Research Catalog

Skylark : the life, lies, and inventions of Harry Atwood

Title: Skylark : the life, lies, and inventions of Harry Atwood / Howard Mansfield.
Author: Mansfield, Howard.
Publication: Hanover : University Press of New England, [1999], ©1999.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Request in advance	TL540.A74 M36 1999	Off-site

Description

238 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

Harry Atwood was among the most flamboyant of the celebrated and often foolhardy pioneers of American aviation. Part daredevil, inventor, entrepreneur, and con artist, he became renowned for his flying feats, his plans for a bewildering variety of aircraft, and his ability to inspire otherwise sensible Yankees to invest enormous amounts of time and money in his invariably ill-fated projects.
As part of the early circle around Wilbur and Orville Wright, Atwood set many of the early US flying records and was constantly in the headlines for two decades after 1910. He built his own airplanes and developed imaginative but never-quite-realized plans for flying wings, Navy seaplanes that would carry immense cargoes, and cheap one-person planes that would be made from a single birch tree.
His is a classic American story about riding the wave of enthusiasm in an era of technological progress while "selling blue-sky" to an eager and gullible public. Atwood's biography describes a larger than life individual, whose personal life was as complex and bizarre as his professional escapades, during the vibrant and innocent years when the sky no longer was the limit.

Subject

Bibliography (note)

ISBN

0874518911 (cl : alk. paper)

LCCN

98038960

OCLC

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries