by James Tobin
“The great difficulty”: Quoted in Dorothy Harley Eber, Genius at Work: Images of Alexander Graham Bell (New York: Viking Press, 1982), 88.
Often Bell imitated: Hargrave’s box kites, Charles Gibbs-Smith, The Invention of the Aeroplane, 1799–1909 (New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1966), 19–21; Valerie Moolman, The Road to Kitty Hawk (Alexandria, VA.: Time-Life Books, 1980), 95.
“Do not increase the size”: And “let everything be built up,” Eber, Genius at Work, 91.
“the brick, as it were”: Quoted in Bruce, Bell, 437.
“Eagle flight is marked”: Gilson Gardner, “When Men Wear Wings,” Technical World Magazine, December 1905, scrapbooks, WBP, LC.
“In multi-cellular kites”: Copy, AGB to OC, 9/29/1903, box 150, AGB papers, LC.
“Other kites, in a gust”: Typescript copy, “Dr. A. Graham Bell’s Address Before the Canadian Club of Ottawa, March 27, 1909,” Bulletin of the AEA, XXXIX, 4/12/1909, NASM Library, SI. It would later be learned, according to Robert V. Bruce, that “the center of pressure on each small cell moved only a fraction of the cell’s length as the angle of flight changed. In a single-celled kite of the same overall dimensions, the pressure center would move by a comparable fraction of the whole kite’s length and therefore many times as far by absolute measure. So a small cell unit gave Bell’s kites more stability.” Bell, 437.
Soon after that, a tetrahedral: Successful flights of early tetrahedral kites, J. H. Parkin, Baldwin and Bell: Their Development of Aerodynamics and Hydrodromes at Baddeck, Nova Scotia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), 10–11.
Workers from Baddeck: Baddeck workers building kites, Eber, Genius at Work, 94–101.
“There were so many kites”: Mayme Morrison Brown, quoted in Eber, Genius at Work, 105.
“continually more wrought up”: Quoted in Bruce, Bell, 367.
“I do so appreciate”: Quoted in Bruce, Bell, 367.
“You simply must get that machine to fly”: Copy, Mabel Bell to AGB, 9/1/1903, box 148, AGB papers, LC.
“He looked gray”: Quoted in Bruce, Bell, 438.
“more and more desperate”: Copy, Mabel Bell to Arthur McCurdy, 12/28/1905, box 60, AGB papers, LC.
Every morning the family: Trials of the Frost King, including Neil McDermid’s “flight,” copy, Mabel Hubbard Bell to Arthur McCurdy, 12/28/1905, box 60, AGB papers, LC, and “Copy from Mrs. Alexander Graham Bell’s Journal that Contains Only This Kite Episode,” box 149, AGB papers, LC.
“At the present time”: WW and OW to Georges Besançon, 1/17/1906, GC, WBP, LC.
“The idea of selling to a single government”: WW to OC, 12/27/1905, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 1, 539–40.
“We do not wish to take this invention abroad”: WW and OW to secretary of war, 10/9/1905, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 1, 514–15.
“the experimental development of devices”: Major General J. C. Bates to WW and OW, 10/16/1905, reprinted in Fred C. Kelly, ed., Miracle at Kitty Hawk: The Letters of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: Farrar, Straus & Young, 1951), 148–49.
“We have no thought”: WW and OW to Board of Ordnance and Fortification, 10/19/1905, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 1, 518.
“not care to formulate any requirements”: Minutes of Board of Ordnance and Fortification meeting of 10/24/1905, reprinted in Kelly, ed., Miracle at Kitty Hawk, 151–52.
“so insulting in tone”: WW to Godfrey L. Cabot, 5/19/1906, GC, WBP, LC.
a British engineer’s letter: Letter, The Times, 1/24/1906.
“If such sensational and tremendously important experiments”: “The Wright Aeroplane and Its Fabled Performances,” Scientific American, 1/13/1906.
