16. Personal conversation of the author with Ivonette and Harold Miller.
17. Undated clippings, Hawthorn Hill scrapbook.
18. Katharine Wright to Milton Wright, quoted in Ivonette Wright Miller, unpublished reminiscences, author’s collection.
19. See references quoted in note 11.
20. The best treatment of the history of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and its predecessors is Louise Walker and Shirley E. Wickham, From Huffman Prairie to the Moon: The History of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (Dayton, Ohio: Office of History, 27501 Air Base Wing, 1986).
CHAPTER 37
1. Charles Lyon Seasholes, “A Letter to Mr. and Mrs. Harold S. Miller,” in Ivonette Wright Miller, ed., Wright Reminiscences (Dayton, Ohio: Privately printed, 1978), p. 195.
2. James McConnaughey, “Powered Plane Was Only One of Orville Wright’s Gadgets,” Kettering-Oakwood Times (Nov. 9, 1969).
3. Ibid.
4. Ivonette Wright Miller, in Miller, ed., Reminiscences, p. 16.
5. George Russell, “Reminiscences,” in ibid., p. 143.
6. Wilkinson Wright, personal conversation with the author.
7. Ivonette Wright Miller, in McConnaughey, “Powered Plane.”
8. Alfred S. Andrews, in Miller, ed., Reminiscences, p. 89.
9. Miller, ed., Reminiscences, pp. 23–24.
10. Charles A. Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals of Charles Lindbergh (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970), p. 277.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., p. 383.
14. John Evangelist Walsh, One Day at Kitty Hawk: The Untold Story of the Wright Brothers and the Airplane (New York: Crowell, 1975), p. 253.
15. Miller, ed., Reminiscences, p. 32.
16. Ibid.
17. Charles Greeley Abbot, “The 1914 Test of the Langley Aerodrome,” Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections (Washington D.C., Oct. 24, 1942), vol. 103, no. 8.
18. Arthur G. Renstrom, Wilbur and Orville Wright: A Chronology (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1975), pp. 100–103.
19. Notes, Wright-Langley Controversy files, Smithsonian Institution Archives; and typed copy of Orville Wright Will and Probate Petition, Probate Court of Montgomery County, Ohio, August 6, 1948, in RG 46, box 107, folder 6, Smithsonian Institution Archives.
20. Orville Wright to Lester Gardner, August 28, 1945, in Marvin W. McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953, cited hereafter as Papers), vol. 2, p. 1176.
21. Undated clipping, Wright Scrapbooks, 1947, Wright Papers, LC.
22. Miller, ed., Reminiscences, p. 39.
23. Undated news clipping, Wright Scrapbooks, 1948, LC.
24. Ibid.; Miller, ed., Reminiscences, p. 40.
25. Papers, vol. 1, pp. vii-xx.
26. Miller, ed., Reminiscences, pp. 41–42.
27. Alexander Wetmore to Henry H. Arnold, February 6, 1948, RG 46, box 108, Smithsonian Institution Archives.
28. Author’s conversations with Harold S. Miller, executor, Orville Wright estate; Probate petition.
29. Description of the ceremony is based on primary materials including programs, invitations, and correspondence in RG 46, box 107, Smithsonian Institution Archives. The quotation, “poor, and poorly read,” is from Miller, ed., Reminiscences, p. 46.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Much ink has been spilled in attempts to portray Wilbur and Orville Wright and their achievements. What follows is intended to introduce the reader to the major sources consulted during the preparation of The Bishop’s Boys, and to offer suggestions for those interested in further reading.
GENERAL:
Arthur G. Renstrom, Wilbur and Orville Wright: A Bibliography (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1968), serves as a starting point for any discussion of the Wright literature. The 2,055 items catalogued represent the vast bulk of what was said about Wilbur and Orville prior to 1968. The bibliography prepared by Dominick Pisano of the National Air and Space Museum for Richard P. Hallion, ed., The Wright Brothers: Heirs of Prometheus (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978), is a useful guide to materials published since Renstrom.
