The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright

by Crouch, Tom D.

  40. Ibid., p. 161–162.

  41. Arnold, Global Mission, pp. 19–20.

  42. Harris, First to Fly, p. 258.

  43. Calbraith Perry Rodgers biographical file, Library, National Air and Space Museum.

  44. Charles Taylor, “My Story of the Wright Brothers,” Collier’s (Dec. 25, 1948).

  45. New York Times, April 4, 1912.

  CHAPTER 32

  1. Wilbur Wright to Henry Peartree, March 7, 1911, in Marvin W. McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953, cited hereafter as Papers), vol. 2, p. 1018; Arthur Renstrom, Wilbur and Orville Wright: A Chronology (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1975, cited hereafter as Chronology) pp. 54–57.

  2. Wilbur Wright to Orville Wright, March 31, 1911, in Papers, vol. 2, p. 1020.

  3. Wilbur Wright, “What Ader Did,” Aero Club of America Bulletin (April 1912).

  4. Wilbur Wright to Orville Wright, March 31, 1911, in Papers, vol. 2, p. 1020.

  5. Ibid; Wilbur Wright, “What Ader Did.”

  6. Renstrom, Chronology, p. 66.

  7. Wilbur Wright to Katharine Wright, June 28, 1911, in Fred C. Kelly, ed., Miracle at Kitty Hawk (New York: Farrar, Straus & Young, 1951), p. 384.

  8. Wilbur Wright to Orville Wright, June 30, 1911, in ibid., pp. 384–385.

  9. See, for example, Wilbur Wright, June 9, 1907, in Papers, vol. 2, pp. 771–772.

  10. Tom D. Crouch, “A Machine of Practical Utility: The 1905 Wright Flyer,” Timelines (August–September 1905), 24–37.

  11. For a complete treatment of the 1911 glider trials, see Papers, vol. 2, pp. 1024–1029; Renstrom, Chronology, pp. 57, and 199–202.

  12. On J. J. Montgomery, see Arthur Dunning Spearman, John Joseph Montgomery, 1858–1911: The Father of Basic Flying (Santa Clara, Calif.: University of Santa Clara Press, 1967).

  13. Orville Wright to T.S. Baldwin, November 18, 1911, in Papers, vol. 2, p. 1029.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Spearman, John Joseph Montgomery.

  16. Benjamin D. Foulois, From the Wright Brothers to the Astronauts (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), pp. 79–95.

  17. Renstrom, Chronology, p. 57.

  18. Orville Wright to C. DeF. Chandler, December 29, 1911, in Papers, vol. 2, p. 1031.

  19. Ibid.

  20. Wilbur Wright to M. Hévésy, January 25, 1912, in ibid., p. 1035.

  21. Renstrom, Chronology, pp. 57–59.

  22. John McMahon, The Wright Brothers: Fathers of Flight (Boston: Little, Brown, 1930), p. 266.

  23. Renstrom, Chronology, p. 58.

  24. Wilbur Wright to Frederick Fish, May 4, 1912, in Papers, vol. 2, p. 1042.

  25. Milton Wright, Diary, May 27, 1912, box 10, file 5, WSU.

  26. Ibid., May 30, 1912.

  27. Ibid., May 31, 1912.

  28. Wright Scrapbooks, 1912, Wright Papers, LC.

  29. Ibid.

  30. Last Will and Testament of Wilbur Wright, in Alfred Andrews, The Andrews, Clapp, Stokes, Wright, Van Cleve Genealogies (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.: Privately printed, 1984), p. 502.

