![WRIGHT, Orville (1871-1948). Typed letter signed (“Orville” and “O.W.” in postscript) to Earl Findley (1878-1956), Dayton, 24 February 1928. [With:] WRIGHT, Orville. Letter signed (“Orv”) to Earl Findley, Dayton, 10 March 1928, together with carbons of related correspondence.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2018/NYR/2018_NYR_16082_0158_000(wright_orville_typed_letter_signed_to_earl_findley_dayton_24_february032240).jpg?w=1)
PROPERTY FROM THE WRIGHT BROTHERS AND LINDBERGH PAPERS OF AVIATION JOURNALIST, EARL FINDLEY
WRIGHT, Orville (1871-1948). Typed letter signed (“Orville” and “O.W.” in postscript) to Earl Findley (1878-1956), Dayton, 24 February 1928. [With:] WRIGHT, Orville. Letter signed (“Orv”) to Earl Findley, Dayton, 10 March 1928, together with carbons of related correspondence.
Details
WRIGHT, Orville (1871-1948). Typed letter signed (“Orville” and “O.W.” in postscript) to Earl Findley (1878-1956), Dayton, 24 February 1928. [With:] WRIGHT, Orville. Letter signed (“Orv”) to Earl Findley, Dayton, 10 March 1928, together with carbons of related correspondence.
Together two pages, 265 x 185 mm, on his personal stationery (a little toning).
Orville Wright writes on the popular reaction to his decision to send the 1903 Kitty Hawk plane for exhibit in England, rather than the United States. A superb pair of letters by Wright discussing reactions to his controversial decision. On 24 February he writes that he had read and saved “a number of editorials on the machine going to England...I had a cute letter from Johnnie Blum, New York City, in which he says, ‘A few days ago we had an interesting discussion at school about your sending the plane to England. Also we read clippings from different papers and finally decided you were right.’”
On 10 March, Wright again wrote to Findley, advising him that he was “sending a copy of a letter by H.H. Clayton to Dr. Abbot [Secretary of the Smithsonian]. This is strictly confidential. Clayton is the man who has been working with Dr. Abbot for several years in his measuring of the radiation from the heat from the sun... It is interesting in showing what at least one of Abbot’s close friends thinks of the past course of the Smithsonian.” (The enclosed copy of Clayton’s letter doubts “the correctness of the statement of the Langley machine that it was ‘the first man-carrying aeroplane in the history of the world capable of sustained free flight.'”) Orville continues, discussing a form-letter [present] he had “been sending out to people deploring the loss of the machine to America, and expressing the hope that ‘I will not punish the American people’ by letting it remain permanently abroad.”
Together two pages, 265 x 185 mm, on his personal stationery (a little toning).
Orville Wright writes on the popular reaction to his decision to send the 1903 Kitty Hawk plane for exhibit in England, rather than the United States. A superb pair of letters by Wright discussing reactions to his controversial decision. On 24 February he writes that he had read and saved “a number of editorials on the machine going to England...I had a cute letter from Johnnie Blum, New York City, in which he says, ‘A few days ago we had an interesting discussion at school about your sending the plane to England. Also we read clippings from different papers and finally decided you were right.’”
On 10 March, Wright again wrote to Findley, advising him that he was “sending a copy of a letter by H.H. Clayton to Dr. Abbot [Secretary of the Smithsonian]. This is strictly confidential. Clayton is the man who has been working with Dr. Abbot for several years in his measuring of the radiation from the heat from the sun... It is interesting in showing what at least one of Abbot’s close friends thinks of the past course of the Smithsonian.” (The enclosed copy of Clayton’s letter doubts “the correctness of the statement of the Langley machine that it was ‘the first man-carrying aeroplane in the history of the world capable of sustained free flight.'”) Orville continues, discussing a form-letter [present] he had “been sending out to people deploring the loss of the machine to America, and expressing the hope that ‘I will not punish the American people’ by letting it remain permanently abroad.”