A Dream of Wings: Americans and the Airplane, 1875-1905 - Hardcover

Crouch, Tom D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393013855 ISBN 13: 9780393013856

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co., 1981

Synopsis

The story of a handful of talented American engineers and adventurers who labored to conquer gravity in a flying machine.

When Orville and Wilbur Wright soared over Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina's outer banks and solved the problem of aerial navigation, they wrote the last chapter in a long story. For decades prior, a small community of engineers, scientists, and dreamersā€”men named Chanute and Langley and Herringā€”had tried to make the ascent in every conceivable craft, from kites and gliders to an assortment of powered flying models. This fascinating assortment of characters and contraptions comes to life in Tom Crouch's classic A Dream of Wings. In the quest for flight, aeronautical societies were formed and broke apart, successes were celebrated, hopes rose and fell, and lessons were learned and built upon. The dreamers who blazed the path to a flying machine are bravely realized in these delightful pages. 55 b/w illustrations.

About this title

About the Author:

Tom D. Crouch, author of The Bishop's Boys and A Dream of Wings, is senior curator of the aeronautics division at the National Air & Space Museum. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia.

Review:

"A pleasure... turns the magnifying lens on the clan and cultural roots of two unusual individuals....[Crouch] movingly--even beautifully--unfolds their story."--Washington Post Book World"[A] superb biography."

"Crouch interweaves family drama with the history of aviation in a riveting saga of ingenuity, competing claims, public adulation and technical innovation."

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.
• Publication date: 1981
• ISBN 10: 0393013855
• ISBN 13: 9780393013856
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 349