Charles Lindbergh (1902–1974)

In 1927, aviator Charles Lindbergh accomplished the then-unprecedented feat of flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean. "Lucky Lindy" departed New York's Roosevelt Field at 7:52 a.m. on May 20. Thirty-three and a half hours later, he landed his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, at Le Bourget Field, on the outskirts of Paris. The nonstop flight, which covered 3,610 miles, instantly transformed the twenty-five-year-old flyer into an international celebrity and media star. He was hailed throughout Europe. He was honored with parades in New York and Washington. President Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) presented him with the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Lindbergh was destined to make headlines not only for his aviation feats. In what was one of the most notorious and highly publicized crimes of the twentieth century, his twenty-month-old son was kidnapped from the family's New Jersey compound in 1932. The infant's body eventually was discovered in the nearby woods. The crime won Lindbergh much public sympathy and resulted in passage of the "Lindbergh Law," making kidnapping a federal offense.

Then Lindbergh's reputation was tarnished in the wake of the pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic pronouncements he made prior to World War II (1939–45). Such rhetoric made him a national disgrace. He earned further disgrace by attacking President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) and embracing an isolationist foreign policy (one that called for the United States not to get involved in European problems). He eventually supported the United States following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and worked with the Air Force. Lindbergh went on to author several books which regained him some public respectability. He died in 1974.

—Rob Edelman

For More Information

"Charles A. Lindbergh History." The Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation.http://www.lindberghfoundation.org/history/calbio.html (accessed January 25, 2002).

Charles Lindbergh Home Page.http://www.charleslindbergh.com (accessed January 25, 2002).

Demarest, Chris L. Lindbergh. New York: Crown, 1993.

Giblin, James Cross. Charles A. Lindbergh: A Human Hero. New York: Clarion Books, 1997.

Lindbergh, Charles A. The Spirit of St. Louis. New York: Scribner, 1953.