Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Writer

  • Born: June 22, 1906
  • Birthplace: Englewood, New Jersey
  • Died: February 7, 2001
  • Place of death: Passumpsic, Vermont

American aviator and writer

An aviation pioneer, Lindbergh chronicled the experimental flights she took with her husband, famed aviator Charles Lindbergh. Her essays, diaries, poems, and letters, written after the abduction and murder of her first child, trace the life of a woman determined to maintain her own identity in the face of intense public interest and scrutiny.

Areas of achievement Aviation and space exploration, literature

Early Life

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (LIHND-burg) was born Anne Spencer Morrow into a wealthy family in Englewood, New Jersey. Her father, Dwight Morrow, was a banker, a U.S. senator, and several times an ambassador. Her mother, Elizabeth Cutter Morrow, was well educated, having received a degree from Smith College. She later served as a trustee of that institution, and was a poet and women’s rights advocate.

Lindbergh attended Miss Chapin’s School in New York. Although she had her heart set on attending a college different from that attended by her mother and elder sister, her mother prevailed in sending her to Smith, where she began her career as a writer. Lindbergh won the Mary Augusta Jordan Prize for the most original literary work and the Elizabeth Montague Prize for best essay while at Smith. She graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in 1928.

In 1927, Lindbergh traveled to Mexico to spend the Christmas holidays with her family. Her father was the ambassador to Mexico at that time. In this capacity, he invited the young aviator, Charles Lindbergh, to visit the embassy in Mexico. Lindbergh had recently made his solo Atlantic flight and was the center of worldwide acclaim. At the embassy, he met both Anne and Elizabeth Lindbergh. Anne fell deeply in love with Charles while in Mexico, although there was much speculation that he was more interested in Anne’s sister.

Charles, however, asked Anne to marry him months after their first meeting. The couple married in a small, private ceremony in 1929. Charles’s worldwide fame irrevocably changed the rest of Anne’s life.

Life’s Work

Lindbergh learned from her new husband how to fly airplanes. In addition, she learned how to navigate and operate the in-flight radio. She became so expert at these tasks that she served as Charles’s copilot, navigator, and radio operator during the early years of their marriage. Notably, in 1931, the couple undertook an exploratory trip to Asia by traveling north over the Arctic Circle, attempting to determine the best routes for future commercial flights.

The young couple seemed to live a charmed existence. To a world mired in a severe economic depression, the Lindbergh’s adventures both entertained and distracted popular attention from economic concerns. When Lindbergh gave birth to her first child, Charles A. Lindbergh III, in 1930, the celebrated family was awash in fame. However, their fame was to have tragic consequences.

On March 1, 1932, the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped. After paying a ransom of fifty thousand dollars, and after ten weeks of frantic searching, the baby’s body was found in a ditch a few miles from the Lindbergh home, on May 12. The intense publicity surrounding the case, and the subsequent trial, in 1935, of Bruno Richard Hauptmann for the crime, affected the Lindberghs so much that they sought refuge in Europe later that year. They would eventually have five other children: Jon, Anne, Land, Scott, and Reeve.

Lindbergh began her writing career in earnest soon after the abduction and murder of her child. She wrote a book and began flying with her husband again, undertaking in 1933 a five-month, 30,000-mile exploration of the Atlantic Ocean to establish commercial air routes. In the same year, she was awarded the Cross of Honor of the U.S. Flag Association for her explorations, and in 1934 she was awarded the Hubbard Gold Medal by the National Geographic Society in honor of her accomplishments as an aviator. She published North to the Orient, a book recalling her 1931 flights over the Arctic Circle, in 1935.

The Lindberghs lived in England and France until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. In 1938, her book Listen! The Wind, an account of her (and Charles’s) Atlantic survey, was published. In 1940, she published a book she later regretted writing and from which she attempted to disassociate herself. In The Wave of the Future she detailed her opposition to war, but the book was misread, earning her and her husband reputations as Nazi sympathizers. The response to this book was especially difficult, as many old friends turned against them and people threatened to harm their children.

Lindbergh turned to fiction with her 1944 novel The Steep Ascent, a work that earned good critical reviews. It was, however, her 1955 book A Gift from the Sea that became her best-known and most loved work. In this book of essays she explores the inner landscapes of a woman’s life, with each chapter a small meditation on a particular seashell. Throughout, Lindbergh focuses on the importance of balance in the face of social obligations, child rearing, and marital responsibilities. This book has remained in print since its first publication, and saw publication as a fiftieth anniversary edition in 2005.

In 1972, Lindbergh began publishing her letters and diaries, beginning with Bring Me a Unicorn: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1922-1928. She followed this initial volume with four more, covering the years through 1944. Her diaries allowed readers to discover for themselves Lindbergh’s inner life, as revealed through her own deeply reflective and well-crafted prose.

Charles died in 1974, and Lindbergh continued to write. A series of strokes left her increasingly frail during the early 1990’s. In 1993, Women in Aerospace honored her with the Aerospace Explorer Award, recalling her remarkable feats as an early aviator, including her being licensed as the first female glider pilot in the United States. By the time of her death in Vermont on February 7, 2001, Lindbergh had been awarded honorary degrees from Smith College, Amherst College, and the University of Rochester. She was also inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

Significance

Although often overshadowed by her famous husband, Lindbergh was remarkable in her own right. Her skills as a pilot, navigator, and radio operator, at a time when few women flew in airplanes as pilots especially distinguished her as an important pioneer in aviation. In addition, her courage and presence in the face of an unspeakable tragedy, the murder of her son, calmed many during the dark days of the 1930’s.

Finally, Lindbergh’s essays, poems, letters, and diaries are significant for two reasons. First, they chronicle the times and lives of a family who captured the imagination of the world. For their historical value alone, these works deserve recognition. Second, Lindbergh’s writings transcend their historical value. Finely written, carefully nuanced, her works are fine contributions to American literature in general and American women’s literature in particular.

Bibliography

Dickson, Kim Jocelyn. Gifts from the Spirit: Reflections on the Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh. New York: Crossroads, 2002. Dickson wrote this book while a seminary student at Princeton University, using the work of Lindbergh as a starting point for her own spiritual journey.

Gardner, Lloyd C. The Case That Never Dies: The Lindbergh Kidnapping. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004. Gardner delves into the questionable aspects of the Lindbergh kidnapping case and the subsequent trial of Hauptmann.

Hertog, Susan. Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life. New York: Nan A. Talese, 1999. The benchmark biography. Hertog spent four years interviewing and recording Lindbergh’s thoughts and memories and undertook exhaustive research into the family. Includes notes, bibliography, genealogical tables, and index.

Johnson, Anne M. Return to the Sea: Reflections on Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s “Gift from the Sea.” Philadelphia: Innisfree Press, 1998. An exploration of the spiritual message of Lindbergh’s work, written by a social worker and therapist.

Lindbergh, Reeve. No More Words: A Journal of My Mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. The story of Lindbergh’s final years, written by her daughter. Part journal, part memoir, this book provides insight into the relationship between mother and daughter.

Winters, Kathleen. Anne Morrow Lindbergh: First Lady of the Air. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. After writing an article highlighting Lindbergh’s flying career, Winters was encouraged by Reeve Lindbergh and other family members to write a biography of Lindbergh emphasizing her life as an aviator. Complete with notes and bibliography, this book is a well-written glimpse into Lindbergh’s life.

1901-1940: May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight; July, 1931: Yellow River Flood; May 20-21, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman.

1971-2000: July 1, 1976: Smithsonian Opens the National Air and Space Museum.