Orville Wright: The Art and Science of Aviation, 1914

Aviation Science

Orville Wright, the fourth child of Milton, a circuit preacher and theology professor, and Susan, college-educated and gifted in mathematics, was born in Dayton, Ohio, on August 19, 1871. Closest to him in age were Wilbur, four years older, and Katharine, three years younger. A cultivated and happy childhood came to an end with the death of his mother in 1889; Orville left high school before his senior year while Wilbur gave up on hopes to attend college at Yale. Using knowledge gained from a summer apprenticeship, Orville started a weekly then daily newspaper. It failed and then he joined a printing company in partnership with Wilbur. An enthusiast of the new rage for cycling, Orville next opened a business in bicycle repair and manufacturing in 1894; the successful Wright Cycle Company eventually replaced the printing venture. This was the point, in 1896, that the brothers developed an interest in the very new science of aviation.

Orville Wright. From The Wright Brothers Aeronautical Engineering Collection, The Franklin Institute Science Museum.