Contact: Guy Lamolinara (202) 707-9217; Meg Alessi, Manuscript Division (202) 707-7953

September 9, 2003

Selections from the Wright Brothers' Papers to be Available Online

Release Marking 100th Anniversary of Historic Flight Coincides with Library Exhibition

On Dec. 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first powered, sustained and controlled flight in a heavier-than-air flying machine. To commemorate this event, a new online presentation from the Library of Congress’ premier collection of Wright brothers’ papers will be available online beginning Sept. 24 in the American Memory collections at memory.loc.gov/ammem/wrighthtml.

This special electronic educational offering is a prelude to the Sept. 25 opening of "The Dream of Flight," a small, special exhibition in the Library’s permanent American Treasures gallery that commemorates the centennial of flight. Items such as Orville’s telegram to his father announcing the successful flight at Kitty Hawk will appear online as well as in the "Top Treasures" case in the exhibition, which displays the Library’s rare and unique materials on a rotating basis.

Nearly one-third of the Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers at the Library of Congress totaling 30,000 items will be made accessible online. The papers, which document the lives of the Wrights and highlight their pioneering work, span the years 1881 to 1952, but largely cover 1900 to 1940.

The 10,000 items selected for inclusion online are among the most significant and interesting materials in the collection. These include the Wrights’ diaries and notebooks, which record many of their glides and powered flights at Kitty Hawk and elsewhere, as well as their scientific experiments and data. Charts, drawings, scrapbooks, printed matter and other materials covering the Wrights’ research, work and business pursuits were also were selected.

Because Wilbur and Orville corresponded extensively with their family, especially their father, Bishop Milton Wright, and their sister, Katharine, the Wright family correspondence will also be accessible online, along with letters from many correspondents in the field of aeronautics such as Octave Chanute, Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. The Wrights’ letters to Chanute - a civil engineer and aviation pioneer, as well as the brothers’ mentor and friend - provide a first-person account of their problems and progress in inventing their airplane. These letters are part of the Octave Chanute Papers at the Library of Congress.

Among the Wright materials acquired by the Library of Congress and presented online are images from 303 glass-plate negatives, most taken by the Wright brothers themselves between 1896 and 1911 to document successes and failures with their new flying machines. These photographs provide an excellent pictorial record of the brothers’ laboratory, engines, kites, gliders, powered machines, flights and even their accidents. They also contain individual portraits and group pictures of the Wright brothers and their family and friends, as well as photos of their homes, other buildings, towns and landscapes.

The Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers and the Octave Chanute Papers are housed in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress. The glass plate negatives are in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library.

American Memory is a project of the National Digital Library Program of the Library of Congress. Its more than 120 collections, which range from papers of the U.S. presidents, Civil War photographs and early films of Thomas Edison to papers documenting the women’s suffrage and civil rights movements, Jazz Age photographs and the first baseball cards, include 8 million

items from the Library of Congress and other major repositories. The latest Web site from the Library is the monthly "Wise Guide" (www.loc.gov/wiseguide) magazine, which demonstrates that "It’s Fun to Know History."

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PR 03-149
09/09/03
ISSN 0731-3527

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