WHILE GROWING UP IN CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA, MILTON WRIGHT, THE WRIGHT BROTHERS’ FATHER, LIKED TO PURCHASE TOYS FOR HIS SONS THAT HE HOPED WOULD STIMULATE THEIR IMAGINATION.

One of the most memorable gifts was a toy helicopter that was designed by the French aeronautical experimenter Alphonse Pénaud. Milton gave his sons this gift in 1878, and, though it was a simple device with a stick bound to a four-blade rotor set in a spindle, it had the intended effect—it caused them to dream.

Twenty-five years separated the gift of this toy and their invention of the airplane, yet the Wright brothers were convinced it had exerted an important influence. Tom Crouch argued in The Bishop’s Boys that toys like these perfectly illustrated the significance of play for technological innovation. He wrote, “rotary-wing toys were to intrigue and inspire generations of children, a few of whom would, as adults, attempt to realize the dream of flight for themselves.”

If the first powered flight on 17 December 1903 represented a childhood dream realized, it was only the first step in the rapid evolution of the airplane from their flimsy kite-like contraption of wood and cloth to jet airliners and rockets in space. And, as extraordinary as the achievement of powered flight seemed in 1903, before the end of the century, space travel also would become a dream realized. Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin first circumnavigated Earth in April 1961, and, eight years later, American astronauts took the first steps for humankind on the Moon.

The volume focuses on the careers of some of the many men and women who helped to realize the dream of flight both through the atmosphere and beyond. These accounts are original and compelling because they examine the history of flight through the lens of biography. Collectively, these individuals helped to shape American aerospace history. There are obviously many other individuals that could, and arguably should, have been included in this collection, but we believe that the cross section of diverse individuals contained in this volume is important because it is symbolic of the dream of flight as a whole. These people all devoted their lives, and sometimes even sacrificed them, to the demands required for its realization.

The reasons behind the dreams were diverse. The technological potential first demonstrated by the Wright brothers enabled those who followed them to use flight as a means of racial uplift, gender equalization, personal adventure, commercial gain, military superiority, and space exploration. The history of flight is more than a story of technology; it had important cultural consequences as well, and these are some of the themes that the following biographies explore. We have arranged the essays roughly chronologically, though the careers of the people described here often span more than one period of history.

None of the people in this volume were inventors like the Wright brothers, but their contributions to flight were nevertheless significant. They were daredevil pilots, entrepreneurs, business men and women, military strategists, and managers of large-scale technology who advanced the art, science, and business of air and space travel, often through sheer force of character. The final paper serves as an epilogue as well as a tribute to the Wright brothers. It describes a reenactment of their important glider experiments at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where the Wrights’ childhood dream was first realized. ...

Download Realizing the Dream of Flight

PDF version, 3MB, 326Pages. Provided by NASA History Division.

Realizing the Dream of Flight: Biographical Essays in Honor of the Centennial of Flight, 1903-2003

Edited by VIRGINIA P. DAWSON and MARK D. BOWLES
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASA History Division
Office of External Relations
NASA SP-2005-4112

About the Contributors:

TAMI DAVIS BIDDLE is an associate professor in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College, the Army’s senior-level staff college, where she teaches strategic studies and military history. She was the 2001–2002 Harold K. Johnson Visiting Professor of Military History at the U.S. Army’s Military History Institute. She received her Ph.D. from Yale University. Her research focus has been warfare in the 20th century, especially fighting wars and diplomacy during the two World Wars and the early Cold War period. In particular, she has concentrated on the history of air warfare and the history of the Cold War. She has written many articles and book chapters on these subjects, and has most recently published Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914–1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), which was a Choice outstanding academic book in 2002.

ROGER E. BILSTEIN is a professor of history, emeritus, at the University of Houston— Clear Lake. He is the author or editor of nine books and monographs, including Flight in America: From the Wrights to the Astronauts 3d ed. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) and Enterprise of Flight: The American Aviation and Aerospace Industry 2d ed. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001). His honors and awards include recognition by the Aviation/Space Writers Association, the National Space Council, and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). He has held the Lindbergh Chair of Aerospace History at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum (1992–1993) and was visiting professor at the Air War College of the U.S. Air Force (1995–1996).

