On the Anniversary of Lucky Lindy's Trans-Atlantic Flight
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| Photos from Charles A. Lindbergh. The Spirit of St. Louis. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953 |
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| End papers reproduced from an original aquatint by Burnell Poole |
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| Source: The New Wonder Book of Knowledge. Chicago: The John C. Winston Co., 1936 |
At least one British historian was unimpressed:
"The personality cult amongst flyers rose suddenly and brilliantly to its glittering climax on May 20th, 1927, when a handsome, humourless American youth called Charles Lindbergh flew solo from Long Island to Paris in a monoplane. Lindbergh's flight and achievement were extraordinary, through scarcely less extraordinary than the behaviour of his country in its greed for a hero. When he returned he was met with a kind of hyperbole with which the Romans kept their emperors sweet. Some people weren't at all certain he hadn't been deified and there were later indications to show that Lindbergh wasn't absolutely sure on the point himself. Chilly as dead mutton though he was, he loped neatly into the niche made for the All-American Boy and shared with Valentino's ghost and Babe Ruth the patriotic ululation of his native land. It is doubtful if any man in history was every rewarded as Lindbergh was rewarded for a career which lasted precisely thirty-three hours and twenty-nine minutes."
-Ronald Blythe. The Age of Illusion. England in the Twenties and Thirties. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1963.
"The personality cult amongst flyers rose suddenly and brilliantly to its glittering climax on May 20th, 1927, when a handsome, humourless American youth called Charles Lindbergh flew solo from Long Island to Paris in a monoplane. Lindbergh's flight and achievement were extraordinary, through scarcely less extraordinary than the behaviour of his country in its greed for a hero. When he returned he was met with a kind of hyperbole with which the Romans kept their emperors sweet. Some people weren't at all certain he hadn't been deified and there were later indications to show that Lindbergh wasn't absolutely sure on the point himself. Chilly as dead mutton though he was, he loped neatly into the niche made for the All-American Boy and shared with Valentino's ghost and Babe Ruth the patriotic ululation of his native land. It is doubtful if any man in history was every rewarded as Lindbergh was rewarded for a career which lasted precisely thirty-three hours and twenty-nine minutes."
-Ronald Blythe. The Age of Illusion. England in the Twenties and Thirties. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1963.
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