David McCullough, historian, narrator, two time Pulitzer winner is the author of “The Wright Brothers”, the biography of the men who taught us to fly. McCullough describes the early 1900s, the time of the Wright brothers as, “…relatively speaking, a fairly placid time. And we were prospering…the economy was good… we had a sense of progress, prosperity and confidence...it was a very exciting time for innovations of all kinds, inventions: the light bulb, the elevator, the telephone, the mouse trap, the cash register, on and on. And they, the Wright Brothers, very much were involved in all of that, felt that. It was a renaissance time if you look upon innovation and invention as an art form. And Dayton had the most number of patents issued to citizens of the city on a per capita basis of any city in the country…”
McCullough drew much about the inventors when he visited the house they had lived in, “…which is exactly as it was…the idea that out of this little house that had no running water, no indoor plumbing, no electricity, no telephone, came this phenomenal idea, these two phenomenal people who changed the world. But what you do see in the house, is in spite of the absence of all those other things, were lots of books. And that's the big part of their story. Their father insisted they read everything, read fiction, read history, natural history, philosophy… And he insisted that they learn to use the English language properly. Their formal education ended with high school. They didn't even graduate from high school. But that was largely because their father always said, ‘Stay home and do that. You don't have to go to school’, because he knew how bright they were.”
McCullough says, “Wilbur, I think, without any question, was a genius. Orville was very bright, very inventive, clever mechanically, but he didn't have the reach of mind that Wilbur had. And Wilbur was a natural leader. And he was the older brother, the big brother. He was the boss. And their sister (Katherine) was also very bright. And one of the pleasures of this book has been able to bring her out of the shadows, because she belongs front and centre and downstage.”
McCullough mentions her again as he talks about the many letters that became his delightful source material, “… there's a huge collection of letters that are in the Library of Congress. There are the professional letters, which number in well over 1,000 and diaries and log books and technical books in their own handwriting. But in addition to that, there are well over 1,000 private family correspondence, letters written strictly for each other in the family. And since they wrote superbly, their use of the English language is humbling. Again, the father insisted they know how to write a good letter and give a good talk and so forth. And these letters are long and never boring. And you hear all about what's on their minds, what they think was funny, what they're having trouble with. Katharine could get pretty feisty. The Wrights could talk with you about almost anything. They weren't just interested in aviation. Wilbur loved architecture and wrote these marvellous letters back from Paris describing the great French architecture, particularly gothic architecture, that he was so overwhelmed by.
“And he was very interested in painting. At every chance, he would go to the Louvre and spend hours looking at paintings…and wrote, again, these delightful letters home to his sister or his father about it. They loved music and books. Nathaniel Hawthorne was Orville’s favourite writer. Katharine loved Sir Walter Scott. In fact, for one of her birthdays, the brothers gave her a bust of Sir Walter Scott.”
McCullough recreates the day, “When finally the day –– the time came when Wilbur went to France to demonstrate before the French…on the eighth day of the eighth month of the year 1908, August 8th, 1908, at Le Mans, France…the astonishment, the excitement was beyond anything anyone remembered. And soon, tens of thousands of people were coming to watch Wilbur Wright fly. And the whole world knew that the airplane was a real event, that the man could fly. And the Wright Brothers instantly became two of the most famous people on earth.”
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Web link:http://www.c-span.org/video/?325996-1/qa-david-mccullough
