By Dr. Leonard Bruno 
This essay has two purposes. First, it serves to inform readers of this web page about the
general nature and contents of the Wright Brothers scrapbooks available in the Local
History Room. Second, it compares these volumes to two other scrapbooks collections
located in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.
Six days after Orville Wright died of a heart attack on January 30, 1948 at Miami Valley
Hospital at the age of seventy-seven, his will was admitted to probate. There, his nephews
by marriage, Harold S. Miller and Harold W. Steeper, were named as coexecutors of the
estate. Orville already had provided in his will that certain items should be given to
certain institutions, and the Franklin Institute therefore received the original metal
airfoils used by the brothers in their wind tunnel research from 1901 to 1903. All of
Orville’s bronzes and all the brothers’ gold or other medals were to be given to
the Dayton Art Institute. Since Orville also had written a letter to the Science Museum in
London before his death in which he requested that the original 1903 Wright airplane which
he had deposited there be returned to the United States, the coexecutors located the
letter and the historic aircraft was placed in the custody of the Smithsonian Museum in
Washington. Not everything was preordained, however. The will stated that it was up to the
executors to decide which institution would receive all of the files, papers, photographs,
and correspondence held by Orville at the time of his death. The Steeper and Miller
families did not take long to decide, and on May 27, 1949, the Wright Papers were formally
received by the Library of Congress.
Orville’s will did not provide for the disposition of everything that survived him,
and among the several items that fit in this category, one of the more interesting and
personal things was a group of scrapbooks that are today available in the Local History
Room of the Dayton and Montgomery County Public Library (portions of which have been
scanned and are seen on this web site). By the end of 1948, when a formal presentation of
the Wright Brothers’ 1903 airplane was being made in Washington, D.C., attended by
the Vice President, the Chief Justice, and several other dignitaries, a decision was being
made by Wilbur and Orville’s niece, Ivonette Wright Miller (Mrs. Harold S. Miller),
that these important Wright scrapbooks should be placed in the Dayton and Montgomery
Public Library. Therefore, on December 30, 1948, these scrapbooks were given to that Ohio
institution. This was based on the opinions of both Mrs. Miller and the other Wright heirs
that these significant documents should remain in the Dayton area. The scrapbooks would
eventually join other Wright memorabilia held in the Library -- programs, postcards, and
posters, and the brothers’ genealogical records, books, and photographs -- to
comprise an interesting and important collection of Wright material. The Dayton and
Montgomery County Public Library thus joined the ranks of the Library of Congress, the
Smithsonian Institution, the Franklin Institute, Wright State University, the United
States Air Force, and the National Park Service, among others, as a significant repository
of Wright materials.
As
with many of these institutions, Dayton and Montgomery recently has begun to make some of
its collections available to off-site users via the World Wide Web. This permits scholars,
historians, and anyone interested in the inventors of flight to browse the Library’s
special Wright collections. Among the many items it has selected to scan, the Wright
scrapbooks were a logical candidate given both their historical importance in documenting
the record and their great visual interest and appeal. With the very first page displayed
at this site, the viewer notes immediately that he or she is viewing a unique compilation
of disparate and extremely real material. Its small black-and-white photographs are tipped
into those little, black triangular corners we all remember from our grandparents’
time. With this familiar first page of the Scrapbook Number One displaying as it does the
posed photographs of Bishop Milton Wright and his five children at various ages, the tone
is set for a casual trip through a very special family album. It should also be noted that
this photo page serves to introduce Wilbur and Orville and to place them in their real,
original context as sons and brothers. It therefore appropriately grounds these now-famous
Americans solidly within their family context, with their Bishop father located at the
center bottom. In some ways, this very fitting photo page says that family was the
brothers’ foundation and served as the base of their lives.
Like any family album, the scrapbooks located in the Local History Room hold both
surprises and omissions. To this viewer, the scrapbooks displayed on this Web site do not
seem to have been created originally in order to document exhaustively the brothers’
careers and accomplishments. Often they do not proceed chronologically, and sometimes they
give a great deal of information about one event while perhaps not enough about another.
The scrapbooks emphasize the non-technical side of the Wrights, and their focus on things
like the Dayton tributes and Wilbur’s death suggest that these scrapbooks served
larger, perhaps more personal goals. They also contain fascinating materials gleaned from
many different media. Thus the scrapbooks hold not only newspaper and magazine clippings,
but also sheet music, signed letters, handwritten accounts, copies of documents, cartoons,
a collage of articles and photos, programs, souvenir buttons, medals, sympathy cards, and
even a commemorative hatband worn during Dayton’s 1909 celebration of the Wrights.