“It seems strange”: Copy, AGB to Mabel Bell, 6/26/1906, box 48, AGB papers, LC.
“If they will not take our word”: WW and OW to Georges Besançon, 1/17/1905, GC, WBP, LC.
In the spring of 1906: Santos-Dumont experiments of 1906, Peter Wykeham, Santos-Dumont: A Study in Obsession (London: Putnam, 1962), 203–15.
“It seems to be the opinion”: “Have an Aeroplane to Sell,” New York Sun, 1/25/1907, scrapbooks, WBP, LC.
“take an unexpected part”: OW to Commander Holden C. Richardson, 2/17/1926, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2, 1137–39. On the Wrights’ preparations for a Jamestown flyover, see also “Newest Invention of Wright Brothers will Carry Their Aeroplane on Water,” Dayton Herald, 3/21/1907, scrapbooks, WBP, LC.
“I do hope”: KW to WW, 6/27/1907, FC, WBP, LC.
“It is desperate to be so in the dark”: And “Sister is sick enough,” KW to WW and OW, 7/28/1907, FC, WBP, LC.
“though I sometimes restrained myself”: WW hears of Chanute’s role in Wrights’ work, WW to OC, 1/29/1910, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2, 984.
Orville was in Paris: Meeting of OW, Berg, and Archdeacon, OW to MW, 11/19/1907, FC, WBP, LC.
“One could just force it”: quoted in Curtis Prendergast, The First Aviators (Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1980), 30.
“nature makes no distinctions”: Parkin, Bell and Baldwin, 25.
“worked it out far enough to demonstrate”: Mabel Bell, private memorandum, copied as “Notes from an Old Note Book of Mabel G. Bell Evidently Written in Fall of 1907. . .” 7/25/1923, box 143, AGB papers, LC.
“For years [Mabel told him]”: Mabel Bell to AGB, 1/24/1907, box 143, AGB papers, LC.
“You have tried struggling”: Ibid.
One day in 1885: Bell fixes McCurdy’s telephone, Grosvenor and Wesson, Alexander Graham Bell, 137.
“casual, friendly and unworried”: H. Gordon Green and J. A. D. McCurdy, “I Flew the Silver Dart,” Weekend Magazine, vol. 9, no. 6, 1959.
because Curtiss’s sister was deaf: Bruce, Bell, 446–47.
She ticked off responses: Mabel Bell’s case for forming AEA, Mabel Bell to AGB, 1/24/1907, 1/24/1907, box 143, AGB papers, LC.
The AEA’s first project: Bruce, Bell, 447–48.
“It seems unfortunate”: Quoted in Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, 341.
Chapter Eleven: “A World of Trouble”
“a sidelong pair of parentheses”: C. R. Roseberry, Glenn Curtiss: Pioneer of Flight (New York, Doubleday, 1972), 91.
“It is a beautiful machine”: Copy, AGB to Mabel Bell, 3/9/1908, box 49, AGB papers, LC.
On March 12, a good portion: Design, construction, and first flight of Red Wing, Parkin, Bell and Baldwin, 50–54; Grosvenor and Wesson, Alexander Graham Bell: The Life and Times of the Man Who Invented the Telephone, 221–22; C. R. Roseberry, Glenn Curtis, 90–93.
“This is declared”: Bell’s characterization of the Red Wing’s first flight as “the first successful public flight in America” appears in “Work of the Aerial Experiment Association as Recorded in Associated Press Dispatches Written by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell,” 5/17/1908, [Internet] AGB papers, LC. “Bell’s Aerodrome Tested,” New York Times, 3/13/1908; “New Airship Flies,” Washington Post, 3/13/1908.
The men released: Second flight and crash of Red Wing, Glenn Curtiss to AGB, 3/19/1908, box 143, AGB papers, LC; Charles R. Cox, “Lecture on Aviation at Baddeck,” Bulletin of the Aerial Experiment Association, no. XXXVIII, 3/29/1909, National Air and Space Museum Library, SI.
