1 High School Rd, Little Falls, NY 13365, United States
Little Falls High School where Charles Lindbergh studied.
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
3825 Wisconsin Ave, Washington, DC 20016, United States
Sidwell Friends School where Charles Lindbergh studied.
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1 Sea Hawk Way, Redondo Beach, CA 90277, United States
Redondo Union High School where Charles Lindbergh studied.
College/University
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States
The University of Wisconsin-Madison where Charles Lindbergh studied from 1920 to 1922.
Career
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1921
Charles Lindberg rode his Excelsior motorcycle from the farm to Madison, Wisconsin.
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1923
St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Charles Lindbergh, wearing a helmet with goggles up, in the open cockpit of an airplane at Lambert Field, St. Louis, Missouri in 1923.
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1930
Charles Lindbergh, Harry F. Guggenheim, Governor Byrd, H. G. Shirley and Nelson Page.
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1927
Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis.
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1927
Charles Lindbergh and Harlan "Bud" Gurney lean against the wing of a biplane.
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1927
2 Avenue Gabriel, 75008 Paris, France
American aviator Charles Lindbergh with Myron T. Herrick, the United States Ambassador to France, at the American Embassy in Paris.
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1927
Charles Lindbergh examines the engine cylinders on the Spirit of St. Louis.
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1927
United States
Charles Lindbergh arrives back in America after his historic transatlantic solo flight.
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1927
Paris, France
Charles Lindbergh in Paris after flying the Atlantic with the American Ambassador Myron Herrick.
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1927
Paris, France
Charles Lindbergh, British aviator Sir Alan Cobham and American Ambassador Myron T. Herrick, at the window of the French Aero Club.
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1929
Cleveland, Ohio, United States
Charles Lindberg, Jimmy Doolittle, Alford Williams, and Director of the 1929 National Air Races Cliff Henderson in Cleveland, Ohio on September 2, 1929.
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1930
American aviator Charles Lindbergh
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1931
Japan
American aviator Charles Lindbergh during a visit to Japan in 1931.
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1936
Charles Lindbergh, his partner, biologist, and surgeon Alexis Carrel, and an unidentified man.
Gallery of Charles Lindbergh
1939
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
American aviator Charles Lindbergh makes a controversial radio broadcast from Washington, advocating Canadian neutrality in World War II on October 24, 1939.
Achievements
1928
Charles Lindbergh on the cover of TIME magazine.
Membership
Awards
Hubbard Medal
1927
Charles Lindbergh receives his Hubbard Medal medal from then president of the United States Calvin Coolidge.
Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor that Charles Lindbergh received in 1927.
Distinguished Flying Cross
The Distinguished Flying Cross that Charles Lindbergh received in 1927.
Langley Gold Medal
The Langley Gold Medal that Charles Lindbergh received in 1927.
Order of Leopold
The Order of Leopold that Charles Lindbergh received in 1927.
Air Force Cross
The Air Force Cross that Charles Lindbergh received in 1927.
Legion of Honor
The Legion of Honor that Charles Lindbergh received in 1931.
Order of the German Eagle
The Order of the German Eagle that Charles Lindbergh received on October 19, 1938.
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize that Charles Lindbergh received in 1954.
Daniel Guggenheim Medal
The Daniel Guggenheim Medal that Charles Lindbergh received in 1953.
Silver Buffalo Award
The Silver Buffalo Award that Charles Lindbergh received in 1928.
Charles Lindberg, Jimmy Doolittle, Alford Williams, and Director of the 1929 National Air Races Cliff Henderson in Cleveland, Ohio on September 2, 1929.
American aviator Charles Lindbergh makes a controversial radio broadcast from Washington, advocating Canadian neutrality in World War II on October 24, 1939.
(In The Spirit of St. Louis, Lindbergh takes the reader on...)
In The Spirit of St. Louis, Lindbergh takes the reader on an extraordinary journey, bringing to life the thrill and peril of trans-Atlantic travel in a single-engine plane. Eloquently told and sweeping in its scope, Lindbergh's Pulitzer Prize-winning account is an epic adventure tale of all time.
Boyhood on the Upper Mississippi: A Reminiscent Letter
(The famed flier's own vivid word picture recalls with war...)
The famed flier's own vivid word picture recalls with warmth and accuracy the years before World War I on his family farm near Little Falls. The brief text is enhanced by many photographs from his personal albums.
(From his days as a barnstorming pilot to his transatlanti...)
From his days as a barnstorming pilot to his transatlantic flight to his role in mapping international mail routes, Lindbergh never stopped challenging himself. This is an unprecedented view of an extraordinary man.
Charles Lindbergh was an American aviator, writer, and military officer who made the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He also served as an officer in the United States Army Air Corps Reserve.
