The Wright Brothers

by David McCullough

  The Path Between the Seas

  * * *

  “A book so compelling and complete as to be a literary monument . . . McCullough has written sort of work which brings us to the human center of the past.” —Los Angeles Times

  The Great Bridge

  * * *

  “A first rate example of the documentary method. . . . Mr. McCullough is a good writer and painstaking reporter and he has re-created that now almost mythic cataclysm . . . with the thoroughness the subject demands.” —The New Yorker

  Johnstown Flood

  * * *

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  DAVID McCULLOUGH has twice received the Pulitzer Prize, for Truman and John Adams, and twice received the National Book Award, for The Path Between the Seas and Mornings on Horseback. His other acclaimed books are 1776, Brave Companions, The Johnstown Flood, The Great Bridge, and The Greater Journey. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award.

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  ALSO BY

  DAVID McCULLOUGH

  The Greater Journey

  1776

  John Adams

  Truman

  Brave Companions

  Mornings on Horseback

  The Path Between the Seas

  The Great Bridge

  The Johnstown Flood

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  SOURCE NOTES

  Prologue

  One savant in Spain: Moolman, The Road to Kitty Hawk, 20.

  Others devised wings: Gibbs-Smith, Aviation: An Historical Survey from Its Origins to the End of the Second World War, 6.

  And starting about 1490, Leonardo da Vinci: “Leonardo da Vinci as Aviation Engineer,” Scientific American Monthly, April 1921.

  “Look here, boys”: Kelly, The Wright Brothers: A Biography, 8.

  They called it the “bat”: Orville Wright, “The Wright Brothers’ Aeroplane,” Century Magazine, No. 5, September 1908; Jakab and Young, eds., The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 24.

  Orville’s first teacher in grade school: Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 57.

  1. Beginnings

  “If I were giving a young man advice”: Remarks given by Wilbur Wright at the Twenty-fourth Annual Banquet of the Ohio Society of New York on January 10, 1910, Reports of Proceedings, 1910, New York: Ohio Society of New York, 1910, 93–138, as cited in Jakab and Young, eds., The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright, p. 35, footnote 1.

  “Truth to tell”: The Auto: The Motorist’s Pictorial, Vol. 14, 1909, 264; H. Massac Buist, “The Human Side of Flying,” Flight Magazine, March 6, 1909.

  “Inseparable as twins”: Bishop Milton Wright to Carl Dienstbach, December 22, 1903, McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Vol. 1, 400; Bishop Wright to Mrs. E. J. Wright, December 31, 1904, Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Library of Congress (hereinafter referred to as LOC).

  even “thought together”: Wilbur Wright, April 3, 1912, McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Vol. 1, Preface.

  “something terrible”: Taylor, “My Story of the Wright Brothers,” Collier’s Weekly, December 25, 1948; Jakab and Young, eds., The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 290.

  “tremendously active of movement”: Automotor Journal, March 1909.

  walking always with a long, rapid stride: Buist, “The Human Side of Flying,” Flight Magazine, March 6, 1909.

  “I have no memory at all”: Washington Post, October 4, 1908.

  He could cut himself off from everyone: Miller, ed., Wright Reminiscences, 62.

  “The strongest impression one gets”: Coles, “The Wright Boys as a Schoolmate Knew Them,” Out West Magazine, January 1910.

  “unusual presence”: Miller, ed., Wright Reminiscences, 64.

  “never rattled”: Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, 15.

  “Will seems to enjoy writing”: Orville Wright to George A. Spratt, June 7, 1903, McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Vol. 1, 310.

  “peculiar spells”: Wilbur Wright to Bishop Wright, July 20, 1907, Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, LOC.

  “Mr. Orville Wright does not possess”: Buist, “The Human Side of Flying,” Flight Magazine, March 13, 1909.

  it was up to Wilbur to marry first: Taylor, “My Story of the Wright Brothers”; Jakab and Young, eds., The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 289.

  “woman-shy”: Ibid.

  “get awfully nervous”: Ibid.

