The Wright Brothers | Controlling the Skies | American History Tellers | Podcast

What this episode is about

The piece explores the historic attempt of Harriet Quimby, the first American woman to receive a pilot's license, as she prepares to make her mark by flying solo across the English Channel amidst challenging weather conditions. It highlights the pressures she faces from sponsors and competition, as well as the risks involved in her pioneering endeavor.

Key takeaways

• Harriet Quimby's daring flight was eclipsed by Titanic's tragedy—fame can be as fickle as fate.
• In 1912, a woman defied aviation norms, proving that ambition often flourishes in foggy skies.
• Lilianthal's gliding experiments remind us that every great leap requires countless small, sometimes fatal, failures.
• Flying was initially a man’s game, but Quimby's purple suit became a symbol of soaring defiance.
• The dawn of aviation was a chaotic blend of innovation and peril, where dreams often met dramatic ends.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Lindsey Graham (Host) · 16 min speaking
• Lawrence Goldstone (Guest) · 24 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: American History Tellers, Dober, Glenn Curtis, Lawrence Goldstone
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Otto Lilienthal, Samuel Langley
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Edson Galade
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Glenn Curtis
5. 20:00 – 25:00: Glenn Curtis, Harriet Quimby
6. 25:00 – 30:00: Lincoln Beachy
7. 35:00 – 40:00: Glenn Curtis, American History Tellers, Lawrence Goldstone, Birdman

Notable quotes from "The Wright Brothers | Controlling the Skies | American History Tellers | Podcast"

• Trademark in the year since you became the first American woman to receive a pilot's license you scan the Horizon and note that the weather isn't ideal the fog will limit your…

  about Dober · at 0:40

• Control the skies here's our conversation Lawrence Goldstone welcome to American history tellers thanks so much for having me Lindsay we spoke in our series about someone who had a significant impact on the rri brothers a German.

  about Lawrence Goldstone · at 4:26

• Dropped out of the sky and was dead the next day and that was big news lilienthal had become famous and the notice of his death was read in Dayton by the proprietor of a…

  about Otto Lilienthal · at 6:51

• About fight that was suddenly becoming apparent well the idea of control is very interesting because the first pioneers Samuel Langley and a number of other people just assumed…

  about Samuel Langley · at 8:58

• Was called Wing warping had been tried years earlier by a physics professor at Yale named Edson galade and he did it as a glider no motor and he used this Wing warping…

  about Edson Galade · at 13:57

• Which he had first started with yachting and that was won with Incredible speed by another American Glenn Curtis who is very much a part of this story one other thing among the…

  about Glenn Curtis · at 19:41

• This guy well beachy started flying for Curtis and then flew Curtis airplanes on his own Lincoln beachy with all apologies to Chuck Jer is almost certainly the greatest flyer…

  about Lincoln Beachy · at 26:37

• Mission of Mercy American history tellers is hosted edited and executive produced by Me Lindsey Graham for Airship sound designed by Molly Bach music by lindsy Graham additional writing by Neil.

  about American History Tellers · at 39:49

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Glenn Curtis — Person · Referenced pioneer / primary counterpart to Wright brothers · 8 mentions · first at 4:24
  Presented as a major innovator (ailerons, landing gear, naval aviation) and as the Wrights’ key rival in exhibitions and patent conflict.
• Lawrence Goldstone — Person · Main guest (historian/interviewee) · 2 mentions · first at 4:19
  He provides the episode’s interpretive frame: why control mattered, how patents shaped the industry, and why Curtiss vs. Wright became pivotal.
• Harriet Quimby — Person · Referenced pioneer / episode narrative focus · 4 mentions · first at 3:39
  Her Channel crossing and death illustrate both women’s role in early aviation and the era’s extreme safety gaps (e.g., lack of seat belts).
  In 1911 eventually becoming the first American woman to receive a pilot's license and on April 16th 1912 she also became the first woman to fly solo across the English Channel…
• Lincoln Beachy — Person · Referenced aviator / exhibition star · 4 mentions · first at 26:31
  Used as an example of the era’s stunt-flying culture, public spectacle, and lethal risk; tied to Curtiss aircraft and innovation limits (materials).
• Otto Lilienthal — Person · Referenced precursor / technical influence · 2 mentions · first at 4:41
  His glider experiments and airfoil measurements are framed as a necessary step that influenced Wilbur Wright and the move toward controlled flight.
• Samuel Langley — Person · Referenced early aviation experimenter · 1 mention · first at 9:03
  Cited as representing an earlier approach that prioritized inherent stability, contrasting with the Wrights’ insight about controlled instability.
• Edson Galade — Person · Referenced precursor / disputed-obscure figure in transcript · 1 mention · first at 14:04
  Mentioned as a Yale physics professor who experimented with wing-warping before the Wrights; the name appears likely mis-transcribed, but the episode treats him as an antecedent.