Background
Charles Lindbergh was born on February 4, 1902, in Detroit, Michigan, United States. He was the son of Charles Augustus Lindbergh and Evangeline Lodge Land. Lindbergh had two sisters. He spent most of his childhood in Little Falls, Minnesota, and Washington, District of Columbia.
Education
Charles Lindbergh studied at Little Falls High School and graduated on June 5, 1918. Later, he attended other schools from Washington, District of Columbia, to California, including Sidwell Friends School and Redondo Union High School. Then, from 1920 to 1922, Charles studied at the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, though he didn't receive a degree there.
In 1922, Lindbergh attended Nebraska Aircraft Corporation's flying school. However, he soon quit Nebraska to earn money and get more flight experience.
In 1924, Lindbergh enrolled in the Cadet Program offered by the United States Army Air Service. He studied aerodynamics, meteorology, and radio communications and received instruction in aviation skills like flying in formation, combat maneuvers, and special takeoffs and landings. In 1925, Lindbergh graduated first in his class and emerged as a second lieutenant.
Charles Lindbergh started his career as an aviator in 1923 when he made his first flight. The following year, he joined the United States Army and was trained as an Army Air Service Reserve pilot. In October 1925, he was employed as a chief pilot for 278-mile Contract Air Mail Route #2 of Robertson Aircraft Corporation. In the next year, Lindbergh made his first flight as an airmail pilot between Chicago, Illinois, and St. Louis, Missouri. In November 1925, after he joined the 110th Observation Squadron, 35th Division, Missouri National Guard, he did some military flying. In 1926, he took an Oath of Mail Messengers to the Post Office Department and was formally declared responsible for 'care, custody and conveyance' of United States Mails. Until the mid-month of February 1927, Lindbergh continued to serve as the chief pilot of Contract Air Mail Route #2.
In the fall of 1926, Lindbergh heard about the Orteig Prize, a $25,000 award that had been offered by New York City hotel owner Raymond Orteig to the first pilot to succeed in flying from a major United States city to a major European city. Lindbergh persuaded a group of nine St. Louis businessmen to back him in a try for the Orteig Prize. Later, he went to San Diego to assist in the design and construction of his airplane, which he named the Spirit of St. Louis in honor of his sponsors. On May 20, 1927, he took off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, on the "Spirit of St. Louis." On May 21, after a journey of 33 hours, 30 minutes, he landed in Le Bourget field in Paris. He immediately became a hero. From July 1927, Lindbergh went on a United States tour, on behalf of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics. The tour required him to travel to 82 cities and deliver speeches. He also went on his second tour, called "Good Will Tour" to 16 Latin American countries from December 1927 to February 1928.
In 1931, Charles Lindbergh with his wife flew to Asia in order to investigate possible commercial airline routes and also to assist flood victims there. In 1935, Lindbergh's family moved to Europe where he worked with Nobel Prize-winning French surgeon Dr. Alexis Carrel on creating an artificial heart. From 1936 to 1938, Lindbergh traveled many times to Germany and reported about German aviation and the German Air Force to the United States Army. He also was on the Board of Directors of Pan-American World Airways. In 1939, Lindbergh studied American airplane production as a special adviser on technical matters. He helped to design the B24 Liberator bomber airplane at industrialist Henry Ford's manufacturing plant at Willow Run, Michigan. In 1944, Lindbergh also went to the Pacific region of war activity, supposedly as a civilian observer; secretly, however, Lindbergh flew a number of combat missions.
After World War II, Lindbergh became the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force. He also worked with Pan-American World Airways. In 1968, he met with the crew members of Apollo 8, the first spacecraft to travel to the moon. He also wrote books such as We, The Spirit of St. Louis, and Boyhood on the Upper Mississippi. In the 1960s, Lindbergh became interested in and involved with a number of environmental issues. Lindbergh spent his final years with his wife in a house they had built on a remote portion of the island of Maui.
(In The Spirit of St. Louis, Lindbergh takes the reader on...)
1953
Politics
After Charles Lindbergh learned more about the German Air Force, he warned the United States that Germany was much better equipped than England or France. He urged America not to fight in "other people's wars" and called for isolationism. In October 1939, Lindbergh made a nationwide radio address, criticizing Canada for drawing the Western Hemisphere "into a European war simply because they prefer the Crown of England" to the independence of the Americas. Later in November that year, he wrote an article in which he deplored the war but asserted the need for a German assault on Russia. In late 1940, Lindbergh became a spokesman of the non-interventionist America First Committee and argued emphatically that America had no business attacking Germany. In 1941, he proposed that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Germany.
Views
Charles Lindbergh seemed to state that he believed the survival of the white race was more important than the survival of democracy in Europe. He said certain races have "demonstrated superior ability in the design, manufacture, and operation of machines." After he received the Service Cross of the German Eagle from Hermann Goering, many United States critics felt he should return the medal. However, Lindbergh refused, leading many to assume that he was an antisemite and Nazi sympathizer.