MANUSCRIPTS:
The majority of materials relating to Wilbur and Orville Wright are held by two repositories: the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, and the Wright State University Archives, Dayton, Ohio. For the most part, letters, diaries, the great bulk of the brothers’ correspondence, and other material relating to the invention of the airplane will be found in the Library of Congress. The fine collection at Wright State consists of what was once, incorrectly, regarded as the less important family and legal material. Patrick A. Nolan and John Zamonski, The Wright Brothers Collection: A Guide to the Technical, Business and Legal, Genealogical, Photographic, and Other Archives at Wright State University (New York: Garland Publishing, 1977), is a very useful guide to that collection. A much shorter aid is available for Wright materials at the Library of Congress. An additional smaller collection of original Wright material can be found at the Franklin Institute.
The Dayton Room of the Dayton and Montgomery County Public Library maintains the only complete collection of newspapers published by the brothers, as well as several fine unduplicated scrapbooks, and scattered materials relating to the family and to Milton’s church career. Other major scrapbook collections include those in the Wright Collection at the Library of Congress, and the Bell and Langley scrapbooks in the National Air and Space Museum Library. One interesting single scrapbook is in Orville’s library at Hawthorn Hill.
PHOTOGRAPHS:
The original glass plate negatives taken by Orville Wright as a record of the invention of the airplane are in the Library of Congress, which also holds one of the finest general photo collections relating to the brothers. A set of microfilm cards, including all the original glass plate images, is available for sale through the Library. The National Air and Space Museum Archive has another fine photo collection, all of which are included on a single laser-read video disc sold by the museum. The Wright State University is the third major repository of Wright images, many of them family snapshots not available elsewhere. Arthur G. Renstrom, Wilbur and Orville Wright: Pictorial Materials, a Documentary Guide (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1982), lists virtually all known photographs of the brothers except for those covered in Nolan and Zamonski, The Wright Brothers Collection.
Film of the Wrights and their machines is available in a number of repositories. The best collections are at the National Archive Motion Picture Branch; the USAF Central Audio-Visual Depository, Norton Air Force Base, and the National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C.
PRINTED PAPERS:
Marvin W. McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright: Including the Chanute-Wright Letters and Other Papers of Octave Chanute (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953), 2 vols., and Fred C. Kelly, ed., Miracle at Kitty Hawk: The Letters of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: Farrar, Straus & Young, 1951), reproduce the bulk of the useful manuscript material on the invention of the airplane. The Papers, in particular, represent one of the finest jobs of historical editing in this century.
BIOGRAPHIES:
There are seven noteworthy biographies of Wilbur and Orville Wright:
John R. McMahon, The Wright Brothers: Fathers of Flight (Boston: Little, Brown, 1930).
Fred C. Kelly, The Wright Brothers: A Biography Authorized by Orville Wright (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1943).
Elsbeth E. Freudenthal, Flight into History: The Wright Brothers and the Air Age (Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1949).
John Evangelist Walsh, One Day at Kitty Hawk: The Untold Story of the Wright Brothers and the Airplane (New York: Crowell, 1975).
Rosamond Young and Catharine Fitzgerald, Twelve Seconds to the Moon: A Story of the Wright Brothers (Dayton, Ohio: The Journal Herald, 1978).
Harry Coombs with Martin Caidin, Kill Devil Hill: Discovering the Secret of the Wright Broth
ers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979).
Fred Howard, Wilbur and Orville: A Biography of the Wright Brothers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987).
Fred Kelly had the enormous advantage of working directly with Orville Wright—his book has a flavor all the others lack. But he faced a disadvantage as well. The fact that Orville was looking over his shoulder limited the judgments he could make on the brothers and their work. His book is still marginally the best. Fred Howard offers a wealth of detail. Coombs, an engineer and aircraft company executive, provides fresh insight of real value into the Wright technology. Walsh is critical of Orville. Freudenthal too was generally critical, tending to favor Chanute’s point of view over that of the Wrights.
Two books on which I have relied heavily are Ivonette Wright Miller’s Wright Reminiscences (Dayton, Ohio: Privately printed, 1978) and Arthur G. Renstrom’s Wilbur and Orville Wright: A Chronology Commemorating the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Orville Wright (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1975). Mrs. Miller’s book, filled with the reminiscences of family and friends, is a priceless source of information on life at 7 Hawthorn Street. The day-by-day account offered by Renstrom, complete with the list of flights made by the brothers, is extraordinarily valuable to any scholar.
