May 13, 2015 • 42 mins
David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, talks about his research and discoveries about the Wright brothers, their extreme determination, their family, and the many, many people who played parts in their great success as innovators. Read the show notes here.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to snuff he missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Frying. I I've Tracy V. Wilson, and today
is kind of a fun little treat. Since our listeners
are history buffs, I am confident that many of them
(00:21):
already know about David McCullough and who he is, and
I was lucky enough to get to interview him recently
about his brand new book, The Right Brothers. So just
in case you don't know, though, he is a two
time Pulitzer Prize winner for his books John Adams and Truman.
If you watch the amazing HBO mini series on John
Adams that was based on his book, He's written a
(00:42):
great deal about history in addition to those two books,
including seventeen seventy six, and his last book was The
Greater Journey Americans in Paris, which actually gets referenced in
this upcoming interview. He's also won the Presidential Medal of
Freedom as well as numerous other accolades, So in short,
he totally knows the stuff when it comes to writing
about history. In his latest work, he examines the lives
(01:03):
of the men who are often considered to be sort
of the quintessential American inventors. Uh, there are many inventors
from America, but these guys often get pointed at is
like this is Americana, And I was so honored and
so delighted to get to talk to him about it.
So I'm not present for this one. But just everyone knows,
this interview does not play out, uh in a narrative
(01:24):
style story. Holly is gonna jump around with some questions.
There's gonna be lots of discussion. I'm back and forth,
so basically a conversation, not so much a straight out
story like we normally tell on the show. Yeah, so
you won't get the linear right brother story, but you
will get to hear uh. You know a lot of
Mr McCullough's interesting insights about his research and work on it.
(01:44):
So let's just hop into that. So we are here
with the very impressive David McCullough, and it is such
an honor and just a delight for me to get
to speak with you. UM, as a history rebuff myself,
you're definitely in the royalty box in terms of historians.
(02:04):
So thank you so much for spending time with us.
I don't think that's particularly generous at all. Um. I
have to tell you I had a devil of a
time putting together a list of questions for you about
your new Wright Brothers book, because I wrote notes in
the margins of almost every single page, because you included
(02:25):
so many gems. On the one hand, I'm like, oh,
I want to talk about all of these, But on
the other I also want readers to kind of have
that wonderful experience of discovering each of these little gems
for themselves. So I'm gonna try not to be too
self indulgent with my questions. You'll go right ahead and
do as you wish. So first, I'm curious how much
(02:45):
did you know about the Right Brothers before you started
this project? Very little. I knew about just about what
most most Americans know, which is not much even educated,
well read people. I knew that they had a bicycle shop,
that they came from Dayton, Ohio, and that they were
(03:06):
very clever, and they got lucky, and they invented the airplane.
But all of which except got lucky part is all true.
But what I didn't realize was what they went through
in order to achieve it. How brilliant they were, how
interesting as human beings, and how varied were their interests,
(03:28):
and the fact that they had some little formal education,
but yet that never seemed to slow them down of
the slightest, not in the least. And I wanted to
point out that your book definitely does paint a portrait
that there is very little luck in the picture, like
it is all their hard work and toil, hard work,
and refusal to give up and to learn from your mistakes.
(03:51):
You get knocked down, A lot of people just lie
there and wine and look for pity and or blame
it on somebody else. They never did any of that.
They got back up and tried to figure out what
went wrong and fix it. And the sort of primary
natural adversities that they had to face in the way
(04:13):
of the wild winds of Kitty Hawk, that horrific mosquito plagues,
the realities of the crashes that they survived, that they
went through all of that and yet still came on
strong and succeeded. Indeed, they succeeded in steps. As you know,
(04:36):
most people think that I thought that they flew the
first time at Kitty Hawk and three and then all
the world realized that there were airplanes and the immediately airplanes. Well,
it doesn't work that way. You have a great weight
for the rest of the world to catch on the
reality of what's been achieved. And so many people just
knew absolutely for certain that man would never fly, and
(05:00):
they just refused to accept the fact that no man
is flying. And it's as you know, it's for five
years before the world suddenly said, oh, look what they
can do. Um. And that will only happened because they
went over to France. In this country, that we're just
being ignored and scoffed at a little total indifference in
(05:22):
terms of the public media, the politicians, everything. It's sort
of funny, sad in retrospect, but I'm sure that we're
guilty of it too. There are things that right in
front of our faces. They're in contrary to what we
all know to be true, um, but we refused to
accept it. That's sort of that hindsight problem. Yes. Similarly
(05:46):
though to how their work kind of happened in stages
and it was a slow process. I imagine the research
on this book did not magically happen quickly like you
did a lot of deep digging. What was that process
like and at what point did you sort of start
writing rather than just researching, well what What what happened
was that my last book is about those ambitious young
(06:08):
Americans who in medicine and art and architecture and sculpture
and literature, who in order to improve themselves they're improved
their abilities, that professionally went to France because there was
not sufficient or adequate training here. And when I finished
the book Which and Is, I really wanted to go
(06:31):
on into the twentieth century. And they began calm around
to look at who went to France, why, and what
they turned out to do or be. And I was
astounded to read about the Right brothers putting on their
first really big public demonstrations but in France, and I
began reading about them, and the more I read about them,
(06:53):
the more I realized, I don't know anything about these
two men, and yet they accomplished one of the most extreme,
ordinary achievements in all history. They accomplished what nobody in
all history had been able to do. And who were
they and how did they do it? And what was
their background? What were they like? And all of that
(07:14):
soon became abundantly clear, mainly because of a huge collection
of letters at the Library of Congress, all of which
has survived intact, not just their letters but the letters
of their wireless sister Katherine. And they're extremely important. Father.
They're more than over more than a thousand private family letters,
(07:38):
and none of them ever was capable of writing a
short letter or a boring letter. So it was really
a feast. And you can get inside their lives in
a way that you don't with people you know in
real life, because you can't read other people's veil. Nobody
writes letters anymore. That's true. Uh, And I'm glad you
(07:59):
brought up Catherine and the brother's father, Bishop Milton, right,
because it seems to me reading this book that really,
while it is about innovation and this amazing achievement and
sort of this kickoff into really the modern agem anyways,
at the heart of it, this book really feels like
a story about a family, and sort of it's a
(08:19):
family story. Absolutely. I often thought it was like a
play with four characters. No, I'd say five restricts. There
are a few supporting characters of great value and importance,
like Charlie Taylor and and Amos wrote the b man
who comes down to see the spectacle over the first
time and writes the first article ever published about it.