In
fact, the first album generally does proceed chronologically, and its beginning items
serve to build a historical foundation of sorts as they show first, the Wrights’
attempts at publishing a newspaper, and then proceed directly to their 1903
accomplishments in flight. Thus the first family photo page already described is followed
by a printed announcement of the brothers’ newspaper, The Evening Item. This
is followed immediately by a Dayton Daily News article for December 18, 1903 whose
headline reads, “Dayton Boys Emulate Great Santos-Dumont,” thus establishing the
fact of their achievement at Kitty Hawk While this news headline was high praise in its
day -- since Santos-Dumont was a colorful Brazilian personality well-known for his balloon
ascensions and lighter-than-air dirigibles -- in actuality, the Wrights’
heavier-than-air achievement went far beyond anything Santos-Dumont had ever done. The
significance of their accomplishment would soon be realized as evidenced by an undated and
unattributed newspaper clipping with the headline, “Secret of Aerial Flight Wrested
from the Birds,” which also tells of the interest of the French government in the
machine built by the Dayton brothers. By 1906, the Wright’s success was formerly
recognized by the Aero Club of America, and the scrapbook contains a copy of its
declaration in which it details the brothers’ actual flights and resolves to express
its “hearty felicitations on their great achievement in devising, constructing, and
operating a successful, man-carrying dynamic flying machine.”
While the next few news items in the album document such incidents as Orville’s crash
at Fort Meyer in September 1908, Wilbur’s stunning success in France the following
month, and a long biography of both brothers in a publication called the Religious
Telescope, the scrapbook soon takes up a joyous and proud theme that it documents in great
detail – the famed “Home Celebration” held in Dayton in 1909. Beginning
with the “Home Celebration” issue of Greater Dayton which had the Wrights on its
cover, the scrapbook documents in loving detail just how proud Dayton was of its native
sons. In addition to exhaustive detail about the Wrights – “Orville Wright - A
Sketch,” “The Wright Brothers As I Know Them,” and their accomplishments
– “The Story Of The Flying Machine,” the scrapbook contains articles in
which Dayton celebrates itself – “How Dayton Will Care For Her Many Visitors
This Week,” “Plans Are Now Complete For The Tribute to the Wright Brothers By
Their Home City,” and “We Celebrate Also The Community.”
Naturally, the actual celebration receives excellent coverage in the scrapbook, including
articles detailing the event’s proceedings and happenings – “Keys Of City
Are Presented,” “Throngs Pour Into City For Wright Celebration,” and
“75,000 See Medals Presented”. Interspersed throughout these news clipping are
such items as a commemorative medal received by the Wrights, an official Home Celebration
program, celebratory buttons, cards, and the Dayton Daily News “Wright
Brothers Welcome Home Edition” for June 16, 1909. 
Somewhere beyond the halfway point of this
digital presentation, the news clippings suddenly turn from the joyous to the grave, as we
note in a Daily News headline for May 30, 1912 stating “Wilbur Wright Dies.”
Wilbur had become ill on May 2 during a trip to Boston, and on returning home to Dayton on
May 4, was diagnosed by his doctor as having typhoid fever. Wilbur felt sick enough to
make out his will on May 10, and although the family thought he was improving when Orville
made a trip to Washington, D.C. to deliver a Wright aircraft to the War Department, he
hurried back to Dayton on May 20, and Wilbur’s relapse led to his eventual death. The
scrapbook contains not only a copy of the mayor’s proclamation, but an article
containing details of Wilbur’s death provided by his physician. The Dayton Daily News
for May 30, 1912 also published an editorial, “A Tribute,” as well as an
editorial cartoon depicting the loss experienced by the family, the city, and the nation.
More articles followed, several of which detail Wilbur’s story and his flying
achievements, such as “Wrights Showed Interest In Flying Early In Childhood” and
“A Combined History Of The Wrights And Aviation.” Page upon page of the
scrapbook is then covered with articles describing Wilbur’s funeral and the
city’s reactions and events. Thus, included are articles such as “Remains Lay In
State,” “Scenes Photographed At The Funeral Of Wilbur Wright,” and
“Wilbur Wright Laid To Rest In Woodland.” Following this heavy coverage of a
single event, the scrapbook telescopes quickly through the next decade, touching mostly
upon Orville’s activities. It concludes with an article describing the meeting of two
aeronautical pioneers in 1928 - “Col. Lindbergh And Orville Wright Meet At First
Flight Observance In Washington” - when Orville and the nation celebrated the
twenty-fifth anniversary of the first flight.
