Lincoln Ellsworth
A wealthy adventurer who used airplanes to conquer the last blank spaces on the map, crossing both polar ice caps.
1880–1951 (age 71)·Early 20th-century American explorer of Antarctica·Birthday: May 12·The Gilded Age
Biography
Lincoln Ellsworth was an American explorer who bankrolled and led expeditions that defined the heroic age of aerial polar exploration. The son of a wealthy industrialist, he financed his own quests for glory. In 1925, alongside Roald Amundsen, he nearly perished attempting to fly to the North Pole. The following year, he succeeded, crossing the polar basin in the airship Norge. His greatest triumph came a decade later over Antarctica. After a failed first attempt that left his plane, the Polar Star, stranded for a year, he and pilot Herbert Hollick-Kenyon completed the first trans-Antarctic flight in 1935, claiming a vast territory for the United States. Ellsworth was a man of few words but immense determination, using his fortune to turn aircraft into tools of geographic discovery.
The Gilded Age
1860–1882
Born during or after the Civil War, they built industrial America — the railroads, the steel mills, the first skyscrapers. An era of massive wealth, massive inequality, and the belief that the future belonged to whoever could build it fastest.
Lincoln was born in 1880, placing them squarely in The Gilded Age. The events that shaped this generation — world wars, depression, and rapid industrialization — shaped the world they entered and the choices available to them.
#1 When Lincoln Was Born
The biggest hits of 1880
Lincoln's Life & Times
The world at every milestone
1880Born
Edison patents the incandescent light bulb
President: Rutherford B. Hayes
1885Started school
Karl Benz builds the first gasoline-powered automobile
President: Grover Cleveland
1893Became a teenager
World's Columbian Exposition dazzles Chicago
President: Grover Cleveland
1896Could drive
First modern Olympic Games held in Athens
President: Grover Cleveland
1898Could vote
Spanish-American War; US emerges as a world power
President: William McKinley
1901Turned 21
Queen Victoria dies, ending the Victorian era
President: Theodore Roosevelt
1910Turned 30
Halley's Comet makes its closest approach
President: William Howard Taft
1920Turned 40
Women gain the right to vote in the US
Home: $3,395President: Woodrow Wilson"Swanee" — Al Jolson
1930Turned 50
Pluto discovered
Gas: $0.20/galHome: $3,510President: Herbert Hoover"Body and Soul" — Paul WhitemanBest Picture: All Quiet on the Western Front
1940Turned 60
The Blitz: Germany bombs London
Gas: $0.18/galHome: $2,938Min wage: $0.30/hrPresident: Franklin D. Roosevelt"I'll Never Smile Again" — Tommy DorseyBest Picture: Rebecca
1950Turned 70
Korean War begins
Gas: $0.27/galHome: $7,354Min wage: $0.75/hrPresident: Harry S. Truman"Goodnight Irene" — Gordon Jenkins & The WeaversBest Picture: All About Eve
1951Died at 71
First color TV broadcast in the US
Gas: $0.27/galHome: $7,925Min wage: $0.75/hrPresident: Harry S. Truman"Too Young" — Nat King ColeBest Picture: An American in Paris
Key Achievements
- Completed the first trans-Arctic flight aboard the airship Norge with Amundsen and Nobile in 1926.
- Led the first successful trans-Antarctic flight in 1935 with pilot Herbert Hollick-Kenyon.
- Claimed approximately 350,000 square miles of Antarctic territory, naming it Ellsworth Land.
Did You Know?
He attended but did not graduate from both Yale and Columbia, seeking a more adventurous life.
The mountain range he discovered in Antarctica is named the Ellsworth Mountains.
He survived a crash landing in the Arctic in 1925 and lived on an ice floe for over three weeks.
His Antarctic plane, the Polar Star, is now preserved at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
“The worst thing about an expedition is that you never know when it's really over.”