MARK D. BOWLES received a B.A. in psychology (1991) and an M.A. in history (1993) from the University of Akron. He earned his Ph.D. in the history of technology and science (1999) from Case Western Reserve University and an M.B.A. in technology management (2005) from the University of Phoenix. He has been a Tomash Fellow from the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota. He has written several books on the history of medicine, and his work on space science includes coauthoring Taming Liquid Hydrogen: The Centaur Upper Stage Rocket (Washington, DC: NASA SP-2004-4230, 2004) with Virginia Dawson and NASA’s Nuclear Frontier: The Plum Brook Reactor Facility (Washington, DC: NASA SP-2004-4533, 2004) with Robert Arrighi. His forthcoming monograph on the history of the Plum Brook nuclear test reactor was awarded the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics History Manuscript Award in 2005. He is currently an independent scholar and director at Tech Pro, Inc.

AMY SUE BIX is an associate professor in the History Department at Iowa State University and a faculty member of university’s program in the history of technology and science. Her book Inventing Ourselves Out of Jobs?: America’s Debate over Technological Unemployment, 1929–1981 was published by Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD) in 2000. She also has published on the history of breast cancer and AIDS research, on the history of eugenics, on the history of home economics, on the history of alternative medicine, and on post-WWII physics and engineering, among other subjects. She is currently finishing a book entitled Engineering Education for American Women: An Intellectual, Institutional, and Social History.

TOM D. CROUCH is the Senior Curator of the Division of Aeronautics at the National Air and Space Museum. He is the author or editor of a number of books and many articles for both popular magazines and scholarly journals. Most of his work has been on aspects of the history of flight technology. Crouch’s leading books include: The Bishop’s Boys: A Life ofWilbur and Orville Wright (New York:W.W. Norton, 1989); Aiming for the Stars: The Dreamers and Doers of the Space Age (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999); Eagle Aloft: Two Centuries of the Balloon in America (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983); Bleriot XI: The Story of a Classic Airplane (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982); and A Dream ofWings: Americans and the Airplane, 1875–1905 (New York: W. W. Norton, Inc., 1981). Dr. Crouch received a Christopher Award, a literary prize recognizing “significant artistic achievement in support of the highest values of the human spirit,” for The Bishop’s Boys. In the fall of 2000, President Clinton appointed Dr. Crouch to the chairmanship of the First Flight Centennial Federal Advisory Board, an organization created to advise the Centennial of Flight Commission on activities planned to commemorate the 100th anniversary of powered flight.

VIRGINIA P. DAWSON is President of History Enterprises, Inc., a history-consulting firm. She is the author of books and articles on the history of science, technology, and medicine, including Engines and Innovation: Lewis Laboratory and American Propulsion Technology (Washington, DC: NASA SP-1991-4306, 1991), Taming Liquid Hydrogen: The Centaur Upper Stage Rocket (coauthor with Mark Bowles, 2004), and Ideas Into Hardware: A History of NASA’s Rocket Engine Test Facility (Cleveland, OH: NASA Glenn Research Center, 2004). Dr. Dawson is currently working on a history for the Cleveland Clinic. She is an adjunct associate professor of history at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

ANDREW J.DUNAR is a professor of history at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. A graduate of Northwestern University, he has degrees from UCLA (M.A.) and the University of Southern California (Ph.D., 1981). He is the author of The Truman Scandals and the Politics ofMorality (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1984); coauthor (with Dennis McBride) of Building Hoover Dam: An Oral History of the Great Depression (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993); and coauthor (with Stephen P.Waring) of Power to Explore: A History of Marshall Space Flight Center, 1960–1990 (Washington, DC: NASA Headquarters, 1999), which won the History Book Award from the AIAA in 2000. He is currently working on an oral history of “The Farm,” a hippie commune in Summertown, Tennessee. He is the editor of the Oral History Review, the journal of the Oral History Association.

MICHAEL GORN received his doctorate in history in 1978 from the University of Southern California. He has served as deputy Air Force historian and later as the first historian of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC. Since 1996, he has been employed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and is presently the Chief Historian of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California. Gorn is the author of a number of books about aeronautics and spaceflight, most recently (with Richard P. Hallion) On the Frontier: Experimental Flight at NASA Dryden (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003). He also has published Expanding the Envelope: Flight Research at NACA and NASA (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2001) and The Universal Man: Theodore von Kármán’s Life in Aeronautics (Washington,DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992).He is the former coeditor of the Smithsonian’s History of Aviation book series. Dr. Gorn serves presently on the History and Education Committee of the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission.