The Wright scrapbooks held in the Dayton and Montgomery County Library are not the only
ones in existence. In the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress there are two
scrapbooks, both similar and yet both naturally different from those in Ohio. The first
and most significant is an extensive collection of eleven large folio volumes that was
donated in 1949 to the Library by the executors of the Wright estate. They were
microfilmed soon thereafter, and the Manuscript Division now serves the microfilm to
readers instead of the originals. These scrapbooks had been begun by Wilbur and Orville
themselves, and were later maintained largely by Miss Mabel Beck, Orville’s secretary
for many years. The scrapbooks are therefore composed of materials that were selected for
the most part by the Wrights themselves and by Miss Beck, with additional items being sent
to them by close friends and associates. Like almost all scrapbooks, these volumes proceed
for the most part chronologically. Beginning with the first volume, bound in green velvet
with Orville Wright’s initials in gold letters on the cover, these volumes form a
real history of the beginnings of aviation. They start with material culled from 1902 when
the brothers were conducting glider experiments at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and its
earliest item is, like the Dayton and Montgomery scrapbook, from the Dayton Daily News for
January 25, 1902. This and the very next item, an article in Scientific American for
February 22, 1902, were both based on Wilbur’s address titled “Some Aeronautical
Experiments.” Wilbur had presented this paper before the Western Society of Engineers
in Chicago on September 18, 1901.
These scrapbooks proceed mostly in a chronological manner and form a true history of the
beginnings of aviation. Through these books one can trace the fortunes of the Wrights,
beginning with their early trials accompanied by little public notice. One then sees a
growing public interest in their work by 1908, and the great public acclaim achieved by
their European flights in 1909. We see the brothers meeting with heads of state and even
royalty - King Alfonso XIII, King Edward VII, and King Victor Emmanuel III. Also
documented is their triumphant return to America followed by the presentation of medals by
President Taft, and the two-day celebration in Dayton. We can also trace the period of
public exhibition flying, Wilbur’s unexpected death in 1912, the long Wright patent
litigation, the sale of the Wright Company in 1915, and Orville’s subsequent
retirement from public life.
These folios are not only concerned with the Wrights, as we note the appearance of such
individuals as Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas A. Edison, Henry Ford, Charles F. Kettering,
Octave Chanute, Glenn Curtis, Samuel P. Langley, John J. Montgomery, Albert Santos-Dumont,
Hart O. Berg, and Lord Northcliffe. There are also many notices of the early
“birdmen” - Lincoln Beachy, Eugene Ely, Arch Hoxsey, Bud Mars, John Moisant,
J.A.D. McCurdy, and Phil Parmalee. Finally, the other members of the Wright family are
also included in the scrapbooks, and we can find interesting items about their father,
Bishop Milton Wright, their sister, Katharine (especially her marriage), and the brothers
Reuchlin and Lorin. The subject that probably received the most extensive treatment in
these scrapbooks is the controversy with the Smithsonian and Orville’s long battle
with that institution. Also scattered throughout the books are a number of rare stamps,
air labels, and souvenir covers of pioneer and historical flights addressed to Orville
Wright. Lastly, the scrapbooks contain clippings, speeches, and mementoes of honorary
degrees and other tributes to the brothers.
Besides these valuable scrapbooks that are part of the Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers in
the Library of Congress, the Manuscript Division also acquired what are described as the
Hart O. Berg scrapbooks as part of its AIAA (American Institute for Aeronautics and
Astronautics) collection. This very diverse collection came to the Library in 1964 after
the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences (IAS) merged with the American Rocket Society
to form the AIAA. It consists primarily of biographical and corporate files, but also
contains several different aeronautical collections that were donated to the IAS archives
by several collectors. The Berg scrapbooks are one of these, and consist mainly of
newspaper clippings relating to the Wrights. Berg was an American who worked for Flint
& Co. in Europe, and eventually became close to the Wrights. His scrapbooks are a
diverse and, as one would expect, offer a great deal of the European newspaper coverage of
the Wrights. It also contains some photographs, postcards, and copies of important Wright
documents. These scrapbooks have also been microfilmed by the Library.
Comparing the Dayton and Montgomery County Library’s Wright scrapbooks to those in the Library of Congress, one notes immediately that the Ohio version appears to be focused more on the Wrights as real people - as neighbors, friends, and fellow citizens of Dayton. The Wrights may have been near-ultimate examples of the “local boys make good” phenomenon, and the pride and affection felt for the brothers by their home city and state is obvious in these scrapbooks. While the historian might be more fully informed about the full breadth of the Wrights’ lives and accomplishments by consulting the scrapbooks in the Library of Congress, those in Dayton inform the reader in a unique way, treating the Wrights as talented individuals who would always remain locals despite their national and even international celebrity.
Dr. Leonard C. Bruno
Science Manuscript Historian
Manuscript Division
Library of Congress