(08:40):
It's accurate. So I think that if I could say,
was pas and with pride to be sure of what
I feel. I've contributed with this book because there are
other books about the Right brothers, and some very good ones,
but the part of the role like like Katherine has
(09:01):
been largely ignored and with the very few exceptions, and
she was she was just a character. And it's it's
so refreshingly feisty and opinionated and energetic and smart and
and funny. They're all funny. The father isn't particularly funny,
(09:26):
but the brothers are very very good humor clever, and
then the and the father. The fact the father kept
that diary year after year is and that's where I
found the part about who the person was that hit
Wilbur in the teeth with a stick, which which changed
(09:47):
his whole life, and to have it turned out to
be a young man who turned who became the most
one of the most notorious murderers in the whole history
of Ohio, which shocking, stunning in the extreme. And and
he was a neighborhood kid, neighborhood bully. And I think
(10:09):
that's important because it emphasizes, certainly emphasized me as much
as one would be tempted to see the environment community,
the neighborhood that the Right Brothers grew up in, as
it kind of idolized Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post kind
(10:29):
of cover the fact they were there was the evil there,
there was, there was tragedy. This boy, so poor as
teeth were rotting in the druggist in the drug store
where he worked as a clerk, felt so badly for
him he started giving him the only real painkiller that
(10:50):
was available, and which was cocaine. And the boy became
a dog at no time, and then eventually an alcoholic
and that really turned bad and dangerous. So it isn't
just that the genius, the American the fulfillment of the
American dream takes place in this neighborhood of take Ohio,
(11:10):
but real tragedy and an evil well, and I love
that that sort of story, which when I got to
in the book, I was on a flight with a
colleague of mine and I was literally turning to them
and going, oh my gosh, I never knew this, but
it kind of I do that's the way. That's the
way I was all the way through. Oh my gosh,
(11:30):
I never knew this. I think. I think one of
the most incredibly, most exceptional and to their credit turnarounds
that they make in the whole story is when they
find out, discover there on their own, that all the
technical data, the statistics, the formulas that all the wise
(11:54):
businists and professors and the like a cocked it over
the years for the realities of aviation and wing designs.
So we're all long the horble said, worthless. So they
had to start all over again on their own, just
as they had to build their own gas engine because
(12:16):
nobody that was making one. It was powerful enough and
yet light weight enough to serve their purpose. They never
made it desolee engine, ever, and nothing was too daunting
for them to take on. And they had no political connections,
they had no they had no money in the bank,
(12:36):
they had no university or foundations supporting their experiments. They're
doing it on their own with the very slim profits
they made with their bicycle job. And thank goodness for
Charlie Taylor, because they may not have gotten there without him.
Oh no, we no, you know, without without Catherine this bright,
(12:58):
Charlie Taylor, and I and I give that fellow John T.
Daniel down it's a kitty hawk enormous credit he he
really was there when needed and and had the courage
to to see that these weren't just a couple of bagpots.
(13:22):
I think there are actually a lot of people that
come up in the book that don't normally get much
attention in the telling of the Right Brothers story, including
Charlie Taylor, who ran their bike shop when they were
gone and kept it going so that they would have
a little bit of money to actually fund this. And
Amos Root, who you mentioned, he's the one that built
the motor. Yeah, he's the one that built aluminum motor.
(13:42):
That nobody ever made an aluminum motor in all history.
So it makes me wonder, And I'm going to ask
you to speculate a little bit. Why do you think
these really pretty important characters in the story get glossed
over so much of the time. Well, unfortunately, too many
who step up to tell stories, uh, spend too little
(14:04):
time looking at the secondary characters. Um. I find them
not only variably invariably interesting and in every subject I've
taken on, but also very valuable in what they observed
of the principal characters, what they saw in them, or
(14:27):
what they contributed to the success of the principal character. Um.
None of us are alone in life, and those such
things are self made man or self paperman is an
absolute myth that especialist got rid of. We're all the
result of people who influenced this shape, this, parents, teachers, friends, rivals, um.
(14:54):
And of course there's always that element of luck. What
if they had one of them that they had bad luck,
got killed And of course they could have gotten killed
every single time they went up, and they knew it,
and yet they didn't didn't hold him back. They never
they never went up together because they realized that one
of them might get killed and then there had to
(15:14):
be another one still left alive to carry on with
the dream, which again I would imagine at that point
they would really have to rally their secondary support team.
Thank goodness it never happened. But yes, it's interesting to
me that when Wilbur died prematurely felt tragically in nineteen twelve,
or Will really did not do too much for the
(15:37):
rest of his life. He was busy, but the two
heads were better than one. Orwell was very clever, no
question about great mechanical ingenuity. But Wilbur was a genius.
I don't think there's any question about And he was
the leader. He was the big brother, just as it
(15:58):
had been from childhood. He as the boss. And there's
an enormous amount to learn about leadership from those two men.
I gave a talk at the touch there's a school
up at Dartmouth College, and I stress the importance of
their command of language. They knew how to express themselves
on paper and in Wilbur's case, on his feet speaking um.
(16:25):
It's essential, and particularly today, was so little of these
few of these young people in our country no how
to write, no how to write a presentable letter, know
how to write a convincing reporter or analysis. Leaders have
to be readers, and they have to know how to
express themselves, and not just in politics or the law,
(16:49):
in every line of work. It's interesting that you mentioned
that too, being kind of no greater as a payer,
because to me, the way you lay out the book
and the way you describe it to their characters, in
some ways they almost seem so much like two parts
of one hole, like they are clearly both very industrious
and smart, but they're they're different personalities complemented each other entirely. Um.
(17:17):
And of course Catherine and Horrible were very close from
childhood on and and more confiding to each other on
a on a personal or emotional level. And she's the
bosson of the whole household. Uh, it's one of the
(17:38):
reasons I love her. And how about when Horribles did
almost killed in the crash Fort Myers and she's resigns
her job or takes it an extended leave of absence. Facts,
her bag is on the train to Washington in a
matter of a couple of hours, and then spends the
(17:58):
next month in half or whatever it was, at his bedside,
at his back and call, doing everything she can until
she gets him back on his feet more or less.
That wasn't just that she was helping with his physical struggle,
but his emotional state of mind, which was very serious.
(18:19):
I think I think she saved his life, he said.
It certainly seems that way. I mean, I can't imagine
that he would have made it through without her. And
it brings up another question I wanted to ask you,
because they when Wilbur first goes to Paris ahead of Orville.
It seems like the family really had a hard time
dealing with this separation in this distance, and orly Catherine
(18:43):
Orville and Catherine really seemed to be almost near breaking
down in some ways. Both of them just seems so hairy.
I think they I think they were breaking down. Do
you think that was just the stress of sort of
the business situation that was going on with them getting backing,
or how much of it was just that this was
really the first time that Wilbur, who was such a
leader to them, was away from them, and they were
(19:05):
just having this separation without sort of their steady rock.
You took your bike, book, you take out the keystone
on the arch begins to crumble, and he he was,
he was in and those marvelous letters he rights back
to the shape poppy stamps. Everything's all right, don't worry
so much, um and he's right on every account. The
(19:29):
other thing I really love was when he when he
gets angry at Octave Schnook towards the end of the book,
and but he writes the letters expressing their point the
brother the point of view of the brothers to Chant
and criticizing Chant, but never being disrespectful, never being nasty
(19:53):
or or vindictive in anyway. This space sounds very strange.
I read god knows how much about them written by
other people, newspaper reporters, uh, fellow experimenters, aviators. I never
(20:15):
found one derogatory line or paragraph or page. Nobody, it seems,
ever said anything sharply faintfully critical about Yes, they did
say they thought they were a little cuckoo, but that
was that was before they realized that what they had
(20:38):
done as come to pass, they succeeded. I think another really,
I think what this book is their story also reminds
us of are the old the old fashioned manners and values.
You maintain modesty no matter how big a deal you become.
(21:00):
You you remember where you came from, and you and
you don't look down on other people because they haven't
done as well as you have, or they don't know
as much as you have, or they are as well
off as you have. You become none of that, and
you're honest, and you're and oh god, do you work hard.
