Description:

Wright Orville 1871 - 1948 Orville Wright Signed Christmas card, sent two weeks after Pearl Harbor, to a pioneer in aeronautical engineering – in 1917, Wright had written that after he and his brother "built and flew the first man-carrying flying machine we thought governments would realize the impossibility of winning by surprise attacks …" Christmas Card signed "Orville Wright" inside, beneath printed greeting, 5.25" x 4.25" (closed). Glue stain on front and on page opposite signature from mounting 4" x 2.25" black and white photograph of Hawthorn Hill, Orville's home from 1914 to his death in 1948, visible through cut out on cover. With original 5.5" by 4.5" envelope addressed by Wright to "Dr. and Mrs. Porter Adams / 512 Beacon St. / Boston / Mass." 3¢ "For Defense" postage stamp affixed, postmarked Dayton, Ohio, December 20, 1941.


Two weeks earlier, a surprise attack by Japan at Pearl Harbor led to the United States declaring war on Japan and her allies, Germany and Italy.

"We thought governments would realize the impossibility of winning by surprise attacks," wrote Orville Wright on June 21, 1917, two months after the United States declared war on Germany, in response to an aircraft program laid out by the Aircraft Production Board. "When my brother and I built and flew the first man-carrying flying machine, we thought we were introducing into the world an invention which would make further wars practically impossible … We thought governments would realize the impossibility of winning by surprise attacks, and that no country would enter into war with another of equal size when it knew that it would have to win by simply wearing out the enemy."

A pioneering student of aeronautical engineering at MIT who pursued this interest throughout his life, Dr. Porter Adams (1894-1945) was President of Norwich University, Northfield, Vermont, from 1934-1939. Adams was Chairman of the Executive Committee (1922-1926) and President (1926-1928) of the National Aeronautic Association (NAA), an organization devoted to furthering the general use of planes in the United States. In 1928, he was technical adviser to the American delegation at the International Civil Aeronautics Conference held in Washington. Orville Wright was an Honorary Guest.

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