  After finishing at Ohio’s Oberlin College: Kelly, ed., Miracle at Kitty Hawk: The Letters of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 4.

  “I nipped their smartness in the bud”: Katharine Wright to Bishop Wright, September 25, 1901, Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, LOC.

  gold-rimmed, pince-nez glasses: See Bishop Wright’s diary entry for June 22, 1899, Milton Wright, Diaries, 1857–1917, 320 and photo on 490. The original diary of Bishop Milton Wright is located at the Special Collections and Archives Department, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio.

  “Of the sawed-off variety”: Katharine to Orville, July 10, 1905, Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, LOC.

  “He sits around and picks that thing”: Katharine to Bishop Wright, August 22, 1900, ibid.

  “You have a good mind”: Bishop Wright to Katharine, May 30, 1888, ibid.

  Among themselves Wilbur was Ullam: Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, 50.

  “regular genius”: Richard Maurer, The Wright Sister: Katharine Wright and Her Famous Brothers, 22.

  “He was grave in countenance”: Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, 25.

  “a devotion to something beyond mere material splendor”: Drury, History of the City of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, Vol. I, 181.

  “the courage of their dreams”: Howells, Stories of Ohio, 287.

  “Pick out a good father and mother”: Remarks given by Wilbur Wright at the Twenty-fourth Annual Banquet of the Ohio Society of New York on January 10, 1910, Reports of Proceedings, 1910, New York: Ohio Society of New York, 1910, 93–138, as cited in Jakab and Young, eds., The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright, p. 35, footnote 1.

  “cities of marvelous growth”: Bishop Wright to Katharine, May 30, 1888, Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, LOC.

  three locomotives were required: Bishop Wright to Susan Wright, June 2, 1888, ibid.

  “Yesterday, I came down here”: Bishop Wright to Orville, July 31, 1888, ibid.

  “good mettle”: Bishop Wright to Wilbur Wright, September 24, 1908, ibid.

  “It is assumed that young folks know best”: Bishop Wright to Wilbur and Orville, October 15, 1907, ibid.

  “the apple of his eye”: Katharine to Wilbur, July 16, 1908, ibid.

  his grades were in the 90s: See Wilbur Wright’s report cards, Wright Family Papers, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio.

  “man who threw the bat”: Milton Wright, Diaries, 1857–1917, 778.

  Oliver Crook Haugh: See Dalton, With Malice Toward All: The Lethal Life of Dr. Oliver C. Haugh.

  “Oliver never was without the wish”: Dayton Journal, April 19, 1907.

  “Cocaine Toothache Drops”: Dalton, With Malice Toward All, 9–10.

  he had to be committed: Ibid., 14–15.

  digestive complications: Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, 75.

  “Such devotion of a son”: “Wilbur Wright, Bor
n in Henry County,” 1909, Wright Family Scrapbooks, Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, LOC.

  “What does Will do?”: Lorin Wright to Katharine, November 12, 1888, Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, LOC.

  Between formal education at school: Author’s conversation with Amanda and Steven Wright.

  Those works he considered “very serious”: “Books in Wright’s Home Library,” February 10, 1937, Benson Ford Research Library, Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan.

  “He talked very freely”: Washington Post, October 4, 1908.

  “Every mind should be true”: Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1, 179.

  “But it isn’t true”: Fred C. Kelly, “Interview with Orville Wright,” Today, March 31, 1934; Jakab and Young, eds., The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 83.

  “My father and brother seeing my determination”: Carl J. Crane, “Interview with Orville Wright,” University of Dayton Exponent, April 1924; Jakab and Young, eds., The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 60.

  offering “BIG BARGAINS”: West Side News, March 1, 1889.

  The editorial content for this: Material taken from various issues of West Side News at the Dayton Metropolitan Library, Dayton, Ohio.

  “Orville Wright is out of sight”: See McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Vol. 2, 695–96, footnote 1.

  In 1893, through the influence of Bishop Wright: Stimson, “Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Wright Brothers’ Friend,” The Wright Stories, www.wrightstories.com.