Books & papers

• Birdman — Book · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at 4:21
  Authored by Lawrence Goldstone, discussing the Wright brothers and early aviation.
  Pleasure to be here I love talking about this that was my conversation with historian Lawrence Goldstone his book Birdman the wri brothers Glenn Curtis and the battle to…

Places & events

• Titanic — Event · Historical context · 1 mention · first at 3:58
  Mentioned as a significant event that overshadowed Harriet Quimby's flight across the English Channel.
  Became the first woman to fly solo across the English Channel unfortunately her flight occurred just a day after the Titanic struck an is ber and sank in the North Atlantic…
• Dober — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at 0:16
  Location where Harriet Quimby prepared for her flight across the English Channel.

Media & podcasts

• American History Tellers — Media · Host podcast · 4 mentions · first at 3:08
  The podcast where the discussion about Harriet Quimby and early aviation takes place.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:12 wondering imagine it's April 16th 1912 it's a cool foggy morning and you're at the aerodrome outside Dober England you're an American journalist and Aviator and today's the day you hope to make history by becoming the first female pilot to fly across the English Channel your beautiful 50 horsepower blero monoplane glistens in the Morning Mist as you check the engine running your hands along the taut fabric of the wing you're wearing your purple silk flying suit which has become your trademark in the year since you became the first American woman to receive a pilot's license you scan the Horizon and note that the weather isn't ideal the fog will limit your visibility over the channel and leave you without a way to navigate then as you turn to check your propeller you hear someone approaching and can tell from the quick footsteps that it's your friend the eager young German British flyer Gusto Hamill oh

1:02 good morning Harriet you still mad at me you give him a withering look making it clear that he's not off the hook just yet only a few days ago he flew across the Channel with a female passenger the newspapers gave her credit for being the first woman to cross the channel by air of course I'm still mad at you you stole my thunder two of my sponsors have pulled their support you knew I was planning to be the first but you will be the first the other woman was just a passenger well the newspapers don't seem to care about that I'm sorry Harry I I really am but I still think you'll make headlines though are you really planning to make your attempt today weather doesn't look great yes I am I've already delayed enough and my sponsors are getting testy Hamill scratches his head a look of worry on his face it's going to be risky just an error of 5 miles off course would put you over the open ocean

1:52 that could be disastrous you shrug you know it's a risk but you're determined to fly today Hamill places a hand on your arm listen you know I've flown over the channel a dozen times now what if I flew instead of you I I I could wear your purple suit you'd meet me in Cal when I landed and you'd hop in the cockpit and everyone would think you made the first fly you look at Hamill stunned you want to laugh but for a moment you can't even speak your mind flashes back to everyone who's told you flying was a man's game that that that's that's the craziest idea I've ever heard and a terrible one the whole point is to prove women are skilled adventurous Pilots Hamill nods sheepishly well all right I should have known better than to suggest it but at least take this Compass I I can show you how to use it to stay on course even if the clouds don't clear you snatch the compass out of his hand then look East

2:45 from The Cliffs of Dober out across the channel somewhere behind those clouds 22 Mi away is the beach at Cal in a few hours you'll be landing in France and tonight you'll be sipping champagne in Celebration

