ephemera

theworldillustrated:

Unbelievable time required to cover immense distances of space from Our Wonder World (1918)

This is an unusual illustration for me to post in that I’m uncertain of the artist, and it’s not in anything approaching the style of the first few items. However, it seems appropriate as today is the one hundred and seventh anniversary of the first four flights of the Wright Flyer.

Notably, the Wright Brothers’ sister Katharine graduated from my alma mater, Oberlin College. In true Oberlin fashion, she went on to marry her Oberlin math tutor, much to the dismay of her brothers; as children, the three had promised to never marry and always stay together. She also served as a trustee of the College.

Orville himself donated a gift of $300,000 to Oberlin College, which eventually caused the College to rename its physics building the Wilbur and Orville Wright Laboratory of Physics.

Be sure to click through to the larger version of the image; the text is half the interest.

EDIT: You may also want to head over to Letters of Note, where they have the telegram Orville sent to his father hours after their successful flights.

My new project overlaps with my life at Oberlin for the first time.