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First Flight, First Fabric—Aviation's Most Precious Relic

Deborah G. Douglas: December 17, 2003; Running Time: 56:12

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

On the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight, Deborah Douglas manages to tease several story strands out of a one-inch-square piece of fabric. The object at the center of her lecture is a sacred aviation relic, part of the wing covering used in the famous 1903 Wright Brothers flyer. Douglas turns back the clock to 1916—when the Institute was celebrating its new campus in Cambridge. This “Pageant of Progress” featured the 1903 Flyer, and dozens of alumni attended, including some who went on to illustrious careers in aviation. After Orville Wright died, he bequeathed fabric from the Flyer to Lester Gardner (B.S., MIT 1898), founder of what was to become Aviation Week & Space Technology. Gardiner mounted pieces of the fabric on certificates, and, according to Douglas, created a shrine for them in his library.

By mid-century, airplanes dominated the imagination of the American public, symbolizing modernity and progress. Speed was emerging as a central cultural value. Douglas details all that we owe “to the huge communities of people that work together to keep a small number of vehicles in the air.”

This lecture is part of the MIT Museum's Object Lessons, a monthly series of gallery talks.

Lecture Details

Location: MIT Museum
N52, 265 Mass. Ave.

“I can remember my first flight. I was 9. I was dressed in a little blue suit and wore a corsage….There’s none of that excitement today. It’s certainly not a religious experience to pick somebody up at Logan Airport.”

Deborah G. Douglas

About the Speaker

Deborah G. Douglas

Curator, Science and Technology Collections, MIT Museum

Deborah G. Douglas oversees the MIT Museum's extensive science and technology collections. Prior to joining the museum's staff in 1999, she worked as an independent scholar specializing in the history of technology and science. From 1994 through 1999, she served as the Visiting Historian for the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia and as adjunct assistant professor of History at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. Her subjects include the history of technology, gender and technology, and U.S. history. Dr. Douglas is the author of American Women and Flight since 1940. Douglas received her AB in history from Wellesley College and holds AM and Ph.D. degrees in the History and Sociology of Science from the University of Pennsylvania. Her exhibit, Hub of the Air Universe: A Century of Flight in Massachusetts, opened at the MIT Museum in November 2003.

Deborah G. Douglas

MIT Museum exhibits

About the Host

About the Host

MIT Museum

Cutting-edge technologies, amazing holograms, and the beauty of Harold Edgerton's strobe photography entertain, educate, and enlighten at the MIT Museum. Robotics, underwater exploration, kinetic sculptures, and the variety of interactive programs and historic collections attract visitors and researchers from around the world. This unique museum recently opened the Mark Epstein Innovation Gallery featuring some of the latest work of selected research groups at MIT.