  31. Ibid.

  32. Milton Wright to Reuchlin Wright, August 16, 1912, in Papers, vol. 2, p. 1048.

  33. Milton Wright, Diary, June 3, 1912, box 10, file 5, WSU.

  34. Ivonette Wright Miller, ed., Wright Reminiscences (Dayton, Ohio: Privately printed, 1978), pp. 14–15.

  35. Renstrom, Chronology, p. 65.

  36. McMahon, Wright Brothers, pp. 275–276.

  37. Renstrom, Chronology, p. 61.

  38. Logan Marshall, The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado (no place: I. T. Myers, 1913).

  39. Milton Wright, Diary, March 25, 1913, box 10, file 5, WSU.

  40. Quoted in Marshall, True Story, p. 16.

  CHAPTER 33

  1. Orville Wright to Andrew Freeman, April 11, 1913, in Marvin W. McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953, cited hereafter as Papers), vol. 2, p. 1066.

  2. Grover Loening, Our Wings Grow Faster (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1935), p. 44; Grover Loening, Takeoff into Greatness: How American Aviation Grew So Big So Fast (New York: Putnam, 1968), pp. 54–61.

  3. Ivonette Wright Miller, ed., Wright Reminiscences (Dayton, Ohio: Privately printed, 1978), p. 118.

  4. Loening, Our Wings, p. 44.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Ibid., p. 45.

  7. Louis Casey, Curtiss: The Hammondsport Era, 1907–1915 (New York: Crown, 1981), pp. 84–137.

  8. Loening, Takeoff, pp. 54–61.

  9. Stephen F. Tillman, Man Unafraid (Washington, D.C.: The Army Times, 1958), PP. 154–185.

  10. Loening, Our Wings, p. 47.

  11. Orville Wright to Lt. William C. Sherman, September 6, 1913, in Papers, vol. 2, p. 1063; Orville Wright to Sherman, October 15, 1913, in ibid., p. 1066; Orville Wright to Lt. Col. Samuel Reber, December 5, 1913, in ibid., p. 1068.

  12. John McMahon, The Wright Brothers: Fathers of Flight (Boston: Little, Brown, 1930), p. 291; Orville Wright, “Automatic Stability,” Smithsonian Annual Report (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1914), pp. 201–216; U.S. Patent No. 1, 122, 348.

  13. New York Times (Jan. 6, 1914); Arthur G. Renstrom, The Wright Brothers: A Chronology (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1975, cited hereafter as Chronology), p. 206.

  14. William Wyatt Davenport, Gyro! The Life and Times of Lawrence Sperry (New York: Scribner’s, 1978), pp. 90–113.

  15. Loening, Our Wings, p. 44.

  16. Ibid., pp. 44–46.

  17. Ibid., p. 46.

  18. Ibid.

  19. Robert Scharff and Walter Taylor, Over Land and Sea: A Biography of Glenn Hammond Curtiss (New York: McKay, 1968), p. 218; C. R. Rose berry, Glenn Curtiss: Pioneer of Flight (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972). P. 357.

  20. Loening, Our Wings, p. 49.

  21. Tillman, Man Unafraid, p. 155.

  22. Loening, Our Wings, p. 50.

  23. Casey, Curtiss, pp. 176–196.

  24. See Loening, Takeoff, 62–63; Fred C. Kelly, ed., Miracle at Kitty Hawk (New York: Farrar, Straus & Young, 1951), p. 403; and Fred C. Kelly, The Wright Brothers (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1943), p. 285.

  25. Renstrom, Chronology, p. 65.

  26. New York Times, October 16, 1915. Orville refused to reveal an exact figure, simply referring to “a very large sum.”

  27. John B. Rae, Climb to Greatness: The American Aircraft Industry, 1920–1960 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1968), p. 5.

  28. Ibid.

  CHAPTER 34

  1. Arthur G. Renstrom, Wilbur and Orville Wright: A Chronology (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1975, cited hereafter as Chronology), p. 67.

  2. See Stuart Leslie, Boss Kettering (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983); Isaac Marcosson, Colonel Deeds: Industrial Builder (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1948); and Howard Mingos, “The Birth of an Industry,” in G. E. Simonsons, ed., The History of the American Aircraft Industry: An Anthology (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1968), pp. 10–95.