(21:25):
I think one of the things that I've learned in
my years of writing about our American forebears is that
we really have far too little appreciation of how hard
they all works. Oh goodness, yes, and including those that
never was succeeded, including those who failed, including those who
(21:46):
as tragic, heartbreaking endings to the rest. But oh they
had to work hard, and hard work was seen as
part of being a decent human being, part of being
as sit as it or you pull your share of
the weight. And I feel that these are lessons we
need to keep, keep it in mind, keep passing on
(22:09):
to each generation. It's history. It's history, that's what. Um.
I'm glad that you brought up sort of that there
was nothing really negative or cutting ever said about them
and how decent they were, because I kept as I
was reading, I just was struck over and over again
by how even though there was a lot of competition
(22:31):
to get to manned flight, they never spoke ill of
their competitors. Even when Samuel Langley really was getting kind
of roasted in the press, Wilbur actually spoke out against
the way he was being treated. And they just seemed
like such incredibly decent gentlemen that it just really struck
(22:52):
me as they were sort of such a good a
good kind of um inspiration is just a model of
great character. Or well. I love too of the fact
that the French toward Wilburt. Yet Wilbur made no attempt
to learn their language. He made he was he was
just being exactly who he was the whole time, because
(23:15):
he seems so American, so truly uh pure on its
older American. They loved him for it, and it was
his his attitude, his spirit, his sense of purpose, and
he became, as I mentioned, in the world he became
(23:36):
the most popular American in France ever since Benjamin Franklin.
And and he didn't just but that he was there
over a year, so they had plenty of time to
look him over. Um. I feel that once in a while,
you run into somebody on a plane or ye meeting
(24:02):
of Hello professionals or whatever, on vacation, you run into
somebody you really like, and you wonder, God, isn't great
I've run into this person and and why didn't I
know him sooner? For her? And that's the way I
feel about the Right brothers. Um. I wish I had
(24:26):
known them all along, because I think that they set
such a superb example that can be of of encouragement
and simulation. Two problem us each of us and I
love that you include the details about when they were
all in France together, and how the one of them
(24:47):
who really seemed to like get it and enjoy the
whole thing was Catherine, Like she didn't mind the breast
following them. She learned to sea getting what she deserved. Finally, final,
after all the loyalty and faith in them and sticking
by them and sacrificing her own freedom in life for
(25:09):
their for their benefit, finally she's not only getting a
holiday to dream of, but she's getting recognition, wide and
vocal and visible recognition. She could have stayed there another
couple of months, so she didn't like Italy much too dirty,
(25:47):
I have to say too, I think that I find
many similarities um not not coincidental between the Right Brothers
and Harry Truman. They compassed it. They come from the
same part of our country. They didn't have the advantage
(26:09):
of higher education. They experienced make serious setbacks more than once,
but they kept kept going, kept trying, and then they
were changed. They were but let their importance or their
success go to their heads. And I love the fact
(26:29):
that the Right Brothers went right back to day, didn't
buy a bigger part to Yorker and just as Trumman
went back to independence very soon and pride and pride
to him the fact that they've been raised by parents
who gave them good manners and the rest. And that's
whole little business. When they're in Europe with all the
(26:50):
aristocracy and people wondering, how is it that you act
so naturally, they don't, in fact, say we think we're
just as good as they are. I think that's quintessential American.
It wasn't just it wasn't it wasn't ego. It was
just they felt they had a right to be pleased
with how they were brought up and without what their
(27:13):
values were and what they're says, the responsibility and purpose
was well. On the flip side of that is that
also like when they were in the Outer Banks and
they were dealing with William Tate who was the former postmaster,
who was a very uh simple means, they didn't treat him.
They treated him as they're equal. Just they felt they
were the equals in Europe, like they pretty much had
(27:35):
an even playing field for everyone they encountered. Yes, they
can get along with everybody, and they know who they are.
That's what and Truman knew that he knew who he was.
Truman was going to appoint Uh George Marshall, General George Marshall,
be Secretary of State, and in advance of the announcement,
(27:56):
one of his political advisers that you might want to
think twice of at that, Mr President, and Drewman said,
why why is that? He said, Well, if General Marshall
becomes Secretary State in three or four months, people will
start saying that he'd make a better president than you are.
And Truman said, he wouldn't make a better president than
(28:16):
I am, but I'm but I'm the president and I
want the best possible people all around me in jobs
of importance. He knew exactly who he was, and that's
that's true of the Right brothers. They know who they are,
and they know that what they can do and what
they can produce, how much they can contribute to stand
(28:37):
very similar well. And I have to say, I wonder
how much of that comes from just their support from
their parents from an early age to just try things
and do things. And I one of my very favorite
details in the book is when you write about Orville's
first business, which is very early on in the book.
(28:57):
The printing the printing shop that he started as a
teenage r and I actually, when I read this one
part I turned. I was still on the plane to
my colleague and I was like, will you read this
and tell me I'm not having a cerebral event. And
then I'm reading the words I'm reading because he made
his first printing press with a discarded tombstone, a buggy
spring and scrap metal. I love right, tell me too. Um,
(29:23):
is there a similar little detailer anecdote about their lives
that just resonates with you, even if it's maybe not
one of the more important or momentous events. To me,
one of my favorite scenes is when they're uh there
can't at Kitty Hawk and Orble has a little too
much coffee and he can't sleep at night, and he
(29:45):
comes up with the idea of connecting the warping uh
paparas to get to the Rudder writes you a hinged
rear rudder right yes, and he at breakfast the next
day he presents the ideat knowing that Wilbur will shoot
(30:06):
it down right away, because that's Wilbur's technique, makes formal
fight to prove his idea is good and orrible winks
over at Lauren the other brother. I watched this how
he's going and and wilbur thinks about it from it
says nothing, and he says, that's a great idea. Let's
(30:29):
go do it. And they went out and changed we
wonder how see? Oh? And I love it when they
get into the arguments they wind up taking the opposite side.
They both wind up taking what the other one the
original point was. I'm trying to remember who it was
one of the secondary characters that related that the two
had had a fight, And then they each individually came
(30:50):
to him later and said, you know what, my brother
was right, Yeah, that was Charlie Taylor. I couldn't remember
it or not. I love the character Amos Ruth be many.
He writes the article which is entirely accurate, entirely true.
I resit the Scientific American, and they just ignore it
(31:10):
and ignore him, don't even thank him for it. Yeah,
he got no recognition for the work that he did.
Like as a journalist, he was way above everybody else
covering the story. But don't you love it when the
establishment keeps his nose in the air and somebody at
the lower level comes in and he takes the ball
and runs with it. But we wouldn't have known if
it weren't for someone like you to tell us about it.
(31:32):
So thank you for that. Well, thank you, Um. You
have mentioned I read I think in an interview that
you thought that Charlie Taylor would be great fun to
spend time with. Are there any other favorites for you
among the supporting sort of cast of characters in the
Right Brothers story that you would also like to spend
time with. Oh yes, John Daniel Daniel's at City and
(31:54):
Bill Tay and well, as we said, Amos Groupe. Absolutely,
I'd like to know them all, Um, And I'd like
to know some of the people have mocked him. I'd
like very much to know or at least you have
some experience talking to Langley. Oh yes, I would. And
(32:16):
and William Howard Taft I must say he comes through
at the end. He really does. And I think it's
just I think it's perfectly perfectly appropriate that either can
Ohio man Um, It's kind of think you put it
in the novel. He say no, no, no, Catherine. Have
the president come from some other state yet? Do you
(32:39):
ever or have you ever speculated on what might have
been achieved if Wilbur had not died at the relatively
young age and rather suddenly. No, I haven't much, but
I tend to think maybe not a great deal would
have happened, because when they go up together in the
plane at Pray Area in May, I think that's their
(33:04):
way of telling all their friends and neighbors who they
invited to come there, that they've done what they set
out to do and they need do no more. Obviously,
Wilbur hated business, hated legals, fights in court, and at
the time and in the family thought that that's what
(33:27):
so wore him down, that caught type white fever. Um.