Special note should be taken of the work of Dr. Adrian Kinnane, a clinical psychologist at the Meyer Treatment Center of the George Washington University. His unpublished study, “The Crucible of Flight,” offers considerable insight into the dynamics of the Wright family and the importance of family values in the story of Wilbur and Orville Wright.
The following have proved especially useful in preparing this book:
Abbot, C. G., “The 1914 Test of the Langley Aerodrome,” Smithsonian Institution Miscellaneous Collections (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, Oct. 24, 1942).
——, The Relations Between the Smithsonian Institution and the Wright Brothers (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1928).
Adams, Heinrich, Flug von Heinrich Adams Unser Flieger von Wilbur und Orville Wright (Leipzig: C. F. Amelaags Verlag, 1909).
Adler, Cyrus, I Have Considered the Days (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1941).
Aero Club of America, Navigating the Air (New York: Doubleday, 1907).
“L’Aéroplane Archdeacon et les expériences de Merlimont,” L’Aérophile (June 1905).
Albertson, Catharine, Wings Over Kill Devil Hill and Legends of the Dunes (Elizabeth City, N.C.: Privately printed, 1928).
Amery, L. S., My Political Life 2 vols. (London, 1953).
Andrews, A. S., The Andrews, Clapp, Stokes, Wright, Van Cleve Genealogies (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.: Privately printed, 1984).
Archdeacon, Ernest, “M. Chanute en Paris,” La Locomotion (April 11, 1903), 225–227.
Arnold, Henry H., Global Mission (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949).
Baden-Powell, B.F.S. “A Trip with Wilbur Wright,” Aeronautics (December 1908).
Bauer, Charles J., “Ed Sines: Pal of the Wrights,” Popular Aviation (June 1938), 40.
Beck, Mabel, “The First Airplane After 1903,” U.S. Air Services (December 1954), 9–10.
Berger, Daniel, History of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ (Dayton, Ohio: United Brethren Publishing House, 1906).
Botting, Douglas, The Giant Airships (Arlington, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1980).
Brewer, Griffith, Fifty Years of Flying (London: Air League of the British Empire, 1946).
——, “Aviation’s Greatest Controversy,” Aeronautical Journal (December 1921), 620–664.
Butterfield, Roger, “Henry Ford, the Wayside Inn and the Problem of History Is Bunk,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society (January—December 1965), 60.
Casey, Louis, Curtiss: The Hammondsport Era, 1907–1915 (New York: Crown, 1981).
Chandler, Capt. C. DeF., and Frank P. Lahm, How Our Army Grew Wings: Airmen and Aircraft Before 1914 (New York: Ronald, 1943).
Chanute, Octave, Progress in Flying Machines (New York: M. N. Forney, 1894).
——, “Gliding Experiments,” Journal of the Western Society of Engineers (November 1897), 593–628.
——, “Experiments in Flying,” McClure’s Magazine (June 1900), 127–133.
Charnley, Mitchell V., The Boys’Life of the Wright Brothers (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1928).
Coffyn, Frank, “Flying with the Wrights,” World’s Work (December 1929), 80–86.
——, “Flying As It Was—Early Days in the Wrights’ School,” Sportsman Pilot (May 15, 1939), 14–15.
Coles, Thomas R., “The ‘Wright Boys’ as a Schoolmate Knew Them,” Out West (January 1910), 36–38.
Conover, Charlotte Reeve, Dayton: An Intimate History (New York: Lewis Historical Publishers, 1932).
Cox, Sanford C, Recollections of the Early Settlement of the Wabash Valley (Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1970).
Crane, John B., “Did Whitehead Actually Fly?” National Aeronautic Association Magazine (December 1936).
Crouch, Tom D., Blériot XI: The Story of a Classic Airplane (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982).
——, A Dream of Wings: Americans and the Airplane, 1875–1905 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981).
Davenport, William Wyatt, Gyro! The Life and Times of Lawrence Sperry (New York: Scribner’s, 1978).
“Dedication of the Wright Brothers Monument,” Air Corps Newsletter (September 1940), 7.
Dienstbach, Carl, “Dus Zwiete Lebansjahr der Praktische Flugsmacshine,” Illustriete Aeronautische Mitteilungen (February 1906), 50–54.
——, “The Recent Flights of the Wright Brothers in North Carolina,” American Aeronautics (June 1908), 209–211.
——, “The Revelations at Fort Myer,” American Aeronaut (September 1909), 81.