3:08 from wondery I'm Lindsey Graham and this is American history tellers our history your story by 1912 9 years after the Wright brothers made their first engine-powered flights at Kittyhawk the world of Aviation had expanded among the early Pioneers was Harriet Quimby a theater critic and journalist who began flying in 1911 eventually becoming the first American woman to receive a pilot's license and on April 16th 1912 she also became the first woman to fly solo across the English Channel unfortunately her flight occurred just a day after the Titanic struck an is ber and sank in the North Atlantic stories of that tragedy overshadowed quim's feet and just 10 weeks later she died during a flying demonstration in Massachusetts joining the many casualties of the early days of flight here with me today to discuss Harriet quinby the right brothers and other Aviation Pioneers is historian Lawrence Goldstone award-winning author

4:21 of 28 books including Birdman the re Brothers Glenn Curtis and a battle to control the skies here's our conversation Lawrence Goldstone welcome to American history tellers thanks so much for having me Lindsay we spoke in our series about someone who had a significant impact on the rri brothers a German glider pilot Otto Lilian Thal he made around 2,000 flights without stick or Rudder or Wing control in the late 19th century I'd like you to place him and The burgeoning Aviator scene at the turn of the 19th century in their time it seems like this was a moment a fertile moment for invention it was an incredible period not only for Aviation but for automobile technology and the submarine was being invented Freud's theory of the unconscious mind Einstein's relativity Refrigeration lilan th was a very interesting example of a step in an Innovative process in order to fly there were any number of

5:26 problems that had to be solved the first and most obvious one was how to keep something in the air in Roman times they strapped Wings to their slaves and had them jump off buildings and of course they fell and died so what Lilian Thal had figured out was that air moves in such a fashion that if you curve the air foil which is the wing for purposes of that we're speaking about the air will move over the camber which is the curve in such a way as to provide what was later called lift he had no interest in Motors he had no interest in steering so what he did was he fashioned these air foils and took measurements on what the camber was the length of the wing the width the aspect ratio which is the length times the width and would run down Hills with these Wings strapped to him and glide and at first of course everybody thought he was just one of these crazy people but he did thousands of these and he

6:32 took very very careful measurements to find out what the right structure of an air foil would be it was an interim step but it was a necessary step and in 1896 while trying one of these experiments he evidently hit a thermal dropped out of the sky and was dead the next day and that was big news lilienthal had become famous and the notice of his death was read in Dayton by the proprietor of a bicycle shop named Wilbur Wright and it was Wilbur and his brother that uh began working on their flying machines in this kind of innovative atmosphere of the time but they were certainly not the only ones I wonder if you could give us an overview of the early aviation industry at the time well I wouldn't call it an industry but it had been a process that had been going on in a serious way probably a century before lilienthal they called it the flying problem and there were any number of experimenters there was a man

7:40 named muar in Egypt and one of the men who was not specifically involved was a man named octav shenut probably the most famous civil engineer in America he had built bridges that supposedly couldn't be built and what he did he started accumulating all the results of experiments most of them failed and created this kind of database and that information filtered out into the general public and chenut and the Wright brothers Wilbur actually corresponded for many years very amicably and then there was a falling out that that came later in the process so what you had was people trying to figure out how to keep something in the air and then the secondary problem was was how do you power it and then the third problem which nobody was actually dealing with yet until Wilbur was how do you control it how do you steer how do you keep this air machine from being just at the mercy of the wind and air currents Wilbur was

8:46 one of these people who stepped in in the middle of a process with an absolutely brilliant Insight that got everything going what had these earlier Flyers these aeronauts not figured out about fight that was suddenly becoming apparent well the idea of control is very interesting because the first pioneers Samuel Langley and a number of other people just assumed that what you wanted was the machine when it was finally finished to be able to stay stable in the air and in order to do that aerodynamically the wings would come out from the center it was too soon to call it a fuselodge you can call it the frame in kind of a v which is called a dihedral because of the way air works if one side dipped it would naturally correct the problem is you couldn't really control it if you started to crash you would just crash there was no way to steer except these long very wide turns what Wilbur realized was that the

