Guide to the Wright Brothers collection. Papers, photographs, journals

Biography of Wilbur and Orville Wright

Wilbur Wright, born April 16, 1867 in Indiana, and his brother, Orville, born Aug. 19, 1871 in Dayton, Ohio, were inventors of the airplane. They grew up in a close family with older brothers Reuchlin and Lorin, and a sister Katharine. Their parents were Bishop Milton Wright and Susan Koerner Wright. The brothers were in the printing and bicycle business in Dayton before they became interested in solving the problems of powered flight. After a series of kite and glider experiments at Kitty Hawk, N.C., the brothers built and successfully flew the first heavier-than-air powered machine on Dec. 17, 1903. The Wrights spent the next years improving their invention and in 1909, formed a company to manufacture their airplanes. After Wilbur's death on May 30, 1912, Orville retired from the business. He remained in Dayton, doing research and consulting until his death on Jan. 30, 1948.

Scope and Content

This collection consists of family papers, financial records, school mementos, Wright family genealogical materials, the church papers and diaries of the Wrights' father, Bishop Milton Wright, notebooks, albums, awards and citations, photocopies of correspondence between Wilbur Wright and Octave Chaunte, and the Wrights' technical library that includes journals, books, and pamphlets covering the invention of powered flight and many aspects of early aeronautics. The collection also includes nearly 4,000 photographs from the Wright Brothers personal collection. Many are original prints taken by the Wrights to document their early flying experiments.

The collection inventory is divided into seven sections for ease of use. Part I, Technical Library, contains an extensive list of the books and published materials in the collection which came from the Wright family's own technical and personal library. Part II, Manuscripts, includes personal and family papers, financial records, diaries, genealogical files, letters, and other documents. Part III, Photographs, is an item level listing of the thousands of photographs contained in this collection. More than 2200 of these images are available for searchable viewing in
CORE Scholar, our Campus Online Repository. Part IV, Albums, includes a variety of photograph albums which document the Wright family as well as the development of the airplane. Part V, Phonograph Records and Film, contains several recordings and films. Part VI, Awards and Certificates, documents the variety of these items presented to the Wright Brothers. Part VII, Medals, describes each of the medals in the collection, some of which are available for viewing in the Archives reading room.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Use

Copyright restrictions may apply. Unpublished manuscripts are protected by copyright. Permission to publish, quote or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder.

Restrictions on Access

There are no restrictions on accessing materials in this collection. However, to reduce handling of the original materials, researchers are asked to first browse photographs in CORE Scholar (
http://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/special_ms1/).

Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright papers, 1809-1979 (bulk 1900-1948) at the Library of Congress.
http://www.loc.gov/collection/wilbur-and-orville-wright-papers/about-this-collection/#overview .

Numerous collections in Special Collections & Archives, Wright State University relate to the Wright Brothers Collection. Among these are:

MFM-117 Katharine Wright Haskell Papers

MS-134 Wright Memorial Commission Records

MS-192 Iddings' Wright Brothers Homecoming Collection

MS-194 Charles Harris Papers

MS-216 Ivonette Wright Miller Papers

MS-286 Charlie Taylor - Howard DuFour Collection

MS-355 Charles Wald Collection

MS-389 Randle H. Egbert Aviation Papers

MS-398 Wright Company Glass Plate Negatives

SC-97 Katharine Wright's Correspondence with Agnes Beck

SC-117 Katharine Wright Letters

Subject Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

Persons:

Organizations/Corporations:

Places:

Occupations:

Preferred Citation

[Item Description], MS-1, Wright Brothers Collection, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio.

Acquisition Information

The Wright Brothers Collection was deeded to Wright State University in 1975 by the Wright family. Since that time, numerous additions to the collection have been received from members of the Wright family.

Processing Information

Patrick B. Nolan, then Head of the Special Collections and Archives Department, and John A. Zamonski, Assistant Professor of English at Central State University, organized and described the collection in The Wright Brothers Collection: A Guide to the Technical, Business and Legal, Genealogical, Photographic, and other Archives at Wright State University, published in 1977.

Since that time, numerous additions to the collection and donations of related collections necessitated the revision and updating of the original collection inventory. A bound inventory to the collection was published in 2003, the centennial year of the Wrights' first successful, controlled powered flight, which offered a detailed and more complete guide to the papers of the Wright Family housed at Wright State University.

Additional materials were added to the collection since 2003. The collection inventory available online is the most current and up-to-date inventory to this extensive collection.

Other Finding Aid

A detailed online finding aid is available on the web site of Special Collections & Archives, Wright State University at
https://libraries.wright.edu/special/wrightbrothers/.

A large selection of photographs and newspapers from the collection are available through CORE Scholar at
https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/special_ms1/ .