The Wright Stuff

Orville and Wilbur Wright were two of seven children born to Bishop Milton Wright and Susan Catherine Koerner Wright. Wilbur was the third child. He was born near Millville, Indiana on April 16, 1867. Orville was born in Dayton, Ohio on August 19, 1871. The family settled in Dayton at 7 Hawthorn Street where Milton was the editor of a newspaper published by the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. His various jobs as a minister led to the family having to move frequently, but they never sold the house on Hawthorn Street and returned often.

In grade school, Orville was often mischievous and was once expelled. Their father travelled often as a Bishop of the Church and would bring the children souvenirs of his travels. In 1878 he brought home a toy “helicopter”. The toy was based on an invention of French aeronautical pioneer Alphonse Penaud. It was made of paper, bamboo, and cork with a rubber band to twirl the “rotor”. The rotor was about a foot long. Orville and Wilbur played with the toy until it broke. Then they built their own. Over the next few years they built several and the bigger they built them, the less well they flew. Discouraged they turned to building kites. Years later both boys credited their experience with the toy helicopter as the initial spark of their interest in flying.

Wilbur and Orville both attended high school, but neither received diplomas. The Wright family moved abruptly in June 1884 from Richmond, Indiana back to Dayton, less than one month before Wilbur would have graduated from high school. The next year he attended Central High School in Dayton for additional studies in Greek and trigonometry. In the winter of 1885-86 Wilbur was hit in the face with a hockey stick while playing with friends. He lost his front teeth. Up until then he had been a vigorous athlete and although his injuries did not appear severe, he became withdrawn and did not attend Yale as planned. He spent the next few years instead mostly housebound caring for his mother who was terminally ill with tuberculosis and reading extensively in his father’s library.

Orville dropped out of high school after his junior year to start a printing business in 1889. He designed and built his own printing press from a damaged tombstone and buggy parts with Wilbur’s help. Working with his brother Orville on the printing business shook Wilbur out of his depression. Wilbur served as editor while Orville was publisher of the weekly newspaper the West Side News. A few months later they started a daily paper called Evening Item. They also printed the Dayton Tattler, a weekly newspaper. The printing business was the first time they officially referred to themselves as ”The Wright Brothers”.

Spurred by the invention of the safety bicycle and its substantial advantages over the penny-farthing design, the Wright brothers jumped on the national bicycle craze and capitalized on it. They opened a bicycle repair and sales shop, the Wright Cycle Exchange, later the Wright Cycle Company, in 1892. In 1896 they began manufacturing their own brand of bicycles. They built two models called the Van Cleve and the St. Clair. The Wright brothers used their bicycle endeavors to fund their growing interest in flight.

The year 1896 brought three important aeronautical events. Smithsonian Institution Secretary Samuel Langley successfully flew an unmanned steam-powered model aircraft. Chicago engineer and aviation authority Octave Chanute tested various types of gliders over the sand dunes along the shore of Lake Michigan. Otto Lilienthal of Germany, who had been test flying his gliders for a couple of years, was killed in a plunge of one of his gliders. These three events sparked the Wright brothers’ interest in flight even more. In May 1899, Wilbur wrote a letter to the Smithsonian requesting information and publications about aeronautics. Drawing on the works of Sir George Cayley, Chanute, Lilienthal, Leonardo da Vinci, and Langley, the Wright brothers began their mechanical aeronautical experimentation within a few months of writing to the Smithsonian.

Wilbur Wright defined the elements of a flying machine: wings to provide lift, a power source for propulsion, and a system of control. Of all the early aviation pioneers, Wilbur alone recognized the need to control a flying machine in its three axes of motion: pitch, roll, and yaw. His solution for control was “wing warping”. He came up with a system by twisting an empty bicycle tube box with the ends removed. Twisting the surface of each “wing” changed its position in relation to oncoming wind. Wilbur tested his theory on a small kite and it worked. The brothers also spent a great deal of time observing birds in flight. They noticed that birds soared into the wind and that the air flowing under their curved wings created lift. They also noted that birds changed the shape of their wings to turn and maneuver.

In August 1990, Wilbur built his first glider with a 17-foot wingspan. He contacted the U.S. Weather Bureau for information on windy regions of the country. From the list he chose a remote sandy area off the coast of North Carolina named Kitty Hawk. The winds averaged 13 mph. He and Orville traveled to Kitty Hawk and successfully tested the glider. The next year they again traveled to Kitty Hawk and tested a new glider with a 22-foot wingspan. They were disappointed by its performance. They returned to their bicycle shop and decided to construct a wind tunnel to test the effectiveness of a variety of wing shapes. They tested their 1902 glider at Kitty Hawk in October. They were successful. It glided a record 620 feet. They returned to Dayton determined to develop a propeller and an engine for their next project- a flying machine.

