19 May 2026 Who knew Amelia Earhart designed luggage?

May 20–21 marks when Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. I remember reading about her in elementary school. She was actually the first biography I can recall, and I was fascinated by her.

But I recently found out something that I’d never known, and it had nothing to do with her being a pilot.

She designed clothing and luggage.

Of course she did! Of course, someone like Amelia Earhart would care about whether things actually worked, that they made life easier, that they helped people move through the world a little more freely.

It also struck me because people confuse style with function all the time. Something can look great, sound smart, and photograph beautifully, and still be completely useless in real life.

Cleaning advice is like that too. There’s a lot of it that looks good from a distance. It’s tidy, it’s clever, it’s very pleasing to the eye. But if it only works for people with endless time, endless energy, and a house that never really gets lived in, then I’m not terribly impressed.

I’ve always had stronger feelings about what works than what merely looks good. Give me the tool that does the job well, the product that makes the job easier, the system that helps real people stay on top of a real home without turning cleaning into a part-time job.

That may not be glamorous, but useful has its own kind of beauty.

Maybe that’s why I liked learning that about Amelia Earhart so much. Not because it makes her seem more stylish, but because it makes her seem even more like herself. She designed things for people who had somewhere to be.

There’s a lot to be said for things that are built to be useful.

Cheerfully,