Summary and Analysis of The Wright Brothers: Based on the Book by David McCullough
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Summary and Analysis of The Wright Brothers: Based on the Book by David McCullough
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Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader.
This short summary and analysis of The Wright Brothers by David McCullough includes:
- Historical context
- Chapter-by-chapter summaries
- Detailed timeline of key events
- Important quotes
- Fascinating trivia
- Glossary of terms
- Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work
About David McCullough’s The Wright Brothers:
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough’s biography is a fresh, personal account of Wilbur and Orville Wright: two young men from the American Midwest who, armed with dedication, ingenuity, and the skills they acquired as bicycle mechanics, invented the first practical airplane in history.
Based on extensive research—including the brothers’ personal correspondence and diaries—The Wright Brothers brings these two iconic American heroes to life as never before. More than the chronicle of an invention, The Wright Brothers is the story of an American family whose belief in the values of hard work and perseverance made all things seem possible—even the conquest of the skies.
The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504043335 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Worth Books |
| Publication date: | 12/13/2016 |
| Series: | Smart Summaries |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 30 |
| Sales rank: | 981,121 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
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Summary and Analysis of The Wright Brothers
By David McCullough
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 2016 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4333-5
CHAPTER 1
Summary
Prologue
Throughout history, mankind has been fascinated with the idea of flying. Many attempts occurred throughout the ages, including that of Abbas ibn Firnas, a scientist in ninth-century Spain who made a short, successful glider flight. In the nineteenth century, European aviators such as Otto Lilienthal began to study aeronautics and sought to simulate bird flight with gliders. The obsession with flying hit the Wright brothers in their childhood, in the form of a helicopter-like toy they received as a present from their father.
Need to Know: Orville and Wilbur Wright's fascination with flight can be traced to a toy helicopter from France, designed by Alphonse Pénaud, which their father gave them as a present. Their captivation with flight was rekindled years later, when Wilbur began reading Otto Lilienthal's books on aeronautics.
PART I
Chapter 1. Beginnings
Orville and Wilbur Wright grew up in a close-knit, middle-class family in Dayton, Ohio, which, in the late nineteenth century, was a rapidly industrializing city. Their father, Bishop Milton Wright, imbued his children with the values of hard work and education. Their modest home contained an extensive library and both boys were voracious readers. Each of them showed an early aptitude for mechanics, inspired by their mother, Susan, who died of tuberculosis in 1889.
While in high school, Orville started a printing business with his brother and briefly published a local newspaper, the West Side News. However, they later turned to manufacturing bicycles, which at the time were taking America by storm. Soon they had built a successful bicycle manufacturing company, but Wilbur, at least, was sure his future did not lie in the business world.
Chapter 2. The Dream Takes Hold
While nursing Orville through a bout of typhoid fever, Wilbur began reading the works of Otto Lilienthal, a German flying enthusiast who died in 1896 after a fall from a glider of his own invention. Lilienthal was convinced that man would have to study bird mechanics in order to discover the secrets of aviation. Orville and Wilbur soon began to devour all the published material they could obtain on "aerial locomotion."
The brothers built a glider based on the designs of Octave Chanute, a prominent American engineer. Convinced that it could be adapted to carry a pilot, they set out to test "the machine" at the US location with the highest and steadiest winds: Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Chapter 3. Where the Winds Blow
Arriving at Kitty Hawk after a treacherous crossing, Wilbur encountered the most inhospitable place he had ever seen. The high winds kicked up frequent sandstorms on the beach and mosquitoes and ticks were everywhere. Despite all this, Kitty Hawk was still the best location to test the glider. Moreover, it was home to a wide variety of seabirds, whose flight patterns the brothers studied when they were not testing their craft or repairing it after its many crashes.
A second visit to Kitty Hawk in 1901 began with a hurricane, followed by a plague of mosquitoes so overwhelming that the brothers nearly went home. They persevered, however, and in a new set of test flights, concluded that almost everything written so far about aircraft design was erroneous. They would have to build an airplane based on what they learned during their brief, though thrilling, moments in the air.
Chapter 4. Unyielding Resolve
Home again in Dayton, Orville and Wilbur returned to their thriving bicycle business, but spent every free hour conducting experiments in a wind tunnel they built in the workshop above their showroom.