The Wright brothers built their 1903 flying machine in sections in the back room of their cycle shop in Dayton. As they completed each section they shipped it down to Kitty Hawk. They designed a propeller based on the same principles they used to design their wings.  They built a 4-cylinder, 12-horsepower engine. The craft weighed 700 pounds and came to be known as the Flyer. The brothers built a moveable track to help launch the Flyer. The downhill track helped the aircraft gain enough airspeed to fly. On December 14, 1903, Wilbur won a coin toss and made the first attempt to fly the machine. He stalled the engine on takeoff, which resulted in minor damage. They repaired the machine and Orville made the next attempt on December 17, 1903. At 10:35 a.m. that morning he made the first heavier-than-air, machine-powered flight in the world. The flight lasted only 12 seconds and covered just 120 feet.

1904- Wilbur flew the Flyer II for more than five minutes.

1905- The Wright brothers built an airplane that could fly for more than half an hour.

1908- Orville made the world’s first flight of over one hour at Fort Myer, Virginia, in a demonstration for the U.S. Army.

1908- Wilbur made over 100 flights near Le Mans, France. The longest flight was a record at 2 hours, 19 minutes.

1908- Orville piloted a passenger flight that suffered a fatal crash. Orville survived but his passenger, Signal Corps Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, did not.

1909- The U.S. Government bought its first airplane, a Wright Brothers bi-plane.

1911- A Wright Brothers plane, the Vin Fiz, was the first airplane to cross the United States. The flight took 84 days, stopping 70 times.

1912- The first Wright Brothers airplane armed with a machine gun was flown in College Park, Maryland.

1914- The Aviation Section of the Signal Corps (part of the Army) was established. Its flying unit contained Wright Brothers airplanes.

1914- The U.S. Court decided in favor of the Wright Brothers in a patent suit concerning lateral control of aircraft.

Wilbur Wright became ill on a business trip to Boston in April 1912. When he returned to Dayton he was diagnosed with typhoid fever. He lingered in and out of consciousness for several weeks until he died at the age of forty five. Orville succeeded to the presidency of the Wright company upon his brother’s death. Never a fan of the business end of the Wright Brothers’ endeavors, Orville sold the company in 1915. Orville made his last flight as a pilot in 1919. He retired and became an elder statesman of aviation, serving on various official boards and committees, including the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). He served NACA for 28 years. In 1930 he received the first Daniel Guggenheim Medal established in 1928. In 1936 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Orville died on January 30, 1948. He had lived from the horse-and-buggy age to the dawn of supersonic flight.

Orville wrote of his childhood: “We were lucky enough to grow up in an environment where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests; to investigate whatever aroused curiosity.”                                                                                                     

Jody Victor

Jody – America First

Warren “Winnie” Gamaliel Harding was born on November 2, 1865 in Blooming Grove, Ohio. His paternal ancestors hailed from Pennsylvania and had migrated to Ohio in 1820. He was the eldest of eight children born to Dr. George Tryon Harding, Sr. and Phoebe Elizabeth Dickerson Harding. His father was never quite content with his job or possessions and was constantly swapping for something better. George Harding was usually in debt, owned a farm, taught at a rural school and eventually acquired a medical degree and started a small practice. His mother was a midwife who later obtained her medical license based on her experience as a midwife and in assisting her husband in his medical practice. Warren’s family moved to the small village of Caledonia, Ohio when he was ten years old. His father acquired The Argus, a local weekly newspaper, where Warren learned the basics of the journalism business. Warren always cherished his upbringing. His childhood memories of farm chores, swimming in the local creek, and playing in the village band were the basis of his down-home appeal later in life.

Like most small-town boys in post-Civil War Ohio, Harding attended a one-room schoolhouse where he learned to read and write from the McGuffey’s Readers. At the age of fourteen, Harding entered Ohio Central College and became an accomplished public speaker. He continued to study the printing and newspaper trade and worked at the Union Register in Mount Gilead. He graduated at the age of sixteen with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1882, achieving distinction for editing the campus newspaper. Following graduation, Harding tried his hand at teaching at a country school outside Marion, Ohio and as an insurance salesman. He made a brief attempt at reading the law. In 1884, Harding raised $300, in partnership with two friends, and purchased the nearly defunct Marion Daily Star.