Lindbergh considered Russia a "semi-Asiatic" country compared to Germany. He also believed that Communism was an ideology that would destroy the West's "racial strength" and replace everyone of European descent with "a pressing sea of Yellow, Black, and Brown." He stated that if he had to choose, he would rather see America allied with Nazi Germany than Soviet Russia. He preferred Nordics, but he believed, after Soviet Communism was defeated, Russia would be a valuable ally against potential aggression from East Asia.
Lindbergh was heavily involved in conservation movements. He was deeply concerned about the negative impacts of new technologies on the natural world and native peoples, in particular on Hawaii. Lindbergh worked to preserve endangered whales and birds, for example, and he opposed the use of supersonic jets, which he believed were too damaging to the environment.
Quotations:
"The readiness to blame a dead pilot for an accident is nauseating, but it has been the tendency ever since I can remember. What pilot has not been in positions where he was in danger and where perfect judgment would have advised against going?"
"Now, all that I feared would happen has happened. We are at war all over the world, and we are unprepared for it from either a spiritual or a material standpoint. Fortunately, in spite of all that has been said, the oceans are still difficult to cross; and we have the time to adjust and prepare."
"If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes."
"I have seen the science I worshiped, and the aircraft I loved, destroying the civilization I expected them to serve."
"I realized that the future of aviation, to which I had devoted so much of my life, depended less on the perfection of aircraft than on preserving the epoch-evolved environment of life, and that this was true of all technological progress."
"Life is like a landscape. You live in the midst of it but can describe it only from the vantage point of distance."
Personality
Charles Lindbergh was described as both reserved and withdrawn. It is also said that he was stubborn and never wanted to be regarded as a hero or leader.
Quotes from others about the person
A. Scott Berg: "Lindbergh's arrival in Paris became the defining moment of his life, that event on which all his future actions hinged."
Anne Morrow Lindbergh: "Charles is life itself – pure life, force, like sunlight – and it is for this that I married him and this that holds me to him – caring always, caring desperately what happens to him and whatever he happens to be involved in."
Connections
Charles Lindbergh married Anne Morrow Lindbergh on May 27, 1929. The marriage produced six children. Lindbergh taught Anne how to fly and she accompanied and assisted him in much of his exploring and charting of air routes.
On the eve of March 1, 1932, his 20-month son, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, was kidnapped from his home in East Amwell, New Jersey. On May 12, 1932, his kidnapped son was murdered and his body was recovered near his home. After investigation, it was found that Bruno Richard Hauptmann was the culprit. He was arrested and sentenced to death.
Almost 29 years after Charles Lindbergh's death, it was reported that this aviation pioneer had fathered three children with Brigitte Hesshaimer. He also had two children with Marietta Hesshaimer and two children with a third woman, Valeska.
Father:
Charles August Lindbergh
Mother:
Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh
Sister:
Lillian Vida Lindbergh
Sister:
Edith May Lindbergh
Wife:
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Son:
Jon Lindbergh
Son:
Land Morrow Lindbergh
Son:
Scott Lindbergh
Daughter:
Reeve Lindbergh
Daughter:
Anne Lindbergh
Son:
Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr.
Mistress:
Brigitte Hesshaimer
Son:
Dyrk Hesshaimer
Son:
David Hesshaimer
Daughter:
Astrid Hesshaimer Bouteuil
Mistress:
Marietta Hesshaimer
Son:
Vago Hesshaimer
Son:
Christoph Hesshaimer
Friend:
Alexis Carrel
References
Lindbergh
Even after twenty years, A. Scott Berg's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Charles Lindberg remains "the definitive account" of one of the 20th century's most extraordinary figures.
1998
Lindbergh vs. Roosevelt: The Rivalry That Divided America
Was aviation pioneer and popular American hero Charles A. Lindbergh a Nazi sympathizer and antisemite? Or was he the target of a vicious personal vendetta by President Roosevelt? In Lindbergh vs. Roosevelt, author James Duffy tackles these questions head-on, by examining the conflicting personalities, aspirations, and actions of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Charles A. Lindbergh. Painting a politically incorrect portrait of both men, Duffy shows how the hostility between these two American giants divided the nation on both domestic and international affairs.
2010
Lindbergh: A Biography
In this highly readable biography, best-selling author Leonard Mosley offers a fascinating account of Lindbergh's childhood, days as a barnstormer and mail pilot, the flight to Paris and its aftermath, the Hauptmann trial, his later life, and much more.
1976
Lindbergh Alone
Draws on Lindbergh's full life to present him as a characteristic nineteenth-century American compelled to succeed in the twentieth century and as an intensely private man compelled to live his life in public.