The engineer Octave Chanute, impressed by their research, offered to seek financial support from the industrialist Andrew Carnegie, but the brothers politely declined. They returned to Kitty Hawk in August 1902 with the newly designed "Machine No. 3."
In multiple short flights, they were able to soar, glide, and maneuver the craft and land safely. They had, in effect, solved "the problem of flight" and now only needed a motor to power the craft.
The Wright brothers' accomplishments as experimental scientists — without the benefits of formal education, equipment, or financing — not only made their flights possible, but also revolutionized the nascent field of aeronautics.
PART II
Chapter 5. December 17, 1903
Charlie Taylor, the mechanic left in charge of the Wrights' bicycle business, built the gas-powered aluminum engine that would propel Machine No. 3 into flight and sustain its speed in the air. As the Wrights tested the motor, a spectacular aviation failure took place in Washington, DC. Samuel Langley, head of the Smithsonian Institution, launched his Great Aerodrome to great fanfare, but the costly, unwieldy craft immediately plunged into the Potomac.
On December 17, 1903, with gale-force winds blowing on the Outer Banks, Orville Wright made the first self-propelled, piloted flight, a journey of 120 feet that lasted only 12 seconds, but changed the course of history. In three subsequent trials, the Flyer managed to travel nearly half a mile and extend its time in the air to almost a minute.
After four years and innumerable hardships, the Wright brothers had succeeded in making the first manned flight in an aircraft that took off and moved forward under its own power, and landed safely. Their success came at a time of spectacular failures in aerial flight and a general feeling that it would never be achieved.
The aviation era had begun.
Chapter 6. Out at Huffman Prairie
In order to cut expenses, the brothers moved their testing ground to nearby Huffman Prairie, outside of Dayton. When the trials there ended in late 1905, they had executed more than 160 flights, the longest of which lasted more than 38 minutes and covered a distance of 24 miles. However, these accomplishments attracted scant media attention and what news did appear about them was inaccurate or highly skeptical.
The British government entered into talks with the Wrights about acquiring the aircraft, now called the Flyer III. The brothers first offered it to the US government, but were turned down three times. The failure of Samuel Langley's attempt at manned flight — financed by $70,000 in from the US government — had quashed Washington's enthusiasm for aeronautics.
When talks with the British stalled, the brothers reached an agreement with a group of French businessmen to sell them one aircraft for the extraordinary sum of $200,000.
Chapter 7. A Capital Exhibit A
As more accurate news of the Wright brothers' successes at Huffman Prairie began to appear, the suspicion faded and business interest grew. Wilbur soon found himself on an ocean liner headed for Europe to begin negotiations, this time with American arms manufacturer Flint & Company as a partner.
Wilbur, age forty and had never been outside the United States, was dealing with a group of sophisticated international businessmen and French government officials. He managed to hold his own, however, and avoided succumbing to the terms that his partners tried to impose on him.
Orville arrived in Paris several months later, having shipped a Flyer III to France separately. Negotiations dragged on, as the brothers refused to demonstrate their aircraft or even show it until a contract was signed. This led to more doubts about them in France, which had long been the leader in aviation. Orville and Wilbur held their ground, however, and at year-end 1907, they returned to Dayton without a deal. Three months later, however, they had signed separate contracts to sell airplanes to a French company and to the US Army.
Chapter 8. Triumph at Le Mans
With contracts finally signed in France and the United States, Orville and Wilbur returned to Kitty Hawk for more trials on the Flyer. This time, they were pursued by a crowd of enthralled reporters who wrote positive accounts of their flights, which they witnessed with a mixture of wonder and disbelief. For the first time, the Wright brothers were being treated in the press with admiration instead of cynicism.
The adulation would be even greater in France, where some aviators had openly referred to the secretive Americans as bluffers. At a racetrack near Le Mans, Wilbur turned a crowd of doubters into enthusiastic fans, with a two-mile, two-minute flight that displayed the Flyer's capacity to soar and the pilot's ability to maneuver it.
The spectacle created a sensation in the European press and gave the Wrights a measure of credibility they had never before enjoyed.
