Wings of Invention
A leading historian chronicles the turbulent ascent of America’s founding fathers of flight.
The Wright Brothers
By David McCullough
Simon & Schuster 2015, 368 pages.
Many regard autonomous cars as the transportation wave of the future, but the public at large remains skeptical of these experimental vehicles. Historian David McCullough evokes this feeling of uncertainty and transition in his new book about the advent of flying.
In the early 1900s, Orville and Wilbur Wright were often dismissed as dreamers. A prominent Johns Hopkins professor declared the possibility of manned flight “no more than a myth” and noted that even if achieved, it would have little practical value. Despite the ridicule, the brothers from Ohio persevered, doggedly experimenting with gliders, wind tunnels, engines, and a catapult to provide initial lift. After shattering the myth in 12 airborne seconds, they continued refining their aircraft, breaking their own records of time and speed. As McCullough reveals, their work required not just tenacity but also vision: Even as the U.S. government ignored their overtures and others denounced them as frauds, the Wrights insisted on the practical utility of their machine. Yet, unlike the autonomous vehicles being developed by today’s Google research teams, Wilbur and Orville labored on their own, financed for many years only by the meager income of their Dayton bicycle shop.
While the Wrights’ story has been told many times, it becomes fresh again through David McCullough’s deft touch. Drawing on the brothers’ technical diaries, notebooks, and correspondence, as well as contemporary news articles, scientific reports, and photographs, McCullough weaves a rich narrative of early aviation interest, competition, and advancement.
Wilbur and Orville’s distinctive personalities, their family life, and joint sense of enterprise unfold in the pages. Orville began a print shop while still in high school, later joined by Wilbur to publish the West Side News. Bicycling was a new sensation at the time, however, and their enthusiasm for this new mode of transportation led the brothers to open a cycle shop. There, they eventually developed their own model, the Van Cleve.
In 1896, Wilbur was first inspired by the German glider enthusiast Otto Lilienthal, who wrote of attaining “a perfect scientific conception of the problem of flight.” The Wrights began studying all they could on flight theory; three years later, Wilbur wrote the Smithsonian Institution to request everything published on the topic. These young men became swept up in “times alive with invention,” as McCullough put it. The box camera, electric sewing machine, Otis elevator, and gasoline-powered motorcars were all emerging. Indeed, Dayton ranked first in the country for new patents, supporting great numbers of workrooms, shops, and factories.
Lyrical chapters describe the early trials at remote Kitty Hawk, where Wilbur spent hours observing birds in flight and the brothers labored to perfect a glider, and later, a motorized aircraft. Four years of experiments, setbacks, and advancements led to the moment on December 17, 1903, when their Wright Flyer carried Orville 120 feet in 12 seconds. Later asked if he had been frightened, he responded, “Scared? …There wasn’t time.”
Despite their achievement, it would take several years to gain recognition and support, stymied in part by the Wrights’ insistence on confidentiality. They did not allow photographs at their flight demonstrations and refused to submit technical drawings to Washington, so they continued to meet with government rejection. Negotiations with British and French companies took them overseas in 1906, and by 1908, the Wrights signed purchase agreements with both the French and the U.S. war departments. Subsequent chapters document the wild enthusiasm on both sides of the Atlantic as larger crowds began to witness the flights. The Wrights overwhelmed skeptics with their maneuvering skill at Le Mans: “We are beaten! We don’t exist,” exclaimed one French aviator. “We are children compared to the Wrights,” declared another. “C’est merveilleux!”
McCullough pursues the Wrights’ story through their years of success and the development of the commercial Wright Company and Wright Aeronautical Laboratory. Readers learn that the brothers became increasingly hampered by patent infringement suits, all settled in their favor. Yet while they grew wealthy, the Wrights insisted that money was not their motivation. Their biographer seems convinced, producing strong testimony of these two remarkable inventors.
Review by Robin Tatu
Robin Tatu is Prism’s senior editorial consultant.