Portrait Gallery Features Amelia Earhart's Life

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The National Portrait Gallery in Washington is exploring the life of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart from her flying to her advocacy for women's rights.

In a new exhibit opening Friday, Earhart's biography is told through photographs, paintings and drawings, and objects including her pilot's license and leather flying helmet. "One Life: Amelia Earhart" is on view through May 2013.

Earhart was a crew member on her first trans-Atlantic flight and quickly became a star, overshadowing the pilots. She would become a columnist for Cosmopolitan magazine and gave speeches. In 1932, she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

Earhart founded an organization for women pilots called The Nighty-Nines and was a faculty member at Purdue University.

The exhibit coincides with the 75th anniversary of her disappearance.

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