The Bishop's Boys

166 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE will exhibit greater clarity and an analysis informed by an understand­ ing of the technology of aviation. Deborah G. Douglas Ms. Douglas is a graduate student in the Department of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania and is the author of U. S. Women in Aviation, 1940—1985 (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990). The Bishop’s Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright. By Tom Crouch. New York: Norton, 1989. Pp. 606; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $22.50. Wilbur and Orville Wright changed the nature of human life on our planet. Their achievement was so stupendous, however, that we sometimes take it for granted. But what they did is a part of our American heritage and so any new biography of the Wright brothers should be welcomed. Tom Crouch’s The Bishop’s Boys is a splendidjob, much better than the 1987 biography by Fred Howard. In his early chapters Crouch is at pains to emphasize the influence of Bishop Milton Wright on the outlook and attitude of his sons. The bishop, a man of strict and high principle, urged his children always to think and act independently. He was also litigious. His teachings had a great effect on his sons when they undertook the gigantic tasks of inventing and then selling the first successful airplane in history. Crouch explains this aspect of their course more clearly and more incisively than any previous biographer. He also deals with the technical aspect of their achievements in a masterly exposition. I have only one serious criticism of Crouch’s book. He writes, “The Wrights proved to be almost as bad at business as they were good at invention. Their ultimate success owed far more to the quality of their product than to their marketing skills” (p. 301). This argument is incorrect. The Wrights demonstrated genius when they invented the airplane. Their efforts to sell it were distinguished by brilliant advance planning and by calculation of a high order. Crouch is well aware of the fact that unscrupulous rivals and competitors were eager to rob the Wrights of the fruits of their labors at any opportunity in this early period of aeronautical history. However, he suggests the Wrights could have solved the problem of selling their machine and its priceless secrets if they had only demonstrated it to government officials in 1905 or 1906. In this way, he argues, they could have spared themselves years of frustration and disappointment. But this was not the case. The genius of Wilbur and Orville foresaw difficulties; Crouch has neglected this in his analysis. The brothers realized they had to beware of contemporary rivals. Moreover, they understood clearly that they could not trust any government, even TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 167 their own, when they tried to sell their invention and the theories and calculations on which it was based. In 1907, Orville Wright wrote a letter to the Board of Ordnance and Fortification in Washington, D.C. In it he explained the Wrights’ attitude: “Our course in asking from governments large sums for the first machine has been based upon an impression that governments often appropriate inventions useful in warfare, and tell the inventor to prosecute a claim under the law.” This was what forced the Wrights to act as they did. Faced by the prospect that a government might “appropriate” their secrets if they were revealed before a sale was made, the Wright brothers hit on the idea of a “contingency contract.” By the terms of this arrangement, a prospective purchaser would sign a contract agreeing to pay a certain sum for their invention. However, nothing would have to be paid in advance; the purchaser would be required to pay only after the airplane flew certain stipulated distances and performed in accor­ dance with all the requirements of the contract. In this way the government concerned would risk little or nothing, and the Wrights would be able to safeguard their own position at the same time. Indeed, in 1908 the contingency contract idea was employed when the Wrights sold their airplane to a syndicate in France. This arrangement was a triumph of their business

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