I think that the terrible destruction that this invention brought
to the world would have broken his heart, as I'm
sure it did horrible. One of the things that I
(33:51):
try to remind people, how is that when you think
how the world has changed since nineteen Let's say we
need lies the first practical airplane at Lamont, and yet
I could have known horrible right. Um, it's not very
long ago. He died in night. I would have been
(34:14):
about fifteen, and I could have known him for three
or four years of that nice OTTLD guy around the corner.
It's just a fraction of time as history goes, that
this has all come about. I was looking at something
the other day and I saw that in last year,
(34:39):
just at O'harefield in Chicago, seventy million people went in
and out of that airport, flew in and out of
that million. And we're talking about two people came along
with the idea not very long ago. None of us,
either of them, nobody at the time, could have seen
what they were letting out of the bag. Yeah. I
(35:03):
kept finding myself thinking, man, this was happening a lot
of these really big events, like as things had really
gained ground and they were really considered successful. We're really
just a few decades before World War Two when air
airplanes were a huge part of the strategy. So it's
that's a big, big Pandora's box that got opened, sure is.
(35:25):
And of course see rockets and breaking the sound barrier. Yeah,
all happened before he died. Um. So, since you have
written about and studied the rights as well as many
other innovators in history, and I suspect I might know
the answer to this question. But do you think there's
one element or trait or skill that is just vital
(35:47):
to being an inventor that modern creators and inventors need
to take note of. Well there there isn't one, but
one of the crucia is a big idea. They had
a big idea um and and very powerful sense of purpose,
and they weren't defeated by side backs. They kept going.
(36:09):
They didn't ever lapse into self pity or blaming other people.
And they loved their work. It wasn't just that they
were doing in order to succeed or to be big deals.
They loved it. What do my phone you last? Earlier?
One of my favorite scenes are absolutely when I Had Doors,
when they were putting on the two Days celebrations in
(36:31):
their honor and Dayton, and every time they could slip
away get back to their to the bike shop and
get back to their work, they did it. And and
the New York Times reporter that followed them and kept
a careful log I say, snuck away to keep get
back to work. I just thought that was emblematic a
(36:53):
scene as one kind dream of yeah uh oh, and
the other scene too that is just so you think,
oh Hollywood might have invented when they when Wilbur flies
up the Hudson River. M Oh my god, what a scene.
And the idea that he's getting those huge drafts of
(37:16):
winds off of the skyscrapers. So you have these two
elements reaching for this guy. This the buildings on the
island of Manhattan, and this little fragile plane with a
canoe strapped underneath in case he went down on the water.
So he's flying that the latest, most ingenious, most unexpected
(37:40):
form of transportation ever, but in order to have a
little security in his heart mind, he straps one of
the oldest beings of transportation on the underside of the thing.
I just think it's hilarious and so practical. Well it's
(38:00):
also a little poetic, you know. It's the brand new
and the old attested coming together. So Tracy, that was
my time with David McCullough. That's so awesome. It was.
I like, how you can just so clearly hear his
(38:22):
great admiration for this entire family and for Wilbury in particular. Uh,
I mean, he clearly has so much love for these
people after he spent years and years reading their letters
and putting together this bigger picture of it. I really
did completely enjoy this book. I loved it so much,
and if you would like to delve into this very
thorough telling of the Right Brothers story, Mr McCullough's book
(38:44):
is out now. You can find it in any bookstore
or online, and that is it is simply titled The
Right Brothers and it is written, of course, by David McCullough.
I think if you are into history at all, even
if you may not think you're into the Right Brothers,
you will probably find it a pretty fascinating read. And
I actually also have some listener mail I want to
hear it too. All right, I'm gonna share it. This
(39:06):
is from our listener Lauren, and she says, Dear Tracy
and Holly, greetings from Canada. I've been a long time
listener to the podcast and I've been looking for a
good excuse to write you an email for several years now,
and your relatively recent episode on Carousels, you requested that
listeners right in regarding historically significant jobs, and I had
the excuse I needed. The first history related job I
(39:27):
held was as a game and ride attendant at in
nineteen twenties themed carnival in one of the four time
periods portrayed at Fort Edmonton Park, which is a living
history museum in Alberta, Canada. One of our jobs was
to operate the hand carved reproduction nineteen twenties carousel for visitors.
I also gave tours of it on the history of
carousels and of the symbolism of individual horses. Of this
(39:48):
particular example, I am not joking when I say that
I could talk for at least forty five minutes about
carousel history. But your podcast uncovered some awesome fun facts
that I was unaware of. Here is my favorite fun
fact about hand carved carousels. The horses were generally uh
not identical on both sides. I was told by our
volunteer wood carvers that the people who made carousel horses
(40:10):
would not make as much of an effort to carve
and decorate the side of the horse that faced the
inside of the carousel. The outside, of course, was meant
to attract customers to ride the machine, so they were
beautifully carved, painted, and decorated. People didn't see the other
side of the horse until they had already paid their
money and we're sitting on it, so they were usually
much plainer on the chariots that manifested as a single
(40:32):
piece of wood that was about one inch thick and
simply painted, in contrast with the outside side, which was
heavily carved out of wood at least as thick as
the width of my palm. The carvers I knew called
these sides the quote Romance side, the one that attracted
visitors onto the horse, and the quote money side, the
one that saved the carousel commissioner money. Now I work
(40:52):
as an interpreter at Elk Island National Park, which is
home to the recovery herds for the plane's bison and
wood bison in North America. Surprisingly enough, I use my
history degrees on a daily basis. Here. I listen to
your podcast most frequently when driving to and from the
park and town, or as I drive through the park
to work, often while stuck in traffic jams of bison
or bison jams. If you will, I would love to
(41:15):
hear more episodes on the history of conservation or national
parks like bamforre Yellowstone. I really love this email because
I had not uncovered that little tidbit about carousels, But
now that I think about it, there have been some
I've written on when the interior side of the horse
was not as fancy pants as the exterior, and it
makes perfect sense from a an economic standpoint, but I
(41:37):
had never put much thought into it. So romance side
and money side now we all know a little bit more.
If you would like to write to us with some
cool information, you can do that at History Podcast at
house to works dot com. You can find us on
Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash missed in History, on Twitter,
at missed in History at pinterest dot com, slash missed
(41:59):
in History, and at missed in History dot spreadshirt dot com.
If you would like to check out any shirts or
bags or phone cases, et cetera. If you would like
to visit our parents site that's how stuff Works dot com.