  3. “Interrogation of Orville Wright by Judge Charles Evans Hughes,” Hughes Aircraft Investigation, Testimony of Witnesses, May to October, 1918, United States Department of Justice, vol. 23, pp. 175–193. Copy in National Archives.

  4. Leslie, Boss Kettering, pp. 219–229; Mingos, “Birth of an Industry,” p. 21.

  5. See National Air and Space Museum and USAF Museum technical files, Kettering Bug. See also Henry H. Arnold, Global Mission (New York: Harper, 1949), pp. 74–76.

  6. Marvin W. McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953, cited hereafter as Papers), vol. 2, p. 1149; Fred C. Kelly, ed., Miracle at Kitty Hawk (New York: Farrar, Straus & Young, 1951), p. 462; Renstrom, Chronology, p. 100.

  7. Eric Hodgins, “Heavier-Than-Air,” The New Yorker (Dec. 13, 1930), 29–32.

  8. Papers, vol. 2, pp. 1175–1177; New York Times (Dec. 18, 1940); Ivonette Wright Miller, ed., Wright Reminisc
ences (Dayton, Ohio: Privately printed, 1978), PP. 34–35.

  9. Alex Roland, Model Research: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1915–1958 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985). P. 52.

  10. Richard P. Hallion, Legacy of Flight: The Guggenheim Contribution to American Aviation (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977).

  11. John Evangelist Walsh, One Day at Kitty Hawk: The Untold Story of the Wright Brothers and the Airplane (New York: Crowell, 1975), pp. 4, 5, 250; Marvin W. McFarland, “Orville Wright and Friend,” U.S. Air Services (August 1956), 5–7. McFarland believed that it was Katharine who delivered the bad news. If he is correct, the particular story is of course ruined; the extent to which Findley and Kelly handled Mabel Beck with kid gloves remains clear, however. See the correspondence of both men with Orville, Wright Papers, LC.

  12. Ivonette Wright Miller, Unpublished reminiscences, author’s collection.

  13. Graham Justice, “Hawthorn Hill Has a Special Place in World History,” NCR World (June 1965).

  14. Wilbur Wright to Orville Wright, May 26, 1911, Kelly, ed., Miracle, p. 382.

  15. Justice, “Hawthorn Hill,” 4.

  16. Jay Peartree, “Summers,” in Miller, ed., Reminiscences, p. 133.

  17. Ibid.; Justice, “Hawthorn Hill,” 4.

  18. Thanks to the kindness of Ivonette and Harold Miller and the staff of the National Cash Register Co., the author was privileged to spend a night in Orville’s bedroom at Hawthorn Hill. These observations were made at that time.

  19. Robert Hadeler, “My Summers with Orville Wright,” in Miller, ed., Reminiscences, p. 145.

  20. George Russell in ibid.

  21. Ibid., p. 144.

  22. Peartree in ibid., p. 138.

  23. Orville’s notes on his mother’s birthplace are in file 11, box 12, Wright Papers, WSU.

  24. Miller, ed., Reminiscences, pp. 21–22.

  25. John Hulbert Jameson Autobiography, in Alfred Stokes Andrews, The Andrews, Clapp, Stokes, Wright, Van Cleve Genealogies (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.: Privately printed, 1984), pp. 470–471.

  26. Ibid., p. 471.

  27. Peartree, “Summers,” p. 141.

  28. See Grace Goulder, Ohio Scenes and Citizens (Cleveland: World, 1964), pp. 117–123; John R. McMahon, The Wright Brothers: Fathers of Flight (Boston: Little, Brown, 1930), pp. 298–299. Orville’s estrangement from his sister is obviously a sensitive topic within the family; nevertheless, the substance of the account here is drawn from the observations of family and friends. Two friends in particular, Marvin W. McFarland and C. H. Gibbs-Smith, both now dead, first called my attention to the psychological implications of the situation. Those discussions sparked my own first thoughts on the importance of family to the Wrights. In a sense, they were the real origin of this book. C. H. Gibbs-Smith had actually seen Katharine’s letters to C. S. Rolls and described them to me.