“moveable surfaces”: quoted in Roseberry, Glenn Curtiss, 96–97.
“We were familiar”: Roseberry, Glenn Curtiss, 97.
“if, as I have reason”: Roseberry, Glenn Curtis, 97.
Every month brought fresh news: French flights in March 1908, “The First Two-Passenger Aeroplane,” Scientific American, 4/11/1908.
“There is a great deal of interest”: Stanley Y. Beach to OW and WW, 4/23/1908, GC, WBP, LC.
The Army wanted: U.S. Army requirements for Wright flying machine trials, “Articles of Agreement,” U.S. Signal Corps and Wilbur and Orville Wright, 2/10/1908: WW and OW, “Our Recent Experiments in North Carolina,” Aeronautics, June 1908, reprinted in Jakab and Young, Published Writings, 19–21; WW and OW, “Our Aeroplane Tests at Kitty Ha
wk,” Scientific American, 6/13/1908, reprinted in Jakab and Young, Published Writings, 21–23.
“a little practice”: WW to OC, 4/8/1908, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2, 861.
At the Kill Devil Hills: Scenes and preparations in WW’s first days at Kitty Hawk in April 1908, WW to OW, 4/9/1908, WW to KW, 4/14/1908, KW to MW, 4/16/1908, FC, WBP, LC; WW’s Diary T, 4/10/1908, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2 862.
He introduced himself: WW-Newton exchange regarding Delagrange flight of 5/13/1908, “Wilbur Wright on Delagrange Flight,” New York Herald, 5/13/1908, scrapbooks, WBP, LC.
And the eight or ten: Reporters and their tactics at Kitty Hawk in 1908, OW to KW, 5/13/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“Collier’s is deeply interested”: Arthur Ruhl to WW and OW, 1/28/1907, GC, WBP, LC.
The men at the lifesaving station: Lifesaving crew as sources for reporters, WW to OW, 5/20/1908. Of his accident, Wilbur told Orville: “If the life savers had not been crazy to spread it so soon it would have attracted no attention in the papers.”
“like faint smoke”: Arthur Ruhl, “History at Kill Devil Hill,” Collier’s, 5/30/1908.
“a runaway street car”: Gilson Gardner, “Wright Brothers’ Airship Steers Like Car; Flies Fast,” Chicago Journal, 5/15/1908, scrapbooks, WBP, LC.
“to the world waiting”: Ruhl, “History at Kill Devil Hill.”
“hardly write an ordinary sentence”: Arthur Ruhl to Eliza Drane, [5/14/1908], Robert Drane papers, #2987, folder 7A, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“hanging about in the woods”: WW to OW, 5/17/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“be as civil as you can”: KW to WW, 5/17/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“It is a good thing sometimes”: WW to OW, 5/20/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“beat any roller coaster”: OW to KW, 5/10/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
After the midday meal: WW’s experience of flight that ended in wreck, WW’s Diary T, 5/14/1908, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2, 877–79.
A mile away, Orville: OW’s view of WW’s crash of 5/14/1908, OW to MW, 5/15/1908, FC, WBP, LC. A good summary of the Wrights’ flights at Kitty Hawk in 1908 appears in their draft press statement attached to a letter, OW to Stanley Y. Beach, 6/2/1908, GC, WBP, LC.
“I do not think the accident”: WW to KW, 5/17/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“all Hammondsport seems to be alive”: Copy, AGB to Mabel Bell, 5/11/1908, box 49, AGB papers, LC.
“fine bright-looking boys”: Copy, AGB to Mabel Bell, 5/11/1908, box 49, AGB papers, LC.
“for fear the wind would go down”: Presence of inventors, reporters, and Aero Club officials, copy, AGB to Mabel Bell, 5/11/1908, box 49, AGB papers, LC.