9:54 way to create stability was to make the craft inherently unstable and so the wings would come out from the airframe in his design in an anhedral which is kind of a little bit of an upside down V and if you go to the Smithsonian where they have the right flyer you'll see that and what he did was devised a way to correct for the natural tendency of this craft to become uncontrolled to pitch and eventually go straight down into the ground his Insight was abs absolutely necessary for controlled flight there is no question that the Wright brothers were not the first people to create something that flew they were the first people to create something that flew under control the right Brothers place in history is well regarded but they started out as bicycle makers what are the parallels between bicycles and flight what people don't realize now is that bicycles were this incredible phenomenon because For the

10:56 First Time I think in the 1880s they got rid of the highwheeler the ones you see sometimes in Old carnivals where the first wheel is huge and the back wheel is Tiny you couldn't get on them you couldn't control them people would fall off they developed the safety bicycle which is like today's bicycle both Wheels the same size you could get on them you could control them tens of millions were sold over the next 10 years so when orille and Wilbur went into the bicycle business they were going into the hot business at the the time there were Millions tens of millions of bicycles sold in the United States women did it so the bicycle industry you could call it the crypto of its time it was just a huge burgeoning industry so the Wright brothers had joined a bicycling club and Orville particularly was a terrific Craftsman and then they started repairing the Bicycles of all the people in the club

11:53 when the bikes broke down so they started a shop and then they started building bicycles what will ber realized was that when you steer a bicycle it tilts if you're on a bicycle and try to keep it vertical to the ground while you're turning you end up in the bushes and he was the first person to realize that if you bank it tilt it you can maintain control in a turn and then supposedly from watching buzzards and how their wing tips moved while they were in Flight I was is never quite sure about that because supposedly a lot of people watch birds and seagulls and when I went out to the beach I watched seagulls and I tried but I could not discern the movement of their wing tips but Wilbur said he did and however he got the idea he realized that by changing the angle of incidence is what they called it how the air hit the wing tips with one up and one down you could both steer and you could maintain

12:58 control today the wri brothers are regarded as First in Flight but we know they weren't the First in Flight there were conditions appli to that label what were the criteria for winning this title in an airplane most people say First in Flight synonymous with first in controlled flight the idea that you could keep something in the air in a straight line there were other people doing they certainly did it without Motors and a lot of times just people used to hang on to the frame while this glider moved down a hill much the way lilienthal did it but first in flight means the first actual airplane the first airplane that was a machine that wasn't simply a toy by turning by controlling it that took the technology orders of magnitude further along curiously however their technology which was called Wing warping had been tried years earlier by a physics professor at Yale named Edson galade and he did it as a glider no

14:09 motor and he used this Wing warping technology and he went back and he told all his fellow professors at Yale what he had done and they said oh Edson there's no future in it forget it and he did for many years and then he went back into Aviation later so even this great Insight of wing War of changing the angle of the wing tips to the air had been tried before but the right brothers were the first people to put it all

14:49 together once the problem of flight had more and less been solved there were other firsts to follow longest flight fastest flight most loops around Fairgrounds one of these new Feats was to fly across the English Channel can you share the story of the person who did that and how it went flying across the English Channel was considered like climbing Mount Everest and in 1909 prize money was put up for the first aviator who could fly across the channel you know they were flying actually longer distances than across the channel but the channel was dangerous the winds were difficult the water was difficult if you happen to crash which somebody did and this attracted any number of innovators and Louis blo was the one who actually ended up winning he was a French engineer and he had invented an acetylene lamp to use in automobiles and made quite a bit of money and blero and a couple of other competitors were going

