Glass Plate Negatives

The Dayton Wright Company collection contains 156 large format glass plate negatives and 63 nitrate negatives taken between 1918 and 1922.

The photographs depict airplanes in various stages of production both inside and outside the three Dayton Wright factories: plant 1, located next to South Field, on Springboro Road, Moraine, OH; plant 2, located in Miamisburg, OH; and plant 3, the former The Wright Company factories built between 1910 and 1911, located in Dayton, OH.

As most of the photographs were taken during wartime production in 1918, the majority of aircraft featured are the WWI fighter, De Havilland-4 (DH-4). Other models photographed include the Kettering Bug, T-4 Messenger, "Bullhead", DW Racer (RB-1), DW Honeymoon Express (DH-4B-5), and DW Chummy (T-3,-5). Motors by Nordyke Marmon, Cadillac, Buick and Ford are also featured.

Researchers can learn about the