Charles Lindbergh's Real Name: Charles Augustus Lindbergh

Quick answer: The aviator and author was known as Charles Lindbergh. A Kansas Historical Society biography and a PBS American Experience film transcript both record the full name Charles Augustus Lindbergh, the birth date February 4, 1902, in Detroit, Michigan, and the death date August 26, 1974. The Kansas account places the death in Kipahulu, Hawaii; the PBS account describes a later home on the eastern tip of Maui and gives the same date without naming Kipahulu.

Real name and early life

The Kansas Historical Society entry lists Charles Augustus Lindbergh as the son of Charles August and Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh, born February 4, 1902, in Detroit, Michigan. The PBS transcript independently gives the same date and city and says he was raised on the family farm near Little Falls, Minnesota. Kansas says he enrolled in the school of engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison but left that course of study. Both accounts describe the May 20-21, 1927, solo flight from Roosevelt Field, New York, to Le Bourget, outside Paris, in the Spirit of St. Louis. Kansas dates the departure to May 20 and the landing to May 21, after 33.5 hours; PBS independently gives the same dates and a flight of 33-1/2 hours.

Career highlights

Kansas says he wrote an autobiography of the flight that became a bestseller and later donated the Spirit of St. Louis to the Smithsonian. The PBS transcript independently says he later won the Pulitzer Prize for The Spirit of St. Louis, a book that chronicles the flight. The Kansas account records that one of the couple's six children was killed in a highly publicized 1930s kidnapping and trial, after which the family went to Europe. Both the PBS account and a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum encyclopedia article independently describe his later role as a spokesperson for the America First Committee, an organization that argued against U.S. intervention in World War II. The museum article focuses on a September 11, 1941, speech in Des Moines, Iowa; PBS also locates a speech in Des Moines. After the United States entered the war, Kansas says he became a technical advisor.

Death

Kansas records his death on August 26, 1974, in Kipahulu, Hawaii, and says he lived his later years on Maui. PBS independently says he died early in the morning of August 26, 1974, and describes a later home on the eastern tip of Maui, without using the place name Kipahulu in that death sentence.

Name notes for searchers

People looking up Charles Lindbergh or Charles Augustus Lindbergh are looking for the same aviator and author. Both biographical sources used here record the longer name.