You can also come to our site, which is missed
in History dot com. Check out show notes for every
episode since Tracy and I have been on the podcast,
as well as an archive of all of our episodes
(42:20):
in the occasional blog post. And we hope you visit
us at how stuff works dot com and missed in
History dot com for more on this and thousands of
other topics. Because it how stuff works dot com
Welcome to snuff he missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Frying. I I've Tracy V. Wilson, and today
is kind of a fun little treat. Since our listeners
are history buffs, I am confident that many of them
(00:21):
already know about David McCullough and who he is, and
I was lucky enough to get to interview him recently
about his brand new book, The Right Brothers. So just
in case you don't know, though, he is a two
time Pulitzer Prize winner for his books John Adams and Truman.
If you watch the amazing HBO mini series on John
Adams that was based on his book, He's written a
(00:42):
great deal about history in addition to those two books,
including seventeen seventy six, and his last book was The
Greater Journey Americans in Paris, which actually gets referenced in
this upcoming interview. He's also won the Presidential Medal of
Freedom as well as numerous other accolades, So in short,
he totally knows the stuff when it comes to writing
about history. In his latest work, he examines the lives
(01:03):
of the men who are often considered to be sort
of the quintessential American inventors. Uh, there are many inventors
from America, but these guys often get pointed at is
like this is Americana, And I was so honored and
so delighted to get to talk to him about it.
So I'm not present for this one. But just everyone knows,
this interview does not play out, uh in a narrative
(01:24):
style story. Holly is gonna jump around with some questions.
There's gonna be lots of discussion. I'm back and forth,
so basically a conversation, not so much a straight out
story like we normally tell on the show. Yeah, so
you won't get the linear right brother story, but you
will get to hear uh. You know a lot of
Mr McCullough's interesting insights about his research and work on it.
(01:44):
So let's just hop into that. So we are here
with the very impressive David McCullough, and it is such
an honor and just a delight for me to get
to speak with you. UM, as a history rebuff myself,
you're definitely in the royalty box in terms of historians.
(02:04):
So thank you so much for spending time with us.
I don't think that's particularly generous at all. Um. I
have to tell you I had a devil of a
time putting together a list of questions for you about
your new Wright Brothers book, because I wrote notes in
the margins of almost every single page, because you included
(02:25):
so many gems. On the one hand, I'm like, oh,
I want to talk about all of these, But on
the other I also want readers to kind of have
that wonderful experience of discovering each of these little gems
for themselves. So I'm gonna try not to be too
self indulgent with my questions. You'll go right ahead and
do as you wish. So first, I'm curious how much
(02:45):
did you know about the Right Brothers before you started
this project? Very little. I knew about just about what
most most Americans know, which is not much even educated,
well read people. I knew that they had a bicycle shop,
that they came from Dayton, Ohio, and that they were
(03:06):
very clever, and they got lucky, and they invented the airplane.
But all of which except got lucky part is all true.
But what I didn't realize was what they went through
in order to achieve it. How brilliant they were, how
interesting as human beings, and how varied were their interests,
(03:28):
and the fact that they had some little formal education,
but yet that never seemed to slow them down of
the slightest, not in the least. And I wanted to
point out that your book definitely does paint a portrait
that there is very little luck in the picture, like
it is all their hard work and toil, hard work,
and refusal to give up and to learn from your mistakes.
(03:51):
You get knocked down, A lot of people just lie
there and wine and look for pity and or blame
it on somebody else. They never did any of that.
They got back up and tried to figure out what
went wrong and fix it. And the sort of primary
natural adversities that they had to face in the way
(04:13):
of the wild winds of Kitty Hawk, that horrific mosquito plagues,
the realities of the crashes that they survived, that they
went through all of that and yet still came on
strong and succeeded. Indeed, they succeeded in steps. As you know,
(04:36):
most people think that I thought that they flew the
first time at Kitty Hawk and three and then all
the world realized that there were airplanes and the immediately airplanes. Well,
it doesn't work that way. You have a great weight
for the rest of the world to catch on the
reality of what's been achieved. And so many people just
knew absolutely for certain that man would never fly, and
(05:00):
they just refused to accept the fact that no man
is flying. And it's as you know, it's for five
years before the world suddenly said, oh, look what they
can do. Um. And that will only happened because they
went over to France. In this country, that we're just
being ignored and scoffed at a little total indifference in
(05:22):
terms of the public media, the politicians, everything. It's sort
of funny, sad in retrospect, but I'm sure that we're
guilty of it too. There are things that right in
front of our faces. They're in contrary to what we
all know to be true, um, but we refused to
accept it. That's sort of that hindsight problem. Yes. Similarly
(05:46):
though to how their work kind of happened in stages
and it was a slow process. I imagine the research
on this book did not magically happen quickly like you
did a lot of deep digging. What was that process
like and at what point did you sort of start
writing rather than just researching, well what What what happened
was that my last book is about those ambitious young
(06:08):
Americans who in medicine and art and architecture and sculpture
and literature, who in order to improve themselves they're improved
their abilities, that professionally went to France because there was
not sufficient or adequate training here. And when I finished
the book Which and Is, I really wanted to go
(06:31):
on into the twentieth century. And they began calm around
to look at who went to France, why, and what
they turned out to do or be. And I was
astounded to read about the Right brothers putting on their
first really big public demonstrations but in France, and I
began reading about them, and the more I read about them,
(06:53):
the more I realized, I don't know anything about these
two men, and yet they accomplished one of the most extreme,
ordinary achievements in all history. They accomplished what nobody in
all history had been able to do. And who were
they and how did they do it? And what was
their background? What were they like? And all of that
(07:14):
soon became abundantly clear, mainly because of a huge collection
of letters at the Library of Congress, all of which
has survived intact, not just their letters but the letters
of their wireless sister Katherine. And they're extremely important. Father.
They're more than over more than a thousand private family letters,
(07:38):
and none of them ever was capable of writing a
short letter or a boring letter. So it was really
a feast. And you can get inside their lives in
a way that you don't with people you know in
real life, because you can't read other people's veil. Nobody
writes letters anymore. That's true. Uh, And I'm glad you
(07:59):
brought up Catherine and the brother's father, Bishop Milton, right,
because it seems to me reading this book that really,
while it is about innovation and this amazing achievement and
sort of this kickoff into really the modern agem anyways,
at the heart of it, this book really feels like
a story about a family, and sort of it's a
(08:19):
family story. Absolutely. I often thought it was like a
play with four characters. No, I'd say five restricts. There
are a few supporting characters of great value and importance,
like Charlie Taylor and and Amos wrote the b man
who comes down to see the spectacle over the first
time and writes the first article ever published about it.
