Details
EARHART, AMELIA, American aviator. Typed letter signed ("A.E." in red ink) to the scientist and explorer Roy Chapman Andrews, n.p., n.d., [January 1932]. One page, 4to, on her personal imprinted stationery. With an unsigned carbon copy of R.C. Andrews's reply, 12 January 1932. One page, 4to. (2)
"BOLD HUSSIES THAT WE ARE": EARHART ON WOMEN AS EXPLORERS
Earhart's friendly riposte to a published statement of Andrews ("Andrews Rules Out Women Explorers" is the headline she quotes at the top of her letter). "Dear Roy, Why not come right out and say you just don't want women on expeditions? We (women) should much prefer your being frank. You see, it isn't news to us that our presence is often undesired, so we're especially alert to our shortcomings. Poor relatives in the houses of the mighty. However, we have enough intelligence to subject the mighty to the same scrutiny which we turn upon ourselves--bold hussies that we are. With advantages which we do not possess, we expect them to be superior in all their works, just and generous in all their thoughts. When they're not a murmur arises from the low chairs.
"Now Roy, you know there is no foundation for your statement that women can't stand the gaff of exploration. Maybe they can't, but neither you nor anyone else can yet say so with any degree of verity. There has been practically no research on the subject, and what there has been seems to show women's endurance is superior to that of man. Now, my murmur is a request that you stop giving out unscientific generalities and disappointing the thousands, nay hundreds of thousands of women who expect you to be the paragon of science...."
"BOLD HUSSIES THAT WE ARE": EARHART ON WOMEN AS EXPLORERS
Earhart's friendly riposte to a published statement of Andrews ("Andrews Rules Out Women Explorers" is the headline she quotes at the top of her letter). "Dear Roy, Why not come right out and say you just don't want women on expeditions? We (women) should much prefer your being frank. You see, it isn't news to us that our presence is often undesired, so we're especially alert to our shortcomings. Poor relatives in the houses of the mighty. However, we have enough intelligence to subject the mighty to the same scrutiny which we turn upon ourselves--bold hussies that we are. With advantages which we do not possess, we expect them to be superior in all their works, just and generous in all their thoughts. When they're not a murmur arises from the low chairs.
"Now Roy, you know there is no foundation for your statement that women can't stand the gaff of exploration. Maybe they can't, but neither you nor anyone else can yet say so with any degree of verity. There has been practically no research on the subject, and what there has been seems to show women's endurance is superior to that of man. Now, my murmur is a request that you stop giving out unscientific generalities and disappointing the thousands, nay hundreds of thousands of women who expect you to be the paragon of science...."