15:52 to try to do this and couple of them were in right flyers and the right technology had its problems although blero is using it and in a monoplane One Wing rather than two he woke up early one morning his foot was so burned he had to be helped into his airplane because he had burned it in a previous trial and got up at 5:30 in the morning there was one other competitor whose airplane still had not crashed and was ready to go but his second forgot to wake him up so blero took off on his own through the fog flew across the English Channel landed on the other side and became a worldwide celebrity and leam the other flyer blero in an incredible move of sportsmanship said he would split the prize if leam followed along but unfortunately right after blero landed the weather got really bad and leam could never do it and so blero became the first man to fly across the English Channel in 1909 1909 being the most

17:05 important year of early flight so why why do you say 1909 was the most important year in Flight what did it mean for the wri brothers what's important to recognize about the wri brothers is that after they flew in December of 1903 they did not fly publicly again for at least 5 years because what they were interested in was getting a patent and having that patent control every other airplane that was built and getting very Hefty royalties as a result as a result of blero flight it became clear to the Wright brothers that they couldn't sit and wait forever because everyone was catching up in 1909 blero flew across English Channel they had the first incredible air show in Ron France and the progress of Aviation between 1909 and 19 say 1912 in terms of speed height control stunts was absolutely phenomenal whereas the progress in flight from when the wri brothers flew in December of 1903 to the

18:20 beginning of 1909 it was very slow there there were not that many innovations that worked I'd love to hear about the world's very first air show this must have been a very exciting spectacle it was they did it in Ron which is now spelled re e IMS but then was rhs which is where they used to Crown French Kings it's east of Paris and they anticipated say 20,000 people coming and it was mobbed they built a train track to take Spectators out there aviators from all over the world were there blo was there and the right Brothers declined to participate because a they thought it was beneath them and B they thought everybody there was infringing their patent which is another story now remember in September 1909 most people in the world believe that flight was impossible and they had read about it it was an incredible phenomenon so seeing one airplane in the sky would just be jawdropping well there were times that

19:27 there were 15 20 airplanes in the sky at the same time flying around the cathedral they had events a man named Gordon Bennett who was a newspaper Heir put up money for the Gordon Bennett cup which he had first started with yachting and that was won with Incredible speed by another American Glenn Curtis who is very very much a part of this story one other thing among the dignitaries was Edith Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt's wife and their young son Quenton who was Roosevelt's favorite and Quenton was later to die in an airplane in World War I you mentioned Curtis's role in this story I wonder if you could um give us a synopsis of his contributions Curtis was at least to me the most important figure in early flight the problem with the right Brothers was that because they were so focused on their patent and so focused on making money which is iron because they weren't big livers it was a matter of Pride for them that they

20:33 stopped innovating Curtis developed aerons which we still use today Curtis developed landing gear which we still use today Curtis figured out how to land an airplane on the deck of a ship with the same technology that we use today an Aeron means Little Wing it's what you see when you're riding on an airplane and you see these little flaps come out of the wing and one goes up and one goes down and that that's how they steer so in a bip plane Curtis mounted these two small Wings between the top and bottom Air foil and with a lever with control one goes up and one goes down which is the same effect as Wing warping except you can use metal and they can be attached in any variety of ways and they could be used in monoplanes much more easily than the W brother system if you look at the list of Innovations from Glen Curtis that moved Aviation forward it would be more than a page if you looked at a list of

21:36 the right Brothers Innovations it would be three lines but the world of early flight did not all belong to Men Women flew too can you tell us about a pilot named Harriet Quimby Harriet Quimby was a remarkable woman she was born in I think in 1875 but she always put her date of birth 10 years later and nobody noticed she was strikingly beautiful started out as an actress became a feature writer in Leslie's magazine writing about things such as you know Chinese princesses and Sarah burnhard moved to New York started racing Automobiles and was sent out to one of the air shows by Leslie's magazine and became so fascinated with flight that she went to John Moon who was also flying and had set up a flying school and she became license number 37 the first woman to be a licensed pilot and she was a showwoman she had a purple flying suit that turned into a regular outfit she flew across the English