  CHAPTER 35

  1. Lincoln Beachey to Smithsonian, January 21, 1914; Richard Rathbun to Charles Walcott, January 21, 1914, RG 46, Smithsonian Institution Archives.

  2. A. F. Zahm, “The First Man-Carrying Aeroplane….” Smithsonian Annual Report (Washington D.C., 1914), p. 218.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Griffith Brewer, “Aviation’s Greatest Controversy,” Aeronautical Journal (December 1921), vol. 25, 620–664, offers the best summary of the differences between the two machines.

  5. Zahm, “The First Man-Carrying Aeroplane,” 222.

  6. Smithsonian Annual Report (Washington D.C., 1915), p. 122.

  7. Fred C. Kelly, The Wright Brothers (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1943), p. 185.

  8. Charles Walcott to Wilbur Wright, March 7, 1910; Wilbur Wright to Charles Walcott, March 26, 1910; and April 11, 1910; all in Wright Papers, LC.

  9. Griffith Brewer, Fifty Years of Flying (London: Air League of the British Empire, 1946), p. 111.

  10. Memorandum by Lorin Wright, July 5, 1915, in Marvin McFarland, ed., The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953), vol. 2, p. 1090.

  11. Orville Wright to William Howard Taft, May 14, 1925, in Wright Papers, “Smithsonian Controversy,” Library of Congress.

  12. Ibid.

  13. Brewer, Fifty Years, p. 111.

  14. Leonard Bairstow, “The Work of Samuel Pierpont Langley,” manuscript in Samuel Langley Papers, Smithsonian Institution Archives.

  15. Kelly, Wright Brothers, p. 194.

  16. Lester Gardner, Aviation (May 18, 1925), in “Who Made the First Flying Machine?” The Aeroplane (June 3, 1925), 530.

  17. Joseph Ames and David Wilson Taylor, “A Report on the Langley Machine,” June 3, 1925, box 111, folder 3, Smithsonian Institution Archives.

  18. Orville Wright, Mimeographed press statement, July 1937, Wright Papers, LC.

  19. Kelly, Wright Brothers, p. 198.

  20. Lindbergh, Wright, Abbot correspondence, Wright Papers, LC, and Wright-Smithsonian Controversy files, Smithsonian Institution Archives.

  21. Orville Wright to Charles Abbot, March 15, 1935, in Wright Papers, LC.

  22. Charles A. Lindbergh, The Wartime Diaries of Charles Lindbergh (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970), p. 188.

  23. Letters and memoranda on Macmillan and Goldstrum, box 107, Smithsonian Institution Archives.

  24. Charles Abbot to John Ahlers, August 20, 1940, Wright Papers, LC.

  25. Paul Edward Garber, personal conversation with the author.

  26. Understanding of the various Montgomery-Wright suits rests on a reading of a file on the Montgomery case in the papers of C. D. Walcott, Smithsonian Institution Archives; U.S. Court of Claims, Case No. 33852, R. M. Montgomery et al. vs. the United States, Complainant’s Affidavits, Wright Papers, box 73, LC. Arthur Dunning Spearman, John Joseph Montgomery: The Father of Basic Flying (Santa Clara Calif.: University of Santa Clara Press, 1967), is not particularly satisfactory, but it is the only biography of Montgomery and does cover the court proceedings, after a fashion and from a biased point of view.

  27. Orville Wright, How We Invented the Airplane, edited and with commentary by Fred C. Kelly (New York: McKay, 1952).

  28. “Connecticut Night Watchman …” New York Herald (June 16, 1901); Stanley Y. Beach, “A New Flying Machine,” Scientific American (June 8, 1901), 19.

  29. “Flying,” Bridgeport Sunday Herald (Aug. 18, 1901); [G. Whitehead], “The Whitehead Flying Machine,” American Inventor (April 1, 1901), 1–2.