(08:40):
It's accurate. So I think that if I could say,
was pas and with pride to be sure of what
I feel. I've contributed with this book because there are
other books about the Right brothers, and some very good ones,
but the part of the role like like Katherine has
(09:01):
been largely ignored and with the very few exceptions, and
she was she was just a character. And it's it's
so refreshingly feisty and opinionated and energetic and smart and
and funny. They're all funny. The father isn't particularly funny,
(09:26):
but the brothers are very very good humor clever, and
then the and the father. The fact the father kept
that diary year after year is and that's where I
found the part about who the person was that hit
Wilbur in the teeth with a stick, which which changed
(09:47):
his whole life, and to have it turned out to
be a young man who turned who became the most
one of the most notorious murderers in the whole history
of Ohio, which shocking, stunning in the extreme. And and
he was a neighborhood kid, neighborhood bully. And I think
(10:09):
that's important because it emphasizes, certainly emphasized me as much
as one would be tempted to see the environment community,
the neighborhood that the Right Brothers grew up in, as
it kind of idolized Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post kind
(10:29):
of cover the fact they were there was the evil there,
there was, there was tragedy. This boy, so poor as
teeth were rotting in the druggist in the drug store
where he worked as a clerk, felt so badly for
him he started giving him the only real painkiller that
(10:50):
was available, and which was cocaine. And the boy became
a dog at no time, and then eventually an alcoholic
and that really turned bad and dangerous. So it isn't
just that the genius, the American the fulfillment of the
American dream takes place in this neighborhood of take Ohio,
(11:10):
but real tragedy and an evil well, and I love
that that sort of story, which when I got to
in the book, I was on a flight with a
colleague of mine and I was literally turning to them
and going, oh my gosh, I never knew this, but
it kind of I do that's the way. That's the
way I was all the way through. Oh my gosh,
(11:30):
I never knew this. I think. I think one of
the most incredibly, most exceptional and to their credit turnarounds
that they make in the whole story is when they
find out, discover there on their own, that all the
technical data, the statistics, the formulas that all the wise
(11:54):
businists and professors and the like a cocked it over
the years for the realities of aviation and wing designs.
So we're all long the horble said, worthless. So they
had to start all over again on their own, just
as they had to build their own gas engine because
(12:16):
nobody that was making one. It was powerful enough and
yet light weight enough to serve their purpose. They never
made it desolee engine, ever, and nothing was too daunting
for them to take on. And they had no political connections,
they had no they had no money in the bank,
(12:36):
they had no university or foundations supporting their experiments. They're
doing it on their own with the very slim profits
they made with their bicycle job. And thank goodness for
Charlie Taylor, because they may not have gotten there without him.
Oh no, we no, you know, without without Catherine this bright,
(12:58):
Charlie Taylor, and I and I give that fellow John T.
Daniel down it's a kitty hawk enormous credit he he
really was there when needed and and had the courage
to to see that these weren't just a couple of bagpots.
(13:22):
I think there are actually a lot of people that
come up in the book that don't normally get much
attention in the telling of the Right Brothers story, including
Charlie Taylor, who ran their bike shop when they were
gone and kept it going so that they would have
a little bit of money to actually fund this. And
Amos Root, who you mentioned, he's the one that built
the motor. Yeah, he's the one that built aluminum motor.
(13:42):
That nobody ever made an aluminum motor in all history.
So it makes me wonder, And I'm going to ask
you to speculate a little bit. Why do you think
these really pretty important characters in the story get glossed
over so much of the time. Well, unfortunately, too many
who step up to tell stories, uh, spend too little
(14:04):
time looking at the secondary characters. Um. I find them
not only variably invariably interesting and in every subject I've
taken on, but also very valuable in what they observed
of the principal characters, what they saw in them, or
(14:27):
what they contributed to the success of the principal character. Um.
None of us are alone in life, and those such
things are self made man or self paperman is an
absolute myth that especialist got rid of. We're all the
result of people who influenced this shape, this, parents, teachers, friends, rivals, um.
(14:54):
And of course there's always that element of luck. What
if they had one of them that they had bad luck,
got killed And of course they could have gotten killed
every single time they went up, and they knew it,
and yet they didn't didn't hold him back. They never
they never went up together because they realized that one
of them might get killed and then there had to
(15:14):
be another one still left alive to carry on with
the dream, which again I would imagine at that point
they would really have to rally their secondary support team.
Thank goodness it never happened. But yes, it's interesting to
me that when Wilbur died prematurely felt tragically in nineteen twelve,
or Will really did not do too much for the
(15:37):
rest of his life. He was busy, but the two
heads were better than one. Orwell was very clever, no
question about great mechanical ingenuity. But Wilbur was a genius.
I don't think there's any question about And he was
the leader. He was the big brother, just as it
(15:58):
had been from childhood. He as the boss. And there's
an enormous amount to learn about leadership from those two men.
I gave a talk at the touch there's a school
up at Dartmouth College, and I stress the importance of
their command of language. They knew how to express themselves
on paper and in Wilbur's case, on his feet speaking um.
(16:25):
It's essential, and particularly today, was so little of these
few of these young people in our country no how
to write, no how to write a presentable letter, know
how to write a convincing reporter or analysis. Leaders have
to be readers, and they have to know how to
express themselves, and not just in politics or the law,
(16:49):
in every line of work. It's interesting that you mentioned
that too, being kind of no greater as a payer,
because to me, the way you lay out the book
and the way you describe it to their characters, in
some ways they almost seem so much like two parts
of one hole, like they are clearly both very industrious
and smart, but they're they're different personalities complemented each other entirely. Um.
(17:17):
And of course Catherine and Horrible were very close from
childhood on and and more confiding to each other on
a on a personal or emotional level. And she's the
bosson of the whole household. Uh, it's one of the
(17:38):
reasons I love her. And how about when Horribles did
almost killed in the crash Fort Myers and she's resigns
her job or takes it an extended leave of absence. Facts,
her bag is on the train to Washington in a
matter of a couple of hours, and then spends the
(17:58):
next month in half or whatever it was, at his bedside,
at his back and call, doing everything she can until
she gets him back on his feet more or less.
That wasn't just that she was helping with his physical struggle,
but his emotional state of mind, which was very serious.
(18:19):
I think I think she saved his life, he said.
It certainly seems that way. I mean, I can't imagine
that he would have made it through without her. And
it brings up another question I wanted to ask you,
because they when Wilbur first goes to Paris ahead of Orville.
It seems like the family really had a hard time
dealing with this separation in this distance, and orly Catherine
(18:43):
Orville and Catherine really seemed to be almost near breaking
down in some ways. Both of them just seems so hairy.
I think they I think they were breaking down. Do
you think that was just the stress of sort of
the business situation that was going on with them getting backing,
or how much of it was just that this was
really the first time that Wilbur, who was such a
leader to them, was away from them, and they were
(19:05):
just having this separation without sort of their steady rock.
You took your bike, book, you take out the keystone
on the arch begins to crumble, and he he was,
he was in and those marvelous letters he rights back
to the shape poppy stamps. Everything's all right, don't worry
so much, um and he's right on every account. The
(19:29):
other thing I really love was when he when he
gets angry at Octave Schnook towards the end of the book,
and but he writes the letters expressing their point the
brother the point of view of the brothers to Chant
and criticizing Chant, but never being disrespectful, never being nasty
(19:53):
or or vindictive in anyway. This space sounds very strange.
I read god knows how much about them written by
other people, newspaper reporters, uh, fellow experimenters, aviators. I never
(20:15):
found one derogatory line or paragraph or page. Nobody, it seems,
ever said anything sharply faintfully critical about Yes, they did
say they thought they were a little cuckoo, but that
was that was before they realized that what they had
(20:38):
done as come to pass, they succeeded. I think another really,
I think what this book is their story also reminds
us of are the old the old fashioned manners and values.
You maintain modesty no matter how big a deal you become.
(21:00):
You you remember where you came from, and you and
you don't look down on other people because they haven't
done as well as you have, or they don't know
as much as you have, or they are as well
off as you have. You become none of that, and
you're honest, and you're and oh god, do you work hard.
