entire population of the town—had heard about “the girl flyer” and were waiting on thedock to see Amelia. When she stepped ashore she was literally assaulted by “men, women, and children who tried to touch her flying suit, shake her hand or get her autograph.” Railey and Raymond, along with three policemen and the sheriff, locked arms to form a circle around her and fought their way for one hundred yards to the nearest shelter, the office of the Fricker Metal Company.
Amelia was stunned. “The accident of sex,” she said, had made her the star of “our particular sideshow.” An hour later she was forced to run the gauntlet again surrounded by additional police mustered to escort her to a local hotel. She was angered and frightened by the shoving, clutching, grasping strangers and the reporter’s questions about her personal life. At the hotel, Stultz and Gordon ate dinner and went to their rooms to sleep. Amelia, who was too upset to eat, still had to write the first of four stories on the flight that Putnam had promised to the
Times
.
An hour later, when Hilton Railey went to her room to collect the story along with messages for Amy, Muriel, and Marion Perkins, he was shocked to see how ill she looked. Her hands shook, her face was blotched and grey, and when he reached out to pat her shoulder, she flinched like a caged animal.
“Aren’t youexcited?” he asked.
“Excited? No,” she said. “It was a grand experience but … Bill did all the flying—had to. I was just baggage.”
In the story she gave to Railey she praised Stultz and Gordon but protested that she hadnever touched the controls of the
Friendship
, even though she had had five hundred hours of solo flying.
When Railey saw her the next morning after she had had six hours of sleep and her first hot bath since leaving Boston, she appeared to have forgotten her grievances of the previous night. On the brief flight from Burry Port to Southampton, she flew the
Friendship
at last, after Stultz invited her to take over the controls. At Southampton, where thousands waited to see her, she was met first by two women who could have been the subjects of her feminist scrapbook clippings of the previous decade. They were Mrs. Guest, who had bought the
Friendship
so that a woman could make the transatlantic flight, and Mrs. Foster Welch, the Lord Mayor of Southampton and first female sheriff of England.
For the remainder of theday, crowds gathered to see Amelia wherever she went. In Southampton, four mounted policemen struggled to hold back hundreds of eager autograph seekers who thrust bits of paperat her through the open windows of the Lord Mayor’s Rolls Royce. During a fifty-mile drive to the Hyde Park Hotel in London, track fans returning from Ascot waved to her from their cars. More admirers gathered in the hotel lobby and on the sidewalk outside, pushing and jostling to catch a glimpse of her.
In her flower-banked room she sat on a sofa, barricaded behind a tea table while photographers’ flashguns flared and reporters fired questions at her. Asked if she was afraid during the flight, she said, “Mr. Stultz is such an expert pilot that I never felt afraid.” She cited Stultz again in an answer to the congratulatory telegram sent by President Calvin Coolidge: “The crew of the
Friendship
desire to express their deep appreciation of your Excellency’s gracious message. Success entirely due to great skill of Mr. Stultz.” When Byrd called from New York she told him, “The success is yours too, Commander, for it was your wonderful ship that brought us through.”
George Palmer Putnam couldn’t have produced better quotes if he had been there to dictate them to her. By the time she sent her second dispatch to the
Times
her first was on the front page under an eight-column, three-line head: “Amelia Earhart Flies Atlantic, First Woman to Do It; Tells Her Own Story of Perilous 21-Hour Trip to Wales; Radio Quit and They Flew Blind over
Amelia was stunned. “The accident of sex,” she said, had made her the star of “our particular sideshow.” An hour later she was forced to run the gauntlet again surrounded by additional police mustered to escort her to a local hotel. She was angered and frightened by the shoving, clutching, grasping strangers and the reporter’s questions about her personal life. At the hotel, Stultz and Gordon ate dinner and went to their rooms to sleep. Amelia, who was too upset to eat, still had to write the first of four stories on the flight that Putnam had promised to the
Times
.
An hour later, when Hilton Railey went to her room to collect the story along with messages for Amy, Muriel, and Marion Perkins, he was shocked to see how ill she looked. Her hands shook, her face was blotched and grey, and when he reached out to pat her shoulder, she flinched like a caged animal.
“Aren’t youexcited?” he asked.
“Excited? No,” she said. “It was a grand experience but … Bill did all the flying—had to. I was just baggage.”
In the story she gave to Railey she praised Stultz and Gordon but protested that she hadnever touched the controls of the
Friendship
, even though she had had five hundred hours of solo flying.
When Railey saw her the next morning after she had had six hours of sleep and her first hot bath since leaving Boston, she appeared to have forgotten her grievances of the previous night. On the brief flight from Burry Port to Southampton, she flew the
Friendship
at last, after Stultz invited her to take over the controls. At Southampton, where thousands waited to see her, she was met first by two women who could have been the subjects of her feminist scrapbook clippings of the previous decade. They were Mrs. Guest, who had bought the
Friendship
so that a woman could make the transatlantic flight, and Mrs. Foster Welch, the Lord Mayor of Southampton and first female sheriff of England.
For the remainder of theday, crowds gathered to see Amelia wherever she went. In Southampton, four mounted policemen struggled to hold back hundreds of eager autograph seekers who thrust bits of paperat her through the open windows of the Lord Mayor’s Rolls Royce. During a fifty-mile drive to the Hyde Park Hotel in London, track fans returning from Ascot waved to her from their cars. More admirers gathered in the hotel lobby and on the sidewalk outside, pushing and jostling to catch a glimpse of her.
In her flower-banked room she sat on a sofa, barricaded behind a tea table while photographers’ flashguns flared and reporters fired questions at her. Asked if she was afraid during the flight, she said, “Mr. Stultz is such an expert pilot that I never felt afraid.” She cited Stultz again in an answer to the congratulatory telegram sent by President Calvin Coolidge: “The crew of the
Friendship
desire to express their deep appreciation of your Excellency’s gracious message. Success entirely due to great skill of Mr. Stultz.” When Byrd called from New York she told him, “The success is yours too, Commander, for it was your wonderful ship that brought us through.”
George Palmer Putnam couldn’t have produced better quotes if he had been there to dictate them to her. By the time she sent her second dispatch to the
Times
her first was on the front page under an eight-column, three-line head: “Amelia Earhart Flies Atlantic, First Woman to Do It; Tells Her Own Story of Perilous 21-Hour Trip to Wales; Radio Quit and They Flew Blind over
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