  30. C. Manly to F. Hodge, September 20, 1901, Aerodromics 10, 29, 441, Ramsey Rare Book Room, National Air and Space Museum.

  31. Quotes appearing on the original dust jacket of Stella Randolph’s The Lost Flights of Gustave Whitehead (Washington D.C.: Places, Inc., 1937.)

  32. John Crane, “Did Whitehead Actually Fly?” National Aeronautic Association Magazine (December 1936).

  33. Quoted in C. H. Gibbs-Smith’s unpublished manuscript on flight claims, a copy of which was presented to me. I am forever indebted to CHGS for his early guidance and support.

  34. Papers, vol. 2, pp. 1165–1167, note 8.

  35. Albert Francis Zahm, Early Powerplane Fathers (South Bend, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press, 1951).

  36. The most blatant attack on the Smithsonian is contained in William O’Dwyer and Stella Randolph, History by Contract (West Germany: Fritz Major & Sohn, 1978).

  CHAPTER 36

  1. Arthur G. Renstrom, Wilbur and Orville Wright: A Chronology (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1975), passim. Renstrom provides a complete list of honors and awards.

  2. Ivonette Wright Miller, ed., Wright Reminiscences (Dayton, Ohio: Privately printed, 1978), pp. 25–26.

  3. John Jameson Autobiography in Alfred Andrews, The Andrews, Clapp, Stokes, Wright, Van Cleve Genealogies (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.: Privately printed, 1984), pp. 470–471; personal conversations with Harold and Ivonette Miller.

  4. Miller, ed., Reminiscences, p. 31.

  5. “The Proposed Wright Brothers Memorial,” Aero Club of A
merica Bulletin (July 1912), vol. 1, no. 6, 5.

  6. “Wilbur Wright Memorial Designed Here,” Dayton Daily News (Jan. 22, 1913).

  7. “France and the Wright Brothers,” Légion d’Honneur (April 1933), vol. 1, 206–215; “The Wilbur Wright and Hubert Latham Monuments,” The Aero (London, December 1912), vol. 6, 352; Wright Brothers Memorials, Library, National Air and Space Museum (cited hereafter as NASM files).

  8. Undated news clipping and assorted materials, NASM files.

  9. [Fred Marshall], “In Honor of the Wrights,” Slipstream (November 1927), vol. 8, no. 11, 9–10; “Wright Memorial Site Criticized,” Slipstream (January 1928), vol. 9, no. 1, 7–8.

  10. The treatment of the monument at Kill Devil Hills is based on a thorough reading of the sources cited in Arthur G. Renstrom, Wilbur and Orville Wright: A Bibliography (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1968), pp. 138–146.

  11. For Wright Hill Memorial, see “Wright Hill Dedicated at Dayton,” U.S. Air Services (September 1940) vol. 25, no. 9, 10–11; “Have You Ever Visited Wright Hill?” NCR Factory News (August–September 1940), 1–6; and “Dedication of the Wright Brothers Monument,” Air Corps News Letter (Sept. 1, 1940), vol. 23, no. 17, 7.

  12. The best discussions of Henry Ford and Greenfield Village are to be found in Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill, Ford: Expansion and Challenge, 1915–1935 (New York: Scribner’s, 1957); William Greenleaf, From These Beginnings: The Early Philanthropies of Henry and Edsel Ford, 1911–1936 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1964); and Roger Butterfield, “Henry Ford, the Wayside Inn and the Problem of History Is Bunk,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society (January-December 1965), vol. 78, 60. For a contemporary view by a Ford publicist, see William Adams Simmonds, Henry Ford and Greenfield Village (New York: Frederick Stokes, 1938).

  13. The information on the acquisition of the home and bicycle shop is drawn from Allan Fletcher, The Wright Brothers’Home and Cycle Shop in Greenfield Village, a thesis in the University of Michigan Program in Museum Practice, June 30, 1972.

  14. Dayton Journal Herald, July 5, 1936.

  15. Fletcher, The Wright Brothers’ Home, p. 44.