He remained just as avid: Bell’s thoughts on tetrahedral experiments at Hammondsport, copy, AGB to Mabel Bell, 5/12/1908, box 49, AGB papers, LC.
“I have not the heart”: Copy, AGB to Mabel Bell, 5/3/1908, box 49, AGB papers, LC.
Rolling the machine out: White Wing’s early false starts, “Work of the Aerial Experiment Association as Recorded in Associated Press Dispatches Written by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell,” 5/17/1908, [Internet] AGB papers, LC.
On May 18, just: Baldwin’s and Selfridge’s first flights of White Wing and Bell’s comment to reporters, Roseberry, Glenn Curtiss, 99–100.
To bring the machine’s: Curtiss’s alterations on White Wing, Roseberry, Glenn Curtiss, 100.
On the second run: Curtiss’s successful flight in White Wing, G. H. Curtiss, “Ideas on Aviation,” Bulletin of the Aerial Experiment Association, 8/10/1908, NASM Library, SI; Roseberry, Glenn Curtiss, 100–101.
A day later, barely: McCurdy’s crash in the White Wing, J. A. D. McCurdy, “Experiences in the Air,” Bulletin of the Aerial Experiment Association, 8/10/1908, NASM Library, SI. For a photograph of the ruined White Wing, see Eber, Genius at Work, 133.
He was already pining: That Curtiss “coveted” the Scientific American trophy is asserted in Roseberry, Glenn Curtiss, 102–3.
“I will talk to you”: “Wright Brothers Silent,” Washington Post, 5/18/1908.
“They are so afraid”: “Wright Brothers Avoid Curiosity of Outsiders,” New York Herald (Paris edition), 5/5/1908, scrapbooks, WBP, LC.
“On account of the mystery”: “Secret of the Wright Air-Ship,” Literary Digest, [June 1908], scrapbooks, WBP, LC.
“Today’s performance, while not equal”: “Wright Brothers in Great Flight,” New York Herald article reprinted in Philadelphia Inquirer, 5/14/1908, scrapbooks, WBP, LC.
“the brothers Wright have certainly made serious flights”: “Mr. Farman’s Challenge Unanswered by Wrights,” New York Herald, 5/18/1908, scrapbooks, WBP, LC.
When the New York reporters: WW’s exchanges with reporters in New York, “Wright, Conqueror of the Air, Is Silent on Challenge,” New York Herald, 5/20/1908; “Wrights Make a Denial,” New York Journal, 5/18/1908, scrapbooks, WBP, LC; WW’s Diary T, 5/20/1908, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2, 882; WW to OW, 5/20/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“We were worried”: KW to WW, 5/17/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“To read what Anderson had to say”: KW to WW, 5/26/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“a very nice letter”: And “makes me sick,” KW to WW, 5/31/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
Columbus, Robert Fulton, “and the Wright Brothers”: MW to OW, 5/18/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“the Wrights and their Flyer”: MW, Diaries, 1857–1917, entry of 5/29/1908, 677.
“It says that you are ‘slim, sedate and placid’”: MW to OW, 5/18/1908, FC, WBP, LC. Milton said the article was from the Philadelphia Press.
“We need to have our true story”: WW to OW, 5/20/1908. McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2, 882–83.
Inside the Flint offices: WW’s meeting with Nelson Miles and canceled meeting with Thomas Edison, WW’s Diary T, 5/20/1908, McFarland, Papers, vol. 2, 882.
“I do sometimes wish”: WW to KW, 5/19/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“in a fog so dense”: WW to MW, 5/28/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“I have never been able to discover”: OW to Arthur Ruhl, 6/8/1908, GC, WBP, LC.
“it always takes more time”: WW to OW, 5/20/1908, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2, 882–83.
“Do not attempt,” WW to OW, 5/29/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“If at any time Orville is not well”: WW to KW, 5/19/1908, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2, 881.