ALAN L. GROPMAN is a distinguished professor of national security policy at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, a graduate-degree-granting war college for senior military and civilian officials. From 1996 until 2002, he was chairman of the Department of Grand Strategy and Mobilization at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. He is also an adjunct professor of security studies at Georgetown University. A retired colonel in the United States Air Force, he flew over 670 missions in Vietnam, later serving as the Deputy Director of Air Force Plans for Planning Integration at the United States Air Force Headquarters. He earned, among other awards, the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal with Five Oak Leaf Clusters, and Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm. Dr. Gropman received his Ph.D. in history from Tufts in 1975. Dr. Gropman’s publications include The Air Force Integrates, 1945–1964, 2d ed. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998), and Mobilizing U.S. Industry in World War II (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1996).

ROGER D. LAUNIUS is chair of the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Between 1990 and 2002, he served as Chief Historian of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He received his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, in 1982. Among the many books on aerospace history he has written or edited are: Space Stations: Base Camps to the Stars (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003), which received the AIAA’s history manuscript prize; Flight: A Celebration of 100 Years in Art and Literature (New York: Welcome Books, 2003), edited with Anne Collins Goodyear, Anthony M. Springer, and Bertram Ulrich; To Reach the High Frontier: A History of U.S. Launch Vehicles (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2002), with Dennis R. Jenkins; Imagining Space: Achievements, Possibilities, Projections, 1950–2050 (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2001), with Howard E. McCurdy; Reconsidering Sputnik: Forty Years Since the Soviet Satellite (Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000), with John M. Logsdon and Robert W. Smith; and Innovation and the Development of Flight (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1999).

WILLIAM M. LEARY is the E. Merton Coulter Professor of History at the University of Georgia. After serving in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, he worked for Eastern Airlines, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and the Air Transport Section of General Motors Corporation. He received his doctorate from Princeton University in 1966 and taught at Princeton, California State University at San Diego, and the University of Victoria in British Columbia before joining the faculty of the University of Georgia. He is the author of We Freeze to Please (Washington, DC: NASA SP-2002-4226, 2002), a history of NASA’s Icing Research Tunnel; Under Ice: Waldo Lyon and the Development of the Arctic Submarine (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1999); Perilous Missions: Civil Air Transport and CIA Covert Operations in Asia (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1984); and numerous other books and articles on civil transport, aircraft safety, and the U.S. Air Mail Service.

W. DAVID LEWIS holds the title of distinguished university professor in the History Department at Auburn University. In addition to books on the history of steel making, he is the author of many books and articles on the history of aviation, including The Airway to Everywhere: The History of All-American Aviation (Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh University Press, 1988) with William Trimble. Dr. Lewis served as president and director of an international conference on the history of civil and commercial aviation in Switzerland in 1992.He received the Leonardo da Vinci Medal for lifetime achievement from the Society for the History of Technology in 1993. He served on the NASA History Advisory Committee between 1986 and 1990. Dr. Lewis has recently published a definitive biography of aviation pioneer Eddie Rickenbacker.

EDWARD JAY PERSHEY is Director of Education and Research at the Western Reserve Historical Society (WRHS) and Task Force Director for the new Crawford Museum of Transportation and Industry in Cleveland, Ohio. Pershey joined WRHS in 1995 as the Director of Education and Curator of Urban and Industrial History. From 1987 to 1995, he was the founding Director of the Tsongas Industrial History Center, an innovative hands-on museum education program in Lowell,Massachusetts. From 1981 to 1987, he served as Supervisory Museum Curator at the Edison National Historic Site, the home and laboratory of the American inventor Thomas Alva Edison in West Orange, New Jersey. In 1982, he received his doctorate in the history of technology from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where he also served briefly as Associate Curator at the Dittrick Museum of Medicine.

SUSAN WARE is affiliated with the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, where she is editing the next volume of the biographical dictionary Notable American Women (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2004).  She is also a visiting lecturer in the History Department at Harvard. A specialist in 20th-century American history and women’s history, her books include Still Missing: Amelia Earhart and the Search for Modern Feminism (New York:W.W.Norton, 1993) and Letter to the World: Seven Women Who Shaped the American Century (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998). She has just completed a biography of radio talk show pioneer Mary Margaret McBride.

Comments (0)

Name

Email

Comment

smaller | bigger

Add Comment