  “She was of retiring disposition”: Orville and Wilbur Wright, “Tribute to Our Mother,” West Side News, July 3, 1889.

  “The Fourth had its Chinese firecrackers”: Bishop Wright to Wilbur, July 7, 1907, Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, LOC.

  “We’ve been so busy for the past few weeks”: Orville to Bishop Wright, September 27, 1892, ibid.

  “I’ve been making $2.00 to $3.25”: Ibid.

  “We have been living fine since you left”: Wilbur to Katharine, September 18, 1892, ibid.

  headed off on a “run” to the south: Ibid.

  One Philadelphia physician: Prendergast, “The Bicycle for Women,” American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, August 1, 1896.

  Voices were raised in protest: “The Bicycle and Its Riders,” Cincinnati Lancet and Clinic, September 11, 1897.

  “not infrequently accompanied”: Ibid.

  “Cloudy day, but moderate”: Milton Wright, Diaries, 1857–1917, 412.

  “an honorable pursuit”: Wilbur to Bishop Wright, September 12, 1894, Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, LOC.

  “I do not think I am specially fitted”: Ibid.

  “In business it is the aggressive man”: Wilbur to Lorin Wright, June 18, 1901, ibid.

  “I do not think a commercial life will suit you well”: Bishop Wright to Wilbur, September 15, 1894, ibid.

  “It will have large tubing, high frame”: Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, 113.

  “Van Cleves get there First”: 1897 newspaper ad.

  “Through fair and liberal dealing”: Van Cleve catalogue, Wright Cycle Company, Dayton, Ohio, 1900, 3.

  “If we happened to be sitting”: Tobin, To Conquer the Air, 92.

  2. The Dream Takes Hold

  “I wish to avail myself of all that is already known”: Wilbur to the Smithsonian Institution, May 30, 1899, Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, LOC.

  the habit of worry was strong in him: Katharine to Wilbur and Orville, September 4, 1902, ibid.

  In the late summer of 1896: See Bishop Wright’s diary entries from September 4 to September 22, 1896, 458–59.

  “Put him in the best room for air”: Bishop Wright to Katharine, August 31, 1896, Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, LOC.

  “prominent investigators”: Combs and Caidin, Kill Devil Hill: Discovering the Secrets of the Wright Brothers, 41.

  “What we are seeking is the means of free motion”: Vernon, “The Flying Man,” McClure’s Magazine, Vol. 3, 1894, 325.

  his normal segel apparat: Chant, A Century of Triumph: The History of Aviation, 11.

  “stood like an athlete”: Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys, 144.

  On August 9, 1896: Gibbs-Smith, Aviation, 79.

  “It must not remain our desire”: Ibid., 221.

  “Aerial locomotion has always excited”: Marey, Animal Mechanism: A Treatise on Terrestrial and Aerial Locomotion, 4.

  “Those authors who regard artificial flight”: Pettigrew, Animal Locomotion; or Walking, Swimming, and Flying, with a Dissertation on Aeronautics, 3.

  “Of all animal movements”: Ibid., 6–7.

  They “read up on aeronautics as a physician would read”: Howard, Wilbur and Orville: A Biography of the Wright Brothers, 144.

  The building was a two-story, red-brick duplex: See Keefer, The Wright Cycle Shop Historical Report, Benson Ford Research Library, Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village, Dearborn, MI, Summer 2004, 3, 5, 15.

  Dayton suffered the worst flood: Orville to Bishop Wright, March 31, 1898, Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, LOC.

  “We had a very narrow escape”: Ibid.

  Frank Hamberger, recalled how: Dayton Journal, May 31, 1912.

  a friend of the Wrights named Cord Ruse: Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 43.

  The Bishop and Katharine had gone to Woodland Cemetery: Milton Wright, Diaries, 1857–1917, 506.

  “I have been interested in the problem of mechanical and human flight”: McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, LOC, Vol. 1, 4.

  Hiram Maxim had reportedly spent $100,000: Leland D. Case, “Orville Wright: First Man to Fly,” The Rotarian, April 1948; Jakab and Young, eds., The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 99.