“The more I think of the circumstances”: WW to OW, 5/29/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“The fact that the newspapers”: WW to OW, 6/3/1908, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2, 886–87.
“Does he not intend”: WW to KW, 6/09/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“He doesn’t [write] as much”: KW to WW, 6/11/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“I am sure that with a scoop shovel”: WW to OW, 6/17/1908, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2, 900–901.
Will was forced: WW’s frustrations in repairing and preparing machine, WW’s Diary T, 6/9/1908, 6/19/1908, 6/20/1908, 6/22/1908, 6/24/1908, 6/25/1908, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2, 901–2; WW to OW, 6/20/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“I have had an awful job”: WW to OW, 6/20/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
a spout of boiling water: McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2, 906 note.
“If you had permitted me”: WW to OW, 7/9/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“The trouble comes at the Customs house”: OW to WW, 6/30/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“an anxiety lest something”: David Fairchild, “The Coming of the Winged Cycle,” Bulletin of the Aerial Experiment Association, 9/14/1908, NASM Library.
“it haunted me”: David Fairchild, The World Was My Garden (New York: Scribner’s, 1938), 343.
“seemed to be pleased”: G.H. Curtiss, “Winning the Scientific American Trophy, July 4, 1908,” Bulletin of the Aerial Experiment Association, 7/27/1908, NASM Library.
“In spite of all”: Mrs. David G. Fairchild, “Winning the Scientific American Trophy July 4, 1908,” Bulletin of the Aerial Experiment Association, 7/27/1908, NASM Library.
The th
ing is done: Fairchild, “The Coming of the Winged Cycle,” Bulletin of the AEA, 9/14/1908, NASM Library.
Chapter Twelve: “The Light on Glory’s Plume”
He wasted little time: WW’s instructions to OW on warning Curtiss about patent infringement, WW to OW, 7/10/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“We believe it would be very difficult”: OW to Glenn H. Curtiss, 7/20/1908, McFarland, Papers, vol. 2, 907.
Curtiss ducked: Curtiss plans no exhibition flights, OW reported Curtiss’s response in letter to WW, 7/29/1908, McFarland, Papers, vol. 2, 909–11.
In France, Wilbur slept: WW’s living circumstances at Le Mans, WW to KW, 8/2/1908, WW to MW, 8/5/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“I always tremble”: Hart Berg to OW, 9/21/1908, GC, WBP, LC.
Will promised her: Ivonette Wright Miller, comp., Wright Reminiscences (Air Force Museum Foundation, 1978).
“he is a pretty nice sort of fellow”: WW to OW, 6/17/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“On my part,”: Louis Blériot to WW, 8/1/1908, GC, WBP, LC.
“caused them to be despised”: “Aeronauts of France Are Confident,” Cincinnati Enquirer, 5/17/1908, scrapbooks, WBP, LC.
“Le bluff continue”: Fred C. Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 234.
“I think they have had their patience”: WW to KW, 8/2/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“When it became known”: “Wright Aeroplane Nearly Ready for Trial Flights,” Paris Herald, 7/5/1908, scrapbooks, WBP, LC.
“Mr. Brewer, let’s go and have some dinner”: Griffith Brewer, Fifty Years of Flying (London: Air League of the British Empire, 1946), 93–94.
“They have been hard at work”: McMechan’s speech and exchange between reporter and Farman, “Throws Brick at the Wrights,” New York Globe, 7/29/1908, scrapbooks, WBP, LC.
“It is now generally conceded”: Chanute’s article in The Independent, 6/4/1908, 1287–88.
“I think I will write him”: OW to WW, 7/19/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“The Bell outfit”: OW to WW, 6/7/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“a fool or a knave”: KW to WW, 6/1/1908, FC, WBP, LC.
“If you don’t hurry”: OW to WW, 7/29/1908, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2, 911.
“I am so tired”: KW to WW, 6/17/1908; FC, WBP, LC.