22:45 Channel she was an incredible figure which Drew other women in she wasn't the first woman to fly but she was the first woman to get a license and she tragically died in 1912 in an air crash and that was a huge a huge lost to Aviation speaking of her death this is a very dangerous occupation at the time what were the safety innovations that were coming about well there weren't many of them just to give you a sense of how dangerous in the first four years of flight an aviator died on the average of every 10 days you're starting out remember this is a frame this is not an enclosed machine there was a frame the wings were framed people were exposed to the elements they would stuff newspapers in their clothes to keep warm wear cork vests in case they fell into the water but one incredible lack was seat belts it is incredible with this amazing Spade of innovation going on that nobody thought to strap themselves in until about 1911

24:00 1912 and Harriet Quimby she died because she her plane went into a dive and she was ejected an air show and they didn't think for a long time to find ways to keep them in the airplane Glenn Curtis had a famous flight from Albany to Governor's Island to win another large prize and when he got over there's a part of the Hudson River that you fly down where it gets very arrow and the air currents just are very unpredictable and it was like being on a Bronco Curtis was barely able to stay in the airplane but even Curtis the great innovator he didn't go and say okay now we need seat bels eventually by 1911 1912 they started become standard it was Glen Curtis's success in Showmanship they got Wilbur and Orville to realized that they should get in on these exhibitions and promote themselves a little more so they created a team to rival Glenn curtis' fight team some serious competition ensued how did these two teams compete

25:05 against one another well the right Brothers didn't do it because they thought it was a good idea they did it because they felt forced to what happened after 1909 one of the other things that happened was that because of the advances Flyers could start to do tricks they could do twists they could do rolls in the air and people would just want to see this it was something that was thought impossible and Curtis's Flyers started performing all of these tricks and they would have dedicated air shows and Curtis was very good about it he let the Flyers keep half of all the money that was paid the Wright brothers decided they've got to do this because the public was kind of moving away from them they were wondering how good their airplanes was this was the way to prove how good your airplane was and so they started a team and they were getting $1,000 a day per flyer and the Flyers out of that,000 got

26:12 $50 Orville and Wilbur kept the rest they had two particularly noteworthy Flyers Ralph Johnstone and Arch hawky who was known as the Stardust twins because they kept trying to outdo each other in altitude records and both of them died trying to do that another noteworthy flyer is Lincoln beachy he flew for Curtis airplanes tell us about this guy well beachy started flying for Curtis and then flew Curtis airplanes on his own Lincoln beachy with all apologies to Chuck Jer is almost certainly the greatest flyer who ever lived he did things that were thought impossible and nobody would have believed it except he was attracting sometimes hundreds of thousands twice a half a million people to watch him fly by the time BT was done 20 million people had seen him fly when almost no one had ever seen the president of the United States he had a signature trick called the dip of death where he would

27:16 essentially aim the airplane straight down or almost to the vertical until it seemed almost impossible that he could pull it out but he did pull it out just before it hit the ground under total control Landed It smoothly he was Fearless he had started out with balloons he started out in motorcycles like everyone else did he was just a flying genius and he could promote himself just to give you an example in 1911 at the air show in Chicago again half a million people the show is technically over but he is going to go for the altitude record which is 11,200 ft and he's in a Curtis airplane so he goes out over Lake Michigan and Chicago is not called the Windy City for nothing and what he realized was the only way he was going to set the altitude record was to use all his fuel on the way up on the way down he would do what is now called Dead sticking they called it Val planing in other words he had to come down from

28:16 more than 11,000 ft with no propeller with no power no motor so he goes up the megaphone man comes and announces it he gets in the airplane he goes up in big circles until he's this tiny little speck in the sky and then the speck starts coming down more circles and when it gets bigger everyone can see that the propeller was not moving now this is an unbelievably difficult thing to do dead sticking and he ended up Landing not 200 feet from where he took off and when it was written up in the journals it was dealt with as the most incredible feet of flying ever and was predicted that would last of course people got better as time went on what happened to Lincoln beachy Lincoln beachy the dip of death which was his signature move at least 24 other flyers died trying to do it in 1915 he is going to do the dip of death over San Francisco Bay but instead of his usual Bane he had designed a monoplane one way that was fine but in

