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Solomon Brown, First African American
Employee at the Smithsonian

Mary Henry
Diaries,
Eyewitness to the Civil War

William H. Dall, Alaskan Explorer

The Wright Brothers,
Pioneers in Aviation

Robert H.
Goddard,
American Rocket Pioneer

James Smithson, Founder of the Smithsonian

James Renwick, Jr., Architect of
the Smithsonian
Building

William Temple Hornaday
Saving America's Bison

Wilson A. Bentley
Pioneering
Photographer
of Snowflakes

Primary Source Document
Exercise

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Wilbur Wright, Alexander Graham Bell, and Orville Wright Outside the Smithsonian

Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867-May 30, 1912) and Orville Wright (August 19, 1871-January 30, 1948) were the inventors of the first successful airplane. They first wrote to the Smithsonian Institution in May of 1899 to request information about publications on aeronautics. At this time they were not the "Wright Brothers" who flew the first airplane, they were just two brothers who owned a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. Their work on developing the airplane began years before their first flight of December 17, 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The brothers manufactured and sold bicycles, but Wilbur was not satisfied with this. With his brother and business partner, they began working on an early interest of theirs, flight.

The brothers began by searching for information on aeronautics from their local library. Once they went through all of the locally available information, Wilbur Wright wrote to the Smithsonian Institution on May 30, 1899, asking for Smithsonian publications on aeronautics and suggestions for other readings. At this time Samuel P. Langley was Secretary of the Smithsonian, and he had done an extensive amout of aeronautical research. He was also working on building the first airplane. Secretary Langley was devastated when the Wright Brothers beat him with their first successful flight in 1903.

The Wright Brothers and the Smithsonian did not always have a good relationship. After Wilbur's death in

The Wright 1903 Flyer in the Arts & Industries Building, c. 1950s

1912, Orville became passionate about defending the Wright Brothers standing as inventors of the airplane. When Smithsonian officials displayed one of Secretary Langley's "Aerodromes," as Langley called his airplanes, with the label stating that Langley had constructed a machine “capable” of flight before the Wright Brothers successful flight, Orville was not happy. Because of this, in 1925, he loaned the Wright 1903 Flyer to the London Science Museum, promising that it would not return to the United States until the Smithsonian renounced its claim. It is not until 1944 that Smithsonian Secretary Charles G. Abbot and Orville Wright came to terms. The Wright 1903 Flyer was placed on display in the Smithsonian's Arts and Industries Building on December 17, 1948.

Documents On-Line

• Letter Dated May 30, 1899
• Letter Dated June 14, 1899
• Letter Dated October 20, 1902
• Letter Dated November 7, 1902
• Letter Dated April 17, 1903
• Letter Dated June 8, 1903

Other Resources

• Wright 1903 Flyer, at the National Air and Space Museum
   
• Wright 1909 Military Flyer, at the National Air and Space Museum
   
• Technical Drawings of the Wright 1903 Flyer, from the National Air and Space Museum, Archives Division
   
• Wright Brothers National Memorial, located in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, part of the National Park Service
   
• Crouch, Tom D., The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright, New York : W.W. Norton, 1989.
   
• The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age