Drury, A. W., History of the City of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio (Dayton, Ohio: S. J. Clarke Co., 1909).
——, History of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ (Dayton, Ohio: United Brethren Publishing House, 1924).
Dupree, Hunter, Science and the Emergence of Modern America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953).
Esnault-Pelterie, Robert, “Expériences d’Aviation exécutées en 1904, en vérification de celles des frères Wright,” L’Aérophile (June 1905).
Fahey, James C., U.S. Army Aircraft, 1908–1946 (New York: Ships and Aircraft, 1946).
Ferber, Ferdinand [de Rue], “Expériences d’Aviation,” L’Aérophile (February 1903).
——, “Wilbur Wright à Paris,” L’Aérophile (June 1907), 167–168.
Fetters, Paul H., Trials and Triumphs: A History of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ (Huntington, Ind.: Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Department of Church Services, 1984).
Fisk, Fred C. “The Wright Brothers’ Bicycles,” The Wheelmen (November 1980), 2–15.
Fletcher, Allan, The Wright Brothers’ Home and Cycle Shop in Greenfield Village (Unpublished thesis, University of Michigan Program in Museum Practice, June 30, 1972). Copy in Greenfield Village Archives.
Flint, Charles, Memories of an Active Life: Men and Ships and Sealing Wax (New York: Putnam, 1923).
Foulois, Benjamin D., From the Wright Brothers to the Astronauts (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968).
Frost, Robert, “A Trip to Currituck, Elizabeth City, and Kitty Hawk (1894),” North Carolina Folklore (May 1968), vol. 16, 3–9.
“Genesis of the First Successful Aeroplane,” Scientific American (Dec. 15, 1906), 402.
Gibbs-Smith, Charles H., The Aeroplane: An Historical Survey (London: HMSO, 1960).
——, The Wright Brothers: A Brief Account of Their Work (London: HMSO, 1963).
——, The Invention of the Aeroplane, 1799–1909 (London: Faber & Faber, 1965).
——, Aviation: An Historical Survey from Its Origins to the End of World War II (London: HMSO, 1970).
——, The Rebirth of European Aviation, 1902–1908: A
Study of the Wright Brothers’ Influence (London: HMSO, 1974).
Gollin, Alfred, No Longer an Island: Britain and the Wright Brothers, 1902–1909 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1984). Goulder, Grace, Ohio Scenes and Citizens (Cleveland: World, 1964).
Greenleaf, William, From These Beginnings: The Early Philanthropies of Henry and Edsel Ford, 1911–1936 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1964).
Harper, Harry, My Fifty Years in Flying (London: Associated Newspapers, 1956).
Harris, Sherwood, The First to Fly: Aviation’s Pioneer Days (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970).
Hatch, Alden, Glenn Curtiss: Pioneer of Naval Aviation (New York: Messner, 1942).
“Have You Ever Visited Wright Hill?” NCR Factory News (August–September 1940).
Hayward, Charles B., Practical Aeronautics: An Understandable Presentation of Interesting and Essential Facts in Aeronautics, Parts 1 and 2 (Chicago: American Technical Society, 1917).
Hildebrandt, Capt. Alfred, “The Wright Brothers’ Flying Machine,” The American Magazine of Aeronautics (January 1908), 13–16.
The History of Montgomery County, Ohio (Chicago: W. H. Beers, 1882).
Hobbs, Leonard S., The Wright Brothers’ Engines and Their Design (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971).
Hodgins, Eric, “Heavier-Than-Air,” The New Yorker (Dec. 13, 1930), 29–32.
Hounshell, David, From the American System to Mass Production (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984).
Indiana: A Guide to the Hoosier State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941).
Johnson, Mary Ann, A Field Guide to Flight: On the Aviation Trial in Dayton, Ohio (Dayton, Ohio: Landfall Press, 1986).
Justice, Graham, “Hawthorn Hill Has a Special Place in World History,” NCR Factory News (June 1965).
Kinnane, Adrian, “The Crucible of Flight,” unpublished manuscript.
——, “A House United: Morality and Invention in the Wright Brothers Home,” The Psychohistory Review (Spring 1988), 367–397.
Koontz, Paul R., and Walter Edwin Roush, The Bishops: Church of the United Brethren in Christ. 2 Vols. (Dayton, Ohio: Otterbein Press, 1950).
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