Anne Lindbergh

American writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh was the wife of the famous pilot Charles Lindbergh and the first woman in the US to earn a first-class glider pilot’s license. She flew airplanes with him as his co-pilot, and wrote more than 10 books of memories, fiction, poetry and essays.

In 1932 the world was shocked by the “Lindbergh kidnapping” of their baby Charles Augustus, Jr. by Bruno Richard Hauptmann, who was later sentenced to death for this crime. Only one year after the kidnapping, Charles and Anne Lindbergh succeeded in 1933 in becoming the first to fly the North Atlantic and South Atlantic route. They also became the first to fly from Africa to South America, and explored polar air routes from North America to Asia and Europe.

Anne Lindbergh’s writings reflected her views of the role women should play in the world. Her 1956 book, Gift from the Sea, topped the best-seller list for months and continued to sell steadily through the coming decades. In the book, she presented eight inspirational essays concerning the meaning of a woman’s life. Her most controversial published work was her 1940 book The Wave of the Future, in which she appeared to share her husband’s favorable opinions regarding Nazi Germany. Anne Lindbergh has been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

Her 1936 entry, the book North to the Orient, was published in 1935 and describes her flight from the US via the North Route to the Far East across Canada, Alaska and Siberia in 1931. The book was well received by critics and readers alike. It became a bestseller and received the first National Book Award for non-fictional books.