This article is about the American publisher, the author and explorer who lived from 1887
to 1950 and was famous for being married to Amelia Earhart. For his grandfather, the American
book publisher who lived from 1814 to 1872, see George Palmer Putnam.
George Palmer Putnam was an American publisher, author and explorer. Known for his marriage
to Amelia Earhart, he had also achieved fame as one of the most successful promoters in
the United States during the 1930s.
Early life Born in Rye, New York, he was the son of John
Bishop Putnam and the grandson of his namesake, George Palmer Putnam, who was the founder
of the prominent publishing firm that became G. P. Putnam's Sons. He studied at Harvard
University and the University of California. During World War I, George Putnam served with
the United States Army field artillery. In 1926, under the sponsorship of the American
Museum of Natural History, he led an expedition to the Arctic, up the west coast of Greenland.
The following year he headed another expedition for the American Geographical Society to collect
wildlife specimens on Baffin Island. In 1911, Putnam married Dorothy Binney, the
daughter of Edwin Binney, inventor and co-owner, with cousin C. Harold Smith, of Binney & Smith
Inc., the company that made Crayola crayons. They had two sons, David Binney Putnam and
George Palmer Putnam, Jr.(1921-2013), and for a time lived in Bend, Oregon, where Putnam
was the publisher and editor of the local newspaper, the Bend Bulletin. He was mayor
of Bend from 1912 to 1913. Putnam left Bend in 1915 to become the private secretary to
Oregon governor James Withycombe. 1920s and 1930s Business Interests
Within a few years, the family moved back to the East Coast where George Putnam entered
the family publishing business in New York City. In July 1927 he was responsible for
the blockbuster publication of "We", Charles Lindbergh's autobiographical account of his
early life and Orteig Prize winning non-stop transatlantic solo flight from New York to
Paris made in May of that year. The book proved to be one of the most successful non-fiction
titles of all time selling more than 650,000 copies in less than a year and earning its
author over $250,000. In 1927, his wife, Dorothy Binney, traveled
to South America and began a long term, and well chronicled, adulterous affair with George
Weymouth, a man 19 years her junior; Putnam would eventually leave Binney two years later.
Many thought that George had left his first wife for Earhart, although for Binney, it
was her own ticket out of an unhappy marriage. In 1930, the various Putnam heirs voted to
merge the family's publishing firm with Minton, Balch & Co., which became the majority stockholders.
George P. Putnam resigned from his position as secretary of G. P. Putnam's Sons and joined
New York publishers Brewer & Warren as vice president.
A significant event in Putnam's personal and business life occurred in 1928, before the
merger. Because of his reputation for working with Lindbergh, he was contacted by Amy Guest,
a wealthy American living in London who wanted to sponsor the first-ever flight by a woman
across the Atlantic Ocean. Guest asked Putnam to find a suitable candidate
and he eventually came up with the then-unknown Amelia Earhart. As it turned out, they shared
many common interests: hiking, swimming, camping, riding, tennis and golf. Having divorced in
1929, Putnam spent an extensive amount of time with Earhart, which resulted in an intimate
relationship and, in 1931, their marriage. Following Earhart's successful 1932 flight,
Putnam organized her public engagements and speaking tour across the United States. Shortly
after, he took charge of promoting her career and arranged for endorsement contracts with
a luggage manufacturer and a line of ladies' sportswear. In addition, Putnam published
two books Earhart wrote about her flying adventures. Earhart disappeared in 1937 while attempting
to set another flying record to fly around the world, and Putnam published her biography
in 1939 under the title Soaring Wings. Putnam later donated many of Earhart's belongings,
including a flight jacket, to Purdue University, where she had worked as a career counselor.
Other personal effects were sent to the Women's Archives in New York.
Putnam had Earhart declared dead on January 5, 1939, and remarried on May 21 of that year
to Jean-Marie Cosigny James. Later years
In 1938, Putnam set up a new publishing company in California, George Palmer Putnam Inc.
With America's entry into World War II in 1941, Putnam rejoined the active military,
serving as an intelligence officer, enlisting as a captain and rising to the rank of major
by 1942. In 1945, he and "Jeannie" divorced; she had initiated the action, citing incompatibility.
Shortly after, he remarried again, to Margaret Havilland.
In the book Death Valley Handbook, Putnam was the binomial author of the plant taxon
Gilia mohavensis Putnam. The name has since slipped into synonymy with Linanthus mohavensis
H.Mason, its basionym. George Putnam authored a number of books,
including: Death Valley and Its Country
Death Valley Handbook Hickory Shirt
Hot Oil In the Oregon Country
Smiting the Rock Soaring Wings
Wide Margins Death
In late 1949, Putnam fell ill, suffering from kidney failure. He died in Trona, California
in the first week of 1950, aged 62. His body was cremated and the ashes interred in the
Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles. Honors
Amelia Earhart, Putnam's second wife, was the first president of The Ninety-Nines, an
organization of 99 female pilots formed in 1929 for the support and advancement of aviation.
Putnam had proposed an award as a means of honoring anyone who supports an individual
member of the group, a Chapter or Section, or the organization as a whole. The George
Palmer Putnam 49½ Award was originated to recognize such exceptional support of The
Ninety-Nines. In 1927, the Boy Scouts of America made Putnam
an "Honorary Scout", a new category of Scout created that same year. This distinction was
given to "American citizens whose achievements in outdoor activity, exploration and worthwhile
adventure are of such an exceptional character as to capture the imagination of boys...".
The other 18 who were awarded this distinction were: Roy Chapman Andrews; Robert Bartlett;
Frederick Russell Burnham; Richard E. Byrd; George Kruck Cherrie; James L. Clark; Merian
C. Cooper; Lincoln Ellsworth; Louis Agassiz Fuertes; George Bird Grinnell; Charles A.
Lindbergh; Donald Baxter MacMillan; Clifford H. Pope; Kermit Roosevelt; Carl Rungius; Stewart
Edward White; and Orville Wright. Due to his relationship with Amelia Earhart,
Putnam has been the subject of numerous feature and documentary films including: Amelia Earhart
with John Forsythe portraying Putnam. In Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight, Bruce Dern played
him. The documentary Amelia Earhart: The Price of Courage from American Experience also featured
the Putnam-Earhart marriage. Richard Gere portrayed Putnam in the 2009 movie, Amelia.
References Notes
Bibliography
External links Works by George Palmer Putnam at Project Gutenberg
George Palmer Putnam George P. Putnam at Findagrave