Aviation’s Golden Age: Portraits from the 1920s and 1930s ed. by William M. Leary

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 167 their own, when they tried to sell their invention and the theories and calculations on which it was based. In 1907, Orville Wright wrote a letter to the Board of Ordnance and Fortification in Washington, D.C. In it he explained the Wrights’ attitude: “Our course in asking from governments large sums for the first machine has been based upon an impression that governments often appropriate inventions useful in warfare, and tell the inventor to prosecute a claim under the law.” This was what forced the Wrights to act as they did. Faced by the prospect that a government might “appropriate” their secrets if they were revealed before a sale was made, the Wright brothers hit on the idea of a “contingency contract.” By the terms of this arrangement, a prospective purchaser would sign a contract agreeing to pay a certain sum for their invention. However, nothing would have to be paid in advance; the purchaser would be required to pay only after the airplane flew certain stipulated distances and performed in accor­ dance with all the requirements of the contract. In this way the government concerned would risk little or nothing, and the Wrights would be able to safeguard their own position at the same time. Indeed, in 1908 the contingency contract idea was employed when the Wrights sold their airplane to a syndicate in France. This arrangement was a triumph of their business acumen. It was a deal of the kind they had insisted on in the years between 1905 and 1908 when they at last realized their dream of reaping the rewards they felt entitled to. The Bishop’s Boys is an outstanding biography, and Crouch deserves to be congratulated on his achievement, a highly valuable contribu­ tion to the literature. Alfred Gollin Prof. Gollin, of the University of California, Santa Barbara, is writing a series of books that deals with the impact of air power on the British people. Oxford University awarded him the degree of doctor of letters in recognition of the quality of his published work, and he has been elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Aviation’s Golden Age: Portraits from the 1920s and 1930s. Edited by William M. Leary. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1989. Pp. xii + 201; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $22.50. In Aviation’s Golden Age: Portraits from the 1920s and 1930s, editor William Leary presents biographical sketches of eight pioneers who influenced the direction of military, civil, and commercial aviation in the United States. In “Henry Ford and Aeronautics during the 1920s,” Leary writes about how Ford, a man who flew only three times in his life, attempted to apply the principles of automobile production to the ever-changing world of airplane manufacturing with little or no success. But Ford 168 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE was also instrumental in promoting the commercial potential of aviation, and Leary recounts Ford’s aviation business acumen and his most famous aviation accomplishment, the creation of the Ford Tri-motor, which ruled the skies in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Richard P. Hallion observes the economic might of two aviation giants in “Daniel and Harry Guggenheim and the Philanthropy of Flight.” His focus is the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics, which was established in 1926 and had four purposes: to promote aeronautical education; to foster aeronautical research; to assist in the development of commercial aviation; and to further the application of aircraft in business, industry, and other economic endeavors. In “William P. MacCracken, Jr. and the Regulation of Civil Avia­ tion,” Nick A. Komons notes that “aviation has freely drawn on a variety of talents. It was notjust heroic pilots, brilliant engineers and farsighted entrepeneurs who made aviation what it is today” (p. 35). Hence, he examines the career of MacCracken, who was instrumental in the passage of the Air Commerce Act in 1926 and who became the first federal regulator of American civil aviation, the progenitor of the Federal Aviation Administration. William J. Armstrong examines another facet of the “golden age” in his piece about William A. Moffett, considered the “Father of Naval Aviation.” Moffett earned...