29:30 order to make it light and maneuverable he used the new Miracle metal aluminum now aluminum is incredibly strong but it folds easily the Metallurgy was not all that well known so beichi goes over starts heading down and the wings kind of fold up collapse and he goes into the bay and they sent down divers everyone just assumed he would have been killed on content when his body was recovered they realized he had only broken his leg in the crash and that he couldn't get out because all the wires had come across him and the greatest aviator who ever lived died of

30:23 drowning part of the reason why the R Brothers came late to the I of public exhibitions was because they wanted to make sure they got their patent first and you mentioned this was part of the story they wanted something called a Pioneer patent what is that and why did they want it Pioneer patent exists nowhere in the law in 1898 there was a Supreme Court case Westinghouse versus boen power break and the notion was and the decision was written by Henry Billings Brown who two years before had written the infamous py versus Ferguson separate but equal decision in Westinghouse and boen power break Brown wrote If someone invents something and develops a groundbreaking new technology that is so far and ahead of anything that existed before that they can patent not only that specific application of the technology but their patent would cover everything that came afterwards the right brother s after they flew

31:30 applied for the patent with the idea of getting a Pioneer patent now because the patent office was Notorious for kicking things back and taking forever their patent lawyer said don't apply for a flying machine don't put a motor on it just apply for a patent for the way the airplane is controlled and the way they had done it was Wing warping but while the wings warped went in opposite directions the rudder automatically followed along and so the patent was for a soaring device and this Pioneer patent when they finally got it which I think was 1906 or 1907 they said every bit of technology that followed aerons anybody else's technology would infringe their patent and they tried to collect exorbitant amounts of money from anybody else flying they sued to stop air shows this is a side of the right brothers that most people don't talk about a whole lot but they in addition to not innovating further on their own we're

32:38 basically going to stop anyone else from innovating too this notion of the pioneer patent which by the way is still in the law it's not used very much anymore but Westinghouse was never specifically overruled by the Supreme Court so you had this situation where the right Brothers said okay we did this and even though it was a technological dead end they said anybody who comes after us has to pay us and people resisted they applied for the patent in Germany and in France and couldn't get it but they ultimately did get it here but the case wasn't finally decided till 1914 after Wilbur had died one of the obvious early customers for aviation technology is the military what were they looking to do with airplanes beyond the obvious and what were early military exhibitions like well no nobody really thought of them as weapons at first they thought of them as Messengers as Scout but of course the notion that you could

33:36 have something in the sky because balloons had been used for observation before was very appealing but what they needed for the military was you needed distance you needed power you needed altitude so the people on the ground with rifles or couldn't shoot you down and dropping bombs came first and then after the invention of the Lewis gun then mounting a gun on an airplane although in World War I they had the guy in the back with a rifle but military was very slow to come to it they didn't want to buy it they thought it was a toy they just didn't get the technology and see the possibilities until flying had become a much much more mature occupation which again is from 1909 on the military exhibitions were actually tame by the standards of the civilian exhibitions because what the military wanted to see was that the plane could take off it could be controlled it could get high enough fast enough far enough

34:37 now the R Brothers themselves may not have seen the possibilities of military use of their aircraft they did not do especially well with defense at first they were asking too much money and they refused to exhibit their airplane they went to France they went to Germany they went to the UK here and they said we've got this great advention you should buy it for 202 $25,000 $100,000 and they would go sure let's see it they go no no we can't show you and it's kind of difficult to make a sale of a new product when you're asking everyone to take your word for it and refuse to show them what it can do once they started demonstrating it then the military was wow this is great and then they did want them as I listen to you I'm struck by how often um the R Brothers are reluctant in contrast someone like Glen Curry Curtis seems to be the greater Pioneer how would you describe the difference in Vision

