Worcester County Wonders: Amelia Earhart’s 1935 Visits to Worcester and Gardner

Ninety years ago this week, aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart appeared in Worcester and Gardner, delivering candid, compelling talks about her Pacific and transatlantic flights and urging more women to take up aviation.

Earhart’s New England Tour

Earhart’s stop in Worcester on Dec. 11, 1935, was one of five New England appearances that also included Brockton, Medford, Newton and Gardner. Her Worcester lecture at North High School drew an audience of about 1,000 people. Reporters noted her neat, tailored brown suit and trademark wind-blown bob — and that she showed little sign of fatigue from her busy tour.

Messages From the Stage

At North High, Earhart spoke plainly about why she flew and why more women should be involved in aviation. She urged women to embrace flying themselves rather than relying on others:

"Women must learn to do for themselves in aviation what men have learned to do for themselves. And women are important to the aviation industry. Women have represented the greatest 'sales resistance' to flying and not until women of the family grow air-minded will they let the rest of the family up in the air."

Gardner Reception

The next evening, Dec. 12, Earhart spoke at Gardner High School’s Pearson Auditorium, where local papers called her “the most important personage to visit Gardner since the World War.” About 700 people attended; many heard the same stories she had told in Worcester. Gardner’s lively aviation community — including pilots who tried to visit every recognized Massachusetts airport — greeted her warmly. Contemporary coverage noted how the town even moved earth to lengthen its runway to accommodate growing aviation activity.

Advocacy for Accessible Flying

Earhart often argued that aviation needed to be made simpler and more affordable for the public. She advocated for "the manufacturer of a cheap, easy-to-fly-and-land plane" that would make aviation practical for more people — an idea that foreshadowed the rapid expansion of commercial air travel after World War II.

The Final Flight

Less than two years after the Gardner visit, on July 2, 1937, Earhart began the flight that would become her last. After mechanical trouble during an earlier leg, a revised around-the-world attempt launched from Miami. She made stops in San Juan and other locations before heading toward Howland Island, a tiny target in the Pacific. Some of her last radio transmissions requesting weather and position were received, but Earhart, her navigator Fred Noonan, and the Lockheed Electra were never found.

Searches and Ongoing Fascination

Government and private searches produced many theories about their fate: fuel exhaustion, navigational error, and numerous conspiracy theories. The original government search cost roughly $4 million at the time (about $87 million in 2024 dollars). Private searches have continued for decades, including a 2024 underwater expedition funded by Deep Sea Vision that initially reported sonar evidence but ultimately found only a rock formation.

Legacy

Earhart’s contributions to aviation and to women’s involvement in the field are widely recognized. She founded the Ninety-Nines, an international organization for women pilots, while living in Medford, Massachusetts. She was later inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame (1968) and the National Women’s Hall of Fame (1973). In later years, public calls have been made to release and review government records related to her final flight, underscoring the enduring public interest in her story.

Sources: Contemporary newspaper accounts from The Evening Gazette and Telegram & Gazette, a 1935 Airwoman magazine article, eyewitness recollections, and reporting on later searches and expeditions.