Amelia Earhart, Social Worker

Ainsley Smith
4 hours ago
4 min read

by Ainsley Smith

Amelia Earhart visiting Denison House, 1928 -- Boston Public Library.

Amelia Earhart is known for her bravery, tenacity, and strong will, but she was also an incredibly empathetic woman and philanthropist. Before she became famous for flying, she dedicated her time to social work.

While her sister Muriel was teaching in Boston, Amelia writes that she “wanted to try it also” and ended up “at a settlement house, as a novice social worker (1).” This settlement house was Denison House, “Boston’s second oldest social center,” and it provided Amelia exposure to a much more integrated and global environment than she was used to (2). She saw it as a privilege to experience a range of cultures other than the one she’d grown up in, and in her book The Fun of It, she shared this anecdote: “The first time I saw, sitting on a modern gas stove, one of the native clay cooking dishes used for centuries by the Syrians, I felt I was seeing tangible evidence of the blending process (3).” Amelia enjoyed learning the regional differences between pronunciation and meanings of words, and even the way food was cooked by different peoples intrigued her; she even learned to like “some of the articles which long before I had tried in vain to make palatable” and “Through experiences with different foods I came to the conclusion that one can learn to eat anything (4).”

Amelia Earhart visiting Toynbee Hall, 1928 -- The Henry Ford Museum

At Denison House, Amelia provided many services, including teaching English to immigrants, coordinating educational programing, focused on creating opportunities for women and children. This form of teaching fascinated her, and she describes the process of teaching English as a second language as “very different from ordinary classes where pupils know the language … [the teacher] would have to pantomime what she was saying … through sign language until pupils learn enough to take up the alphabet (5).” She mentions the experience of teaching this way in her book not just to provide a personal anecdote, but also to encourage more investment in ESL teaching; advocating for social programs for immigrants was very important to her, and she points out that in the years after she was a teacher, “the number of such classes in settlements and public schools has decreased partly because of the effect of the laws which restrict immigration (6).” Amelia’s recollection of her time as a social worker demonstrates the wide range of perspectives she was exposed to in her work and her empathy for those navigating life in a foreign nation. She understood the difficulties that arise in relocation, and advocated for more domestic support for immigrants to make the transition smoother for everyone: “It is not so easy to understand the ways of a new country when one knows nothing of the laws or customs. Half the trouble caused by the so-called ‘furiners’ is only because no one has taken the trouble to interpret to them the best these United States stand for (7).”

Amelia was a gracious woman and acknowledged all the work that was needed to help settlement houses thrive. Though she was on staff at Denison House, she emphasized the very necessary presence of volunteers in social work and settlement house programming because of the lack of funding: “So few people understood the real needs, that little money was available. We could not have managed at all without the help of the young men and young women who came as volunteer workers from schools and colleges about Boston (8).”

Amelia Earhart and Friendship fliers, 1928 -- Boston Public Library — Amelia Earhart and *Friendship* fliers, 1928 -- Boston Public Library

Marion Perkins, the head worker at Denison House, was impressed by Amelia’s bright attitude and determination to help others. Although Amelia was not an experienced social worker when she came to Dension House, Perkins was quickly won over by Amelia’s “poise and charm” and she “liked her quiet sense of humor, the frank direct look in her grey eyes (9).” Perkins attests to Amelia’s determination “to give boys and girls the experiences that will keep them young and that will develop a zest for life,” just like she herself had (10). Throughout her involvement with aviation and other projects, Amelia held social work in high esteem. She wrote that while in England, “I had of course to see Toynbee Hall, dean of settlement houses, on which our own Denison House in Boston is patterned. Nothing in England will interest me more than to revisit Toynbee Hall and the settlement houses that I did not see (11).”

Amelia’s career in social work taught her many lessons about community and education, and the experience amplified her altruistic qualities. Even during her involvement with the transatlantic flight, social work was at the forefront of her mind, and she always understood its importance in her life. Marion Perkins recalls that the day Amelia told her about the flight, “she said, ‘And I’ll be back for summer school. I have weighed the values and I want to stay in social work (12).’” Perkins’ description of Amelia’s best qualities are those which made her an excellent social worker and a humanitarian in all aspects of her life: “Her simplicity, her honesty, her complete lack of any quality that makes for sensationalism– this is Amelia Earhart (13).”

Endnotes

Amelia Earhart, The Fun of It: Random Records of my Own Flying and of Women in Aviation, 53.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Earhart, 54.
Earhart, 55.
Earhart, 56.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Marion Perkins, "Introduction by Marion Perkins," 20 Hrs. 40 Min.: Our Flight in the Friendship by Amelia Earhart, iii.
Perkins, v.
Amelia Earhart, 20 Hrs. 40 Min.: Our Flight in the Friendship, 118.
Perkins, vi.
Ibid.