Anne Morrow Lindbergh first won literary acclaim when she was very young. At her graduation from Smith College, she won the Mary Augusta Jordan Prize for the most original literary piece and the Elizabeth Montagu Prize for the best essay on women of the 18th Century. The novels, essays and diaries she later composed have been described as ‘small works of art.”
In 1929, her life dramatically changed with her marriage to America’s “last hero,” aviator Charles A. Lindbergh. Throughout their marriage the legendary pair flew together constantly on goodwill tours and on business trips to explore transcontinental routes for commercial aviation. In the early 1930s, she became the first woman in the United States to obtain a glider pilot license. In 1931, she received her private pilot’s license. Later, they covered 30,000 miles over five continents. For her part in the expedition, Lindbergh received the United States Flag Association Cross of Honor. In 1934, she became the first woman to receive the National Geographic Society Hubbard Gold Medal, one of several awards won for her piloting and navigational skills.
Throughout her aviation career, Lindbergh continued to write. Her first book, North to the Orient, chronicled the couple’s flight in a single engine airplane over uncharted routes through Canada and Alaska to Japan and China. Listen! The Wind documents their 30,000-mile survey of north and south Atlantic air routes.
In all, Lindbergh published 11 major works. Her 1955 essay, “Gift from the Sea,” led the non-fiction bestseller list for many weeks, and a special anniversary edition was reissued 25 years later.
