putman acted as Earhart's publicist and pushed her to the brink to sell books.
"The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage that Made an American Icon," by Laurie Gwen Shapiro takes a deep dive into their complex relationship.
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"Putnam, the so-called "PT Barnum of publishing" was a bookselling visionary—but often pushed his authors to extreme lengths in the name of publicity, and no one bore that weight more than Amelia," Shapiro wrote.
The book suggests that while their 'ahead-of-its-time' partnership did support Earhart's ambitions, it also 'pressed her into more and more treacherous stunts to promote her books, influencing a certain recklessness up to and including her final flight.'
The relationship between Earhart and Putnam began in 1928, when she first achieved fame by becoming the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean as a passenger.
Putnam was one of the people coordinating this historic flight, and he personally interviewed her before deciding she would be selected for the journey.
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But, according to Shapiro's research, he fell in 'love at first sight' with Earhart because of her potential for commercial success. Putnam allegedly offered to help her write a book about her experience, following the formula he had established with aviation celebrity Charles Lindberg.
Earhart moved in with Putnam while working on her book, and during this period, Putnam divorced his first wife in 1929.
Just one year after their wedding, Earhart achieved her most famous solo accomplishment - becoming the first woman to pilot a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. During this same historic flight, she also broke the record for the longest flight by a woman and set a new record for the shortest time to cross the Atlantic.
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She was invited to the White House by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, with Earhart even offering to take Eleanor on a flight in her plane.
On June 1, 1937, Earhart set off on what would turn out to be her final journey. She took off in her Lockheed 10-E Electra with the dream of becoming the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. Accompanied by navigator Fred Noonan, their route took them from Oakland, California to Miami, then down to South America, across to Africa, and eastward to India and South Asia.
However, after departing from Lae in Papua New Guinea, Earhart and Noonan lost radio contact as they approached Howland Island. Neither the pilots nor their aircraft were ever seen or heard from again.