Chapter 4: The Lone Eagle Becomes a National Hero

On May 21, 1927 Charles Lindbergh achieved what was believed to be an impossible feat: he flew across the Atlantic and proved that transoceanic crossings were possible.  He changed the face of travel forever!   

            After Lindbergh finally got a chance to sleep (at the U.S. Embassy), the non-stop adulation began with him engaging in meetings with various French celebrities and then-President Gaston Doumergue, who awarded him the Legion d’Honneur. (highest French order of merit) Lindbergh discussed in Autobiography of Values how he attended several dinners and ceremonies commemorating his achievement, in addition to receiving countless telegrams from around the world.  The French Foreign Office flew the U.S. flag for the first time in French history to honor a visiting American citizen who was not the head of state.  After the celebrations in France, Lindbergh would return to the U.S. on a Navy ship President Calvin Coolidge sent to Paris.  Upon his return to Washington D.C., Lindbergh met with Coolidge and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.  He would travel to New York, and have the largest ticker tape parade seen in the U.S. up to that time.

            After the initial celebrations waned, Charles was advised to meet with Harry Guggenheim, grandson of Meyer Guggenheim (famed businessman and patriarch of the family) and president of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics.  They jointly decided to send Lindbergh on a promotional tour of the U.S. in which he would take The Spirit of St. Louis around the country to demonstrate its function as well as meet and greet the people.  This was clearly a genius idea, as Lindbergh could both build on the publicity of the famous flight as well as continue to promote aviation as a method of transportation.  From July until October 1927, Lindbergh would travel to all 48 states (Alaska and Hawaii were not yet part of the union) and 92 cities with The Spirit of St. Louis to showcase it to the public, as well as continue to be celebrated for his remarkable accomplishment.  The fact that Lindbergh was willing to subject himself to constant adulation by the public considering his disinterest and surprise in gaining fame shows how important aviation meant to him, and what lengths he would go to promote his passion.

            After the tour, Lindbergh met with the new U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Dwight Morrow to provide him a better understanding of the status of American aviation.  Charles was invited for a visit to Mexico City at the end of 1927 to fly The Spirit of St. Louis down, with the intent of both establishing friendly relations with Mexico as well as showcasing “the capabilities of modern aircraft.” (Lindbergh, 83) As seen when planning for the transatlantic flight, Lindbergh continued to strategize the importance of the upcoming trip by planning to fly from Washington D.C. to Mexico City so Congress would observe the significance of him connecting the capitals of the two countries.  Lindbergh took off from Bolling Field the morning of December 13, 1927 and arrived in Mexico City the following day, albeit two hours later than planned due to getting lost; he was greeted at Valbuena Airport by then-president Plutarco Calles and Ambassador Morrow.  While Lindbergh recalls many memorable experiences during that trip, the most memorable would be his introduction to one of the Ambassador’s daughters, Anne, who would become Mrs. Charles Lindbergh (more on this shortly…)  After a tour of Central and South America in early 1928, The Spirit of St. Louis was grounded permanently on April 30, 1928 and subsequently donated to the Smithsonian for permanent exhibition, where you can still see it today!

            In Autobiography of Values, Charles admits he never had significant interest in dating girls, or had not met one he had any genuine interest in, however expressed his surprise that Anne Morrow was “…becoming conspicuous in memory months after I had left the hospitality of her father’s embassy in Mexico.” (Lindbergh, 123) He also disclosed that one of his measures of a good woman was one who was willing to get in a plane for a flight, since aviation was still in its infancy and someone would be considered a little crazy to consider the idea; Lindbergh’s plan was to see if Anne was willing to fly with him, with the hopes the date would continue “on the ground”. (Lindbergh, 123) Anne accepted his invitation for a flight over Long Island in fall 1928.  Within a couple days of the flight and their ground date of driving around New Jersey they were engaged!  They worked to delay the announcement of the engagement, as Lindbergh would state in Autobiography of Values “I had found relationships with the press difficult before I had a fiancée.  I found them next to impossible thereafter.” (Lindbergh, 125) Charles and Anne married May 27, 1929 at the Morrow home, Next Day Hill, in Englewood, New Jersey.  The couple invited close friends and family under the guise of a pre-wedding reception to prevent a media frenzy.  According to Lindbergh, everything went off without a hitch, and the newlyweds snuck out of the house before the guests even knew they had left.  He was already having to pay the price for fame he never believed he would receive after making history…

            Almost a year after their wedding, Charles and Anne welcomed their first child, a son named Charles Jr., on June 22, 1930.  Life was coming together for Lindbergh, however he would continue to pay the price for his fame.  On March 1, 1932, at his new home in central New Jersey, he would experience a trauma no human being should every have to endure…