(21:25):
I think one of the things that I've learned in
my years of writing about our American forebears is that
we really have far too little appreciation of how hard
they all works. Oh goodness, yes, and including those that
never was succeeded, including those who failed, including those who
(21:46):
as tragic, heartbreaking endings to the rest. But oh they
had to work hard, and hard work was seen as
part of being a decent human being, part of being
as sit as it or you pull your share of
the weight. And I feel that these are lessons we
need to keep, keep it in mind, keep passing on
(22:09):
to each generation. It's history. It's history, that's what. Um.
I'm glad that you brought up sort of that there
was nothing really negative or cutting ever said about them
and how decent they were, because I kept as I
was reading, I just was struck over and over again
by how even though there was a lot of competition
(22:31):
to get to manned flight, they never spoke ill of
their competitors. Even when Samuel Langley really was getting kind
of roasted in the press, Wilbur actually spoke out against
the way he was being treated. And they just seemed
like such incredibly decent gentlemen that it just really struck
(22:52):
me as they were sort of such a good a
good kind of um inspiration is just a model of
great character. Or well. I love too of the fact
that the French toward Wilburt. Yet Wilbur made no attempt
to learn their language. He made he was he was
just being exactly who he was the whole time, because
(23:15):
he seems so American, so truly uh pure on its
older American. They loved him for it, and it was
his his attitude, his spirit, his sense of purpose, and
he became, as I mentioned, in the world he became
(23:36):
the most popular American in France ever since Benjamin Franklin.
And and he didn't just but that he was there
over a year, so they had plenty of time to
look him over. Um. I feel that once in a while,
you run into somebody on a plane or ye meeting
(24:02):
of Hello professionals or whatever, on vacation, you run into
somebody you really like, and you wonder, God, isn't great
I've run into this person and and why didn't I
know him sooner? For her? And that's the way I
feel about the Right brothers. Um. I wish I had
(24:26):
known them all along, because I think that they set
such a superb example that can be of of encouragement
and simulation. Two problem us each of us and I
love that you include the details about when they were
all in France together, and how the one of them
(24:47):
who really seemed to like get it and enjoy the
whole thing was Catherine, Like she didn't mind the breast
following them. She learned to sea getting what she deserved. Finally, final,
after all the loyalty and faith in them and sticking
by them and sacrificing her own freedom in life for
(25:09):
their for their benefit, finally she's not only getting a
holiday to dream of, but she's getting recognition, wide and
vocal and visible recognition. She could have stayed there another
couple of months, so she didn't like Italy much too dirty,
(25:47):
I have to say too, I think that I find
many similarities um not not coincidental between the Right Brothers
and Harry Truman. They compassed it. They come from the
same part of our country. They didn't have the advantage
(26:09):
of higher education. They experienced make serious setbacks more than once,
but they kept kept going, kept trying, and then they
were changed. They were but let their importance or their
success go to their heads. And I love the fact
(26:29):
that the Right Brothers went right back to day, didn't
buy a bigger part to Yorker and just as Trumman
went back to independence very soon and pride and pride
to him the fact that they've been raised by parents
who gave them good manners and the rest. And that's
whole little business. When they're in Europe with all the
(26:50):
aristocracy and people wondering, how is it that you act
so naturally, they don't, in fact, say we think we're
just as good as they are. I think that's quintessential American.
It wasn't just it wasn't it wasn't ego. It was
just they felt they had a right to be pleased
with how they were brought up and without what their
(27:13):
values were and what they're says, the responsibility and purpose
was well. On the flip side of that is that
also like when they were in the Outer Banks and
they were dealing with William Tate who was the former postmaster,
who was a very uh simple means, they didn't treat him.
They treated him as they're equal. Just they felt they
were the equals in Europe, like they pretty much had
(27:35):
an even playing field for everyone they encountered. Yes, they
can get along with everybody, and they know who they are.
That's what and Truman knew that he knew who he was.
Truman was going to appoint Uh George Marshall, General George Marshall,
be Secretary of State, and in advance of the announcement,
(27:56):
one of his political advisers that you might want to
think twice of at that, Mr President, and Drewman said,
why why is that? He said, Well, if General Marshall
becomes Secretary State in three or four months, people will
start saying that he'd make a better president than you are.
And Truman said, he wouldn't make a better president than
(28:16):
I am, but I'm but I'm the president and I
want the best possible people all around me in jobs
of importance. He knew exactly who he was, and that's
that's true of the Right brothers. They know who they are,
and they know that what they can do and what
they can produce, how much they can contribute to stand
(28:37):
very similar well. And I have to say, I wonder
how much of that comes from just their support from
their parents from an early age to just try things
and do things. And I one of my very favorite
details in the book is when you write about Orville's
first business, which is very early on in the book.
(28:57):
The printing the printing shop that he started as a
teenage r and I actually, when I read this one
part I turned. I was still on the plane to
my colleague and I was like, will you read this
and tell me I'm not having a cerebral event. And
then I'm reading the words I'm reading because he made
his first printing press with a discarded tombstone, a buggy
spring and scrap metal. I love right, tell me too. Um,
(29:23):
is there a similar little detailer anecdote about their lives
that just resonates with you, even if it's maybe not
one of the more important or momentous events. To me,
one of my favorite scenes is when they're uh there
can't at Kitty Hawk and Orble has a little too
much coffee and he can't sleep at night, and he
(29:45):
comes up with the idea of connecting the warping uh
paparas to get to the Rudder writes you a hinged
rear rudder right yes, and he at breakfast the next
day he presents the ideat knowing that Wilbur will shoot
(30:06):
it down right away, because that's Wilbur's technique, makes formal
fight to prove his idea is good and orrible winks
over at Lauren the other brother. I watched this how
he's going and and wilbur thinks about it from it
says nothing, and he says, that's a great idea. Let's
(30:29):
go do it. And they went out and changed we
wonder how see? Oh? And I love it when they
get into the arguments they wind up taking the opposite side.
They both wind up taking what the other one the
original point was. I'm trying to remember who it was
one of the secondary characters that related that the two
had had a fight, And then they each individually came
(30:50):
to him later and said, you know what, my brother
was right, Yeah, that was Charlie Taylor. I couldn't remember
it or not. I love the character Amos Ruth be many.
He writes the article which is entirely accurate, entirely true.
I resit the Scientific American, and they just ignore it
(31:10):
and ignore him, don't even thank him for it. Yeah,
he got no recognition for the work that he did.
Like as a journalist, he was way above everybody else
covering the story. But don't you love it when the
establishment keeps his nose in the air and somebody at
the lower level comes in and he takes the ball
and runs with it. But we wouldn't have known if
it weren't for someone like you to tell us about it.
(31:32):
So thank you for that. Well, thank you, Um. You
have mentioned I read I think in an interview that
you thought that Charlie Taylor would be great fun to
spend time with. Are there any other favorites for you
among the supporting sort of cast of characters in the
Right Brothers story that you would also like to spend
time with. Oh yes, John Daniel Daniel's at City and
(31:54):
Bill Tay and well, as we said, Amos Groupe. Absolutely,
I'd like to know them all, Um, And I'd like
to know some of the people have mocked him. I'd
like very much to know or at least you have
some experience talking to Langley. Oh yes, I would. And
(32:16):
and William Howard Taft I must say he comes through
at the end. He really does. And I think it's
just I think it's perfectly perfectly appropriate that either can
Ohio man Um, It's kind of think you put it
in the novel. He say no, no, no, Catherine. Have
the president come from some other state yet? Do you
(32:39):
ever or have you ever speculated on what might have
been achieved if Wilbur had not died at the relatively
young age and rather suddenly. No, I haven't much, but
I tend to think maybe not a great deal would
have happened, because when they go up together in the
plane at Pray Area in May, I think that's their
(33:04):
way of telling all their friends and neighbors who they
invited to come there, that they've done what they set
out to do and they need do no more. Obviously,
Wilbur hated business, hated legals, fights in court, and at
the time and in the family thought that that's what
(33:27):
so wore him down, that caught type white fever. Um.