Over the next five years Harding achieved moderate success with the Marion Daily Star. He was sole owner of the Star by 1886. He revamped the paper’s editorial platform to support the Republican Party. His political stance put him at odds with those who controlled local politics in Marion. Harding moved to unseat the Marion Independent as the official daily paper and met with strong resistance from prominent local figures, including Amos Hall Kling, one of Marion’s wealthiest real estate speculators. Harding won the war of words and made the Marion Daily Star one of the most popular newspapers in the county. The battle took a toll on his health. In 1889, at the age of 24, he suffered from exhaustion and nervous fatigue. He spent several weeks at the Battle Creek Sanitarium to regain his strength. He returned to continue operating the paper, spending his days promoting the community on the editorial pages. In 1893, the Star supplanted the Independent as the official paper for Marion’s governmental notices.

On July 8, 1891, Harding married Florence “Flossie” Kling DeWolfe, the daughter of his nemesis (and hers as well), Amos Hall Kling. Flossie was a divorcee and five years Harding’s junior. Her first marriage to Eugene DeWolfe was a compulsory marriage. Eugene had been an abusive, alcoholic husband and when Flossie decided to divorce him her father threatened to disown her. Flossie’s mother remained loyal to her daughter. Against her husband’s directive, she sneaked in to her daughter’s wedding to Harding just as they were exchanging their vows. Flossie had a ten year old son from her previous marriage. Together they had no offspring. The Hardings were complementary, with Harding’s affable personality balancing Flossie’s no-nonsense approach to life. For the next ten years Harding’s business thrived, in part due to Flossie’s keen business eye but mostly due to Harding’s good-natured manner. His newspaper became a favorite with Ohio politicians of both parties because of his even-handed reporting. He never ran a critical story if he could avoid it. His employees loved and respected him for his willingness to share company profits with them.

Warren Harding made his entrance into the political world running for the Marion County Auditor’s office. He and his wife traveled widely throughout the country, broadening Harding’s exposure at political gatherings. In 1889 Harding was elected to fill the Ohio State Senate seat for the 13^th Senatorial District, despite Amos Kling’s financing of his opponent. Shortly after his victory the Ohio Republican Party leader commented, “Gee what a great looking President he’d make.”

As a State Senator Harding was a partisan regular doing favors for political bosses. In his second term he was chosen Republican Floor Leader. In early 1903, Harding announced his candidacy for Ohio Governor. He lost the election but was awarded with the position of Lieutenant Governor of Ohio. When he left this office, Harding returned to running his newspaper.

Harding had become so popular with party regulars that he was given the honor of placing President William Howard Taft’s name in nomination at the party convention in 1912. In 1914, Harding won the Ohio Republican primary for Senator and then won in the general election. Harding’s undistinguished senate career made him few enemies and many friends. Harding’s affable manner and “make no enemies” policy made him the compromise choice at the 1920 Republican National Convention. During his presidential campaign he promised a “return to normalcy” in the aftermath of World War I. His “America First” campaign encouraged industrialization and a strong economy independent of foreign influence. In the 1920 election, Warren Harding and his Vice Presidential running-mate Calvin Coolidge defeated fellow Ohioan James M. Cox in the largest presidential popular vote landslide in American history.

Once in office, President Harding admitted to his close friends that the job was beyond him. He appointed several capable men to his cabinet including: Charles Evan Hughes as Secretary of State, Andrew Mellon as Secretary of the Treasury and Herbert Hoover as Secretary of Commerce. But he also surrounded himself with his former friends, some of whom turned out to be dishonest cheats and became known as “the Ohio Gang”. Many of them were charged with defrauding the government. Some of them went to jail. Though President Harding was never linked to any crooked deals the public began to distrust him. The most notorious scandal was the Teapot Dome affair, which concerned an oil reserve in Wyoming.

As a prior journalist, Harding was the first American President to realize the importance of an ever growing and powerful media. He ordered his cabinet to organize their own press staff. He knew that radio would eventually dominate American commerce and promoted two Radio Conferences to give government power to regulate the industry. He was the first president to have a radio in the White House and the first to broadcast a presidential message by radio. President Harding also sensed that oil was important in terms of national security and prosperity. He signed an executive order that gave the U.S. a giant oil reserve in Alaska. He staunchly protected American business interests. President Harding pursued world security through arms reduction and regulation during the Washington Peace Conference. He also signed the first child welfare program; signed a series of bills regulating agriculture; signed the Revenue Act and the Highway Act; and signed legislation that was known as the “Sweet Bill”, which established the Veterans Bureau.

Eventually, shaken by all the talk of corruption among the friends he appointed to office, President Harding and Flossie organized a tour of the western states and Alaska during the summer of 1923 in an attempt to meet the American people and explain his policies. After becoming ill with what was originally diagnosed as food poisoning, President Harding suffered a heart attack and died quietly in his sleep in San Francisco.