35:32 between the rri brothers and Glen Curtis the r brothers were fascinating complex but ultimately tragic figures their focus almost from the day they flew at Kittyhawk in December 17th 1903 their sole Focus was business and profit they specifically stopped innovating they did not fly publicly as I said whereas Curtis he couldn't wait to do everything publicly if he got an idea he just ran with it he figured out as I said how to land an airplane on the deck of a ship he figured out how to land an airplane in the water he's the father of Naval Aviation he came out to near where I live in San Diego to get away from the patent suits and became the Pioneer for airplanes that would take off from ships that would land on the water hydroplanes were a very very big deal because you didn't always have airfields and Curtis wanted to make money he wasn't altruistic but he recognized that every new innovation would move his idea his

36:42 product and ultimately his profitability forward where the rights just for some reason stopped dead if Glenn Curtis moved to San Diego to escape the patent suits I wonder what the result was for the rri brothers the rri brothers started suing everyone in 1909 the day Curtis won the Gordon Bennett cup at Ron in 1909 the wri brothers lawyers served his wife in hammondsport New York with an injunction and they started the lawsuits the wri brothers tried to get injunctions to stop air shows they tried to get injunctions to stop foreign flyers from coming to the country they went from Heroes to Paras by the time Wilbur died in May of 19 192 the Wright brothers were largely loathed in the aviation Community if the wri brothers wanted to stop air shows stop foreign Flyers stop innovation in aviation one thing they could not stop was World War I how did that conflict change Aviation Wilbur died in 1912 people think of the

37:47 right Brothers as kind of interchangeable they weren't Wilbur was brilliant one of the great intuitive scientists this country has ever produced Orville was a great Craftsman but they were both dur essentially pretty humorless guys by the time World War I started in 1914 Orville was running the right company and he didn't really have his heart in it you can read all the newspaper accounts remember they had just won their patent suit after five years and the government had this system of cross patenting where basically patents went out the window so you could create better airplanes for the war but by that time American Aviation because of the patent Wars had fallen so far behind European Aviation that there was not a single American airplane including Curtis's that was capable of fighting he had a trainer but that was about it so World War I as Wars tend to do goose the technology further

38:53 but American Aviation had fallen way behind now they caught up again in the 20s and 30s but for the moment the patent Wars destroyed America's chances of having a competitive airplane in the war well eron thank you so much for joining me today on American history T tellers thank you Lindsay it's been a pleasure to be here I love talking about this that was my conversation with historian Lawrence Goldstone his book Birdman the wri brothers Glenn Curtis and the battle to control the skies is available now from Wonder this is the fourth and final episode of our series on the right Brothers for American history tellers in our next season in 1847 the world watches in horror as a Relentless potato blight devastates Ireland while British politicians refuse to provide sufficient Aid Americans collect food to relieve the starving people of Ireland and a determined ship captain sets out on a Mission of Mercy

39:57 American history tellers is hosted edited and executive produced by Me Lindsey Graham for Airship sound designed by Molly Bach music by lindsy Graham additional writing by Neil Thompson this episode was produced by poly Striker and Alita rosanski our senior interview producer is Peter aruni managing producer Desi block senior managing producer kin ples senior producer Andy Herman executive producers are Jenny low Beckman Marshall Louie and Aon oity for wondering w

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The Wright Brothers | Controlling the Skies | American History Tellers | Podcast"?

Lindsey Graham (Host), Lawrence Goldstone (Guest).

What is "The Wright Brothers | Controlling the Skies | American History Tellers | Podcast" about?

The piece explores the historic attempt of Harriet Quimby, the first American woman to receive a pilot's license, as she prepares to make her mark by flying solo across the English Channel amidst challenging weather conditions. It highlights the pressures she faces from sponsors and competition, as well as the risks involved in her pioneering endeavor.

What is mentioned in this American History Tellers episode?

11 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Glenn Curtis, Lawrence Goldstone, American History Tellers, Harriet Quimby, Lincoln Beachy, Birdman. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Wright Brothers | Controlling the Skies | American History Tellers | Podcast"?

The episode runs 41 min; the transcript is about 6,258 words in 39 timestamped sections.

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