The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright (review)

The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright. Edited by Peter L. Jakab and Rick Young. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000. Pp. xii+316. $49.95.

Many talented authors have told the story of the Wright brothers and their triumph on the windswept dunes of North Carolina. As shown in The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright, the Wrights themselves could be quite effective messengers themselves, skillfully telling their own tales and strongly defending their claims as the inventors of the airplane. Both brothers demonstrated that their abilities went beyond mechanics and engineering. They could be their own most eloquent and effective spokesmen.

In this book, editors Peter Jakab and Rick Young bring together the published writings of the Wrights. Many of these often short works were published through small, obscure outlets, including some early writings that appeared in newspapers published by the brothers themselves in their Dayton print shop. Also included are published interviews and transcripts of speeches and addresses delivered by one or the other Wright brother.

The editors have divided the collection into four parts. The first includes articles and published statements in which the Wrights explain how they came to invent the airplane. The next section includes technical articles written by the Wrights. The pieces chosen for the third section include the Wrights' assessments of their contemporaries, their fellow experimenters, and date as early as 1890. The last section includes articles in which the Wrights made predictions about the future uses of their invention. There is also a small appendix in which the editors have gathered published writings by several witnesses to the Wright brothers' early experiments and their first flight.

This book is not meant to be read from cover to cover. However, reading the sections from start to finish can provide not only an immersion in the "voice" of the Wright brothers but other insights as well. This is especially true of the first section, dealing with the Wrights and their own telling of their story. The reading can get to be a bit repetitious, yet it also becomes evident that the Wrights were remarkably consistent in the way they related their story over the years. They clearly had or developed a single and precise vision of what they had done and how they had done it, and they knew exactly how they wanted the world to understand and remember it. They demonstrated the same precision in relating their story that they did in their aeronautical research.

It is also clear from these writings that the Wrights, especially Orville, developed a clear public image over time. The world did not have much of a chance to get to know Wilbur, who died in 1912. Orville, however, lived until early 1948. The image of Orville Wright as presented in the interviews republished in this work is consistent over time and between interviewers. He is described and presented in almost the same way by both professional journalists and a student interviewer from some university newspaper. Whether this says more about Orville Wright or the state of journalism at the time is uncertain. It is clear, however, that the younger Wright brother somehow projected a consistent image of himself, his brother, and their work over a long period of time.

Finally, it is also clear from the selections presented that the Wrights were no more able to grasp the full impact of their invention, particularly during the early years after Kitty Hawk, than any of their contemporaries. Except for Orville's expression of a belief, fairly common at the time, that the airplane had the potential to prevent all future wars, the Wrights seemed in many ways far more realistic and less romantic about their invention than many.

The published works collected in this volume are most valuable in that they offer an introduction to the Wright brothers in their own words. The eloquence and sophistication of their...