Various Aircraft, U.S. Air Mail Service, Crashes, Rigid Airships, 1918-1940

The Hans Dam Aviation Collection is a wide-ranging collection of aviation material, with an emphasis on the history of aviation in southwestern Ohio, significant aviation events in the United States, and the Bill Sweet National Air Shows of the 1940s to the 1970s. Researchers will note many original or one-of-a-kind photographs in the collection, but the photographs are not always filed in a logical sequence.

Series I, National Air Shows and Air Racing, consists of eight album boxes. Most of the albums contain photographs of Bill Sweet's National Air Shows, including photographs of many of the aviation personalities that performed the aviation stunts in the show and photographs of the stunts being performed. There are also photographs of racing airplanes and their pilots. Intermixed in the 8 album boxes are photographs of a variety of aircraft, not all of which are stunt or racing airplanes.

Series II, Cincinnati and Southwest Ohio Aviation, consists of eight album boxes and is probably the strength of the collection. Hans Dam was very interested in aviation in southwest Ohio. At some point he began research for a book on aviation history in southwest Ohio. Several of the albums in this series contain Mr. Dam's notes about a specific event or events. Of particular interest for researchers are photographs and articles about the many airports in the area, aviation companies such as Triangle Parachute Company and Aeronca, and Charles Lindbergh's visit to Cincinnati in 1927. Much of the material is arranged in chronological order.

Series III, General Aviation, is the most diverse of the three series. The box and folder listing provides a brief description of the contents of each box in this 14-box series. However, because the albums are not organized in an easily identifiable pattern, researchers will need to go through each box to locate a specific photograph. The box and folder list does provide a brief description of the contents of the box. The strength of the series is the photographs of aircraft from the 1920s and 1930s. Unfortunately, the photographs are not grouped according to manufacturer or model number. There are some unique photographs in this series, including photographs of Charles Lindbergh, a photograph of the Korn Brothers of Jackson Center, Ohio, several of Amelia Earhart, and several of the "Three Musketeers of the Air" (Koehl, Fitzmaurice, & von Huenefeld) who made a cross-Atlantic flight in April 1928. Box 30 contains photographs of Hans Dam as a boy and as an adult, several aviation publication, and a 1929 brochure on the "Dayton School of Aviation."