I think that the terrible destruction that this invention brought
to the world would have broken his heart, as I'm
sure it did horrible. One of the things that I
(33:51):
try to remind people, how is that when you think
how the world has changed since nineteen Let's say we
need lies the first practical airplane at Lamont, and yet
I could have known horrible right. Um, it's not very
long ago. He died in night. I would have been
(34:14):
about fifteen, and I could have known him for three
or four years of that nice OTTLD guy around the corner.
It's just a fraction of time as history goes, that
this has all come about. I was looking at something
the other day and I saw that in last year,
(34:39):
just at O'harefield in Chicago, seventy million people went in
and out of that airport, flew in and out of
that million. And we're talking about two people came along
with the idea not very long ago. None of us,
either of them, nobody at the time, could have seen
what they were letting out of the bag. Yeah. I
(35:03):
kept finding myself thinking, man, this was happening a lot
of these really big events, like as things had really
gained ground and they were really considered successful. We're really
just a few decades before World War Two when air
airplanes were a huge part of the strategy. So it's
that's a big, big Pandora's box that got opened, sure is.
(35:25):
And of course see rockets and breaking the sound barrier. Yeah,
all happened before he died. Um. So, since you have
written about and studied the rights as well as many
other innovators in history, and I suspect I might know
the answer to this question. But do you think there's
one element or trait or skill that is just vital
(35:47):
to being an inventor that modern creators and inventors need
to take note of. Well there there isn't one, but
one of the crucia is a big idea. They had
a big idea um and and very powerful sense of purpose,
and they weren't defeated by side backs. They kept going.
(36:09):
They didn't ever lapse into self pity or blaming other people.
And they loved their work. It wasn't just that they
were doing in order to succeed or to be big deals.
They loved it. What do my phone you last? Earlier?
One of my favorite scenes are absolutely when I Had Doors,
when they were putting on the two Days celebrations in
(36:31):
their honor and Dayton, and every time they could slip
away get back to their to the bike shop and
get back to their work, they did it. And and
the New York Times reporter that followed them and kept
a careful log I say, snuck away to keep get
back to work. I just thought that was emblematic a
(36:53):
scene as one kind dream of yeah uh oh, and
the other scene too that is just so you think,
oh Hollywood might have invented when they when Wilbur flies
up the Hudson River. M Oh my god, what a scene.
And the idea that he's getting those huge drafts of
(37:16):
winds off of the skyscrapers. So you have these two
elements reaching for this guy. This the buildings on the
island of Manhattan, and this little fragile plane with a
canoe strapped underneath in case he went down on the water.
So he's flying that the latest, most ingenious, most unexpected
(37:40):
form of transportation ever, but in order to have a
little security in his heart mind, he straps one of
the oldest beings of transportation on the underside of the thing.
I just think it's hilarious and so practical. Well it's
(38:00):
also a little poetic, you know. It's the brand new
and the old attested coming together. So Tracy, that was
my time with David McCullough. That's so awesome. It was.
I like, how you can just so clearly hear his
(38:22):
great admiration for this entire family and for Wilbury in particular. Uh,
I mean, he clearly has so much love for these
people after he spent years and years reading their letters
and putting together this bigger picture of it. I really
did completely enjoy this book. I loved it so much,
and if you would like to delve into this very
thorough telling of the Right Brothers story, Mr McCullough's book
(38:44):
is out now. You can find it in any bookstore
or online, and that is it is simply titled The
Right Brothers and it is written, of course, by David McCullough.
I think if you are into history at all, even
if you may not think you're into the Right Brothers,
you will probably find it a pretty fascinating read. And
I actually also have some listener mail I want to
hear it too. All right, I'm gonna share it. This
(39:06):
is from our listener Lauren, and she says, Dear Tracy
and Holly, greetings from Canada. I've been a long time
listener to the podcast and I've been looking for a
good excuse to write you an email for several years now,
and your relatively recent episode on Carousels, you requested that
listeners right in regarding historically significant jobs, and I had
the excuse I needed. The first history related job I
(39:27):
held was as a game and ride attendant at in
nineteen twenties themed carnival in one of the four time
periods portrayed at Fort Edmonton Park, which is a living
history museum in Alberta, Canada. One of our jobs was
to operate the hand carved reproduction nineteen twenties carousel for visitors.
I also gave tours of it on the history of
carousels and of the symbolism of individual horses. Of this
(39:48):
particular example, I am not joking when I say that
I could talk for at least forty five minutes about
carousel history. But your podcast uncovered some awesome fun facts
that I was unaware of. Here is my favorite fun
fact about hand carved carousels. The horses were generally uh
not identical on both sides. I was told by our
volunteer wood carvers that the people who made carousel horses
(40:10):
would not make as much of an effort to carve
and decorate the side of the horse that faced the
inside of the carousel. The outside, of course, was meant
to attract customers to ride the machine, so they were
beautifully carved, painted, and decorated. People didn't see the other
side of the horse until they had already paid their
money and we're sitting on it, so they were usually
much plainer on the chariots that manifested as a single
(40:32):
piece of wood that was about one inch thick and
simply painted, in contrast with the outside side, which was
heavily carved out of wood at least as thick as
the width of my palm. The carvers I knew called
these sides the quote Romance side, the one that attracted
visitors onto the horse, and the quote money side, the
one that saved the carousel commissioner money. Now I work
(40:52):
as an interpreter at Elk Island National Park, which is
home to the recovery herds for the plane's bison and
wood bison in North America. Surprisingly enough, I use my
history degrees on a daily basis. Here. I listen to
your podcast most frequently when driving to and from the
park and town, or as I drive through the park
to work, often while stuck in traffic jams of bison
or bison jams. If you will, I would love to
(41:15):
hear more episodes on the history of conservation or national
parks like bamforre Yellowstone. I really love this email because
I had not uncovered that little tidbit about carousels, But
now that I think about it, there have been some
I've written on when the interior side of the horse
was not as fancy pants as the exterior, and it
makes perfect sense from a an economic standpoint, but I
(41:37):
had never put much thought into it. So romance side
and money side now we all know a little bit more.
If you would like to write to us with some
cool information, you can do that at History Podcast at
house to works dot com. You can find us on
Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash missed in History, on Twitter,
at missed in History at pinterest dot com, slash missed
(41:59):
in History, and at missed in History dot spreadshirt dot com.
If you would like to check out any shirts or
bags or phone cases, et cetera. If you would like
to visit our parents site that's how stuff Works dot com.
You can also come to our site, which is missed
in History dot com. Check out show notes for every
episode since Tracy and I have been on the podcast,
as well as an archive of all of our episodes
(42:20):
in the occasional blog post. And we hope you visit
us at how stuff works dot com and missed in
History dot com for more on this and thousands of
other topics. Because it how stuff works dot com
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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