Part III
Chapter 9. The Crash
As news continued to pour in about Wilbur's triumphs in France, Orville gave the first official demonstration of a Wright airplane in the United States. As thousands of spectators watched, he sailed above a parade ground at Fort Myer, Virginia, drawing figure eights in the sky and breaking records for sustained flight. Soon the news about the Wrights was traveling across the Atlantic in the other direction, with Orville's exploits knocking Wilbur's off the front pages of newspapers in London and Paris.
The euphoria over Orville's successes was shattered by a spectacular crash in which he sustained serious injuries and his passenger, a young army lieutenant, was killed. Wilbur, still in France, blamed himself for not being on hand to help his younger brother. However, Wilbur soon put aside his anxiety and made a record-breaking flight of more than an hour and a half at Camp d'Auvours, near Le Mans.
Meanwhile, Katharine Wright took an unpaid leave of absence from her teaching job — to which she would never return — and traveled to Washington, where she spent two months at Wilbur's bedside, nursing him back to health. Before long, Orville and Katharine were making plans to join Wilbur in France.
Chapter 10. A Time Like No Other
Wilbur became a celebrity in France, not only due to his great achievements, but because he embodied the American spirit: ingenuity and perseverance. When Orville and Katharine arrived in January 1909, the three traveled to Pau, an elegant resort town near the Pyrenees, where the aerial demonstrations continued.
Wilbur played host to a round of aristocratic visitors that included the kings of Spain and England. Katharine, apart from learning French and taking her first airplane flight, also helped to deflect some of the media attention now being thrust on them. Her outgoing, candid manner made her a celebrity and provided a striking contrast to Orville and Wilbur's taciturn, almost somber demeanor.
From Pau, the Wrights took their "air show" to Rome, where Wilbur flew more than fifty flights. On one of these excursions, he was accompanied by a news ameraman who took the first aerial motion pictures.
In May 1909, the three Wrights returned from Europe with a total of $200,000 in prize money and contracts.
Chapter 11. Causes for Celebration
On their return home, Orville and Wilbur Wright were honored, first at a ceremony at the White House and later with a boisterous homecoming parade on the streets of Dayton. Within a few days, they had returned to Fort Myer for further tests of the Flyer. Orville, who had overcome his injuries from the year before, was the pilot in these trials, which led to a $30,000 contract with the US Army.
The brothers now had competition, both at home and abroad. In August 1909, at the "Great Aviation Week" at Reims, France, the American pilot Glenn Curtiss won the speed completion and broke every previous record the Wright brothers had set. Curtiss and Wilbur participated in an exhibition in the skies over New York harbor, with Wilbur making a pass across the Statue of Liberty that was immortalized in a photograph that was published on the cover of Harper's Weekly.
However, relations with Curtiss were soured by a lawsuit the brothers brought against his company for alleged patent violations, the first of many such cases in years to come.
Epilogue
Wilbur Wright never flew after 1911; his time was consumed by the airplane business and by a series of lawsuits, most for patent infringement. He died of typhoid fever in 1912 at age forty-five. Orville, who lived until 1948, was a steadfast defender of the brothers' reputation as the true pioneers of manned flight, despite later claims to the contrary.
Orville and Katharine lived together at a new family home in Dayton until, at age fifty-two, she announced her plans to marry. Orville, who felt betrayed by her decision, refused to attend Katharine's wedding and did not speak to his sister again until she was on her deathbed.
In 1918, Orville sold his interest in the Wright Company and set up the Wright Aeronautical Laboratory to continue his scientific research. In later years, Orville was horrified by the destruction caused by aerial bombings in World War II. In interviews, he likened the invention of the airplane to the discovery of fire: "I feel about the airplane much the same as I do with regard to fire. I regret all the damage done by fire, but I think it is good for the human race that someone discovered how to start fires and that we have learned how to put fire to thousands of important uses."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Summary and Analysis of The Wright Brothers by David McCullough. Copyright © 2016 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Context,Overview,
Summary,
Timeline,
Cast of Characters,
Direct Quotes and Analysis,
Trivia,
What's That Word?,
Critical Response,
About David McCullough,
For Your Information,
Photo Gallery,
Bibliography,
Copyright,