  In the 1850s, one French inventor’s ingenious idea: New York Times, June 23, 1853.

  “the flying-machine crank”: San Francisco Chronicle, February 16, 1890.

  “The body is supported by a pair of wings”: Washington Post, June 28, 1896.

  “It is a fact . . . that man can’t fly”: Ibid., December 24, 1897.

  “The birds can fly and why can’t I?”: Fiske-Bates, ed., Cambridge Book of Poetry and Song, 788–89.

  “only a question of knowledge and skill”: McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Vol. 1, 4.

  “one of the most remarkable pieces of aeronautical literature”: Wilbur Wright, “What Mouillard Did,” Aero Club of America Bulletin, April 1912; Jakab and Young, eds., The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 172.

  flight had become a “cause”: Ibid.

  “like a prophet crying in the wilderness”: Wilbur Wright quoted in The Literary Digest, April 27, 1912, 879.

  “When once this idea has invaded the brain”: Mouillard, “The Empire of the Air: An Ornithological Essay on the Flight of Birds,” extracted and translated from “L’Empire de l’Air: Essai d’Ornithologie appliquee a l’Aviation.”

  “Oh, blind humanity!”: Ibid.

  “He knows how to rise, how to float”: Ibid.

  “lead men to navigate”: Ibid.

  “infected us with”: Wilbur and Orville Wright, “The Wright Brothers Aeroplane,” Century Magazine, September 1908; Jakab and Young, eds., The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 25.

  attaining “equilibrium” or balance in flight: Wilbur to Octave Chanute, November 16, 1900, McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Vol. 1, 43.

  “his inability to properly balance his machine”: Orville Wright on the Wright Experiments of 1899, ibid., 7.

  “positive and energetic methods”: Wilbur to Octave Chanute, May 13, 1900, ibid., 17.

  could be twisted or “warped”: Orville Wright on the Wright Experiments of 1899, ibid., 8–9.

  “According to Wilbur’s account of the tests”: Ibid., 11.

  “the boys” had given her: Katharine to Bishop Wright, August 22, 1900, Papers o
f Wilbur and Orville Wright, LOC.

  “I guess that’s about enough, Orv”: Kelly, ed., Miracle at Kitty Hawk, 18.

  “Mr. Orville would stop instantly”: Ibid.

  sufficient winds could be counted on: Wilbur to Octave Chanute, May 13, 1900, McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Vol. 1, 18–19.

  “deficient in sand hills”: Octave Chanute to Wilbur, May 17, 1900, ibid., 21.

  In answer to an inquiry Wilbur sent: Wilbur to Instrument Division, U.S. Weather Bureau, November 27, 1899, ibid., 12, footnote 7.

  extensive records of monthly wind velocities: Ibid.

  the farthest the brothers had been from home: Katharine to Bishop Wright, September 26, 1900, Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, LOC.

  “Mr. J. J. Dosher of the Weather Bureau here”: William Tate to Wilbur, August 18, 1900, ibid.

  The total cost of all the necessary pieces and parts: Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 57.

  Wilbur was to go first: Katharine to Bishop Wright, September 5, 1900, McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Vol. 1, 23.

  “I never did hear of such an out-of-the-way place”: Katharine to Bishop Wright, October 4, 1900, Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, LOC.

  3. Where the Winds Blow

  One ship drives east: Felleman, The Best Loved Poems of the American People, 364.

  Wilbur reached Norfolk by train on September 7, 1900: Fragmentary Memorandum by Wilbur Wright, circa September 13, 1900, McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Vol. 1, 23–24.

  he nearly collapsed: Ibid., 24.

  long spruce strips necessary for his “machine”: Wilbur to Bishop Wright, September 23, 1900, ibid., 26.

  a boatman on the waterfront, one Israel Perry: Fragmentary Memorandum by Wilbur Wright, circa September 13, 1900, ibid., 24.

  “Oh, it’s safer than the big boat”: Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 59.