On May 30, 1899, a 27-year-old entrepreneur named Wilbur Wright took a break from his daily labors in Dayton, Ohio, to write to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He asked for any papers the Smithsonian had published on the question of flight, adding, “I wish to avail myself of all that is already known and then if possible add my mite to help on the future worker who will attain final success.” In time a reply came in the form of a couple of small pamphlets containing little that he did not already know, which inspired Wilbur Wright—who, with his older brother Orville, juggled careers as a printer, bicycle manufacturer, and inventor—to believe that they, and not some “future worker,” would be the first humans to pilot a machine through the air.
Their father a clergyman, the Wright brothers grew up in a household in which, Orville recalled, “there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests, to investigate whatever aroused curiosity.” Along with a love of learning, their father taught his children another valuable lesson: to stick with a problem until it was solved, regardless of how difficult or exasperating. Both skills served Wilbur and Orville well when they went into business for themselves, inventing, among other the first self-oiling bicycle wheel hub, using principles still applied today.
Flight, however, fascinated the brothers more than bicycle wheels or the daily news. Swept up, like many other men of their age, by the glider experiments of German inventor Otto Lilienthal, who died in a crash in 1896, the two spent every spare moment and cent building model aircraft, studying physics, and ransacking libraries to find out everything they could about aviation. The two eventually struck up a correspondence with Octave Chanute, an engineer on whom they could sound out their theories about flight, and who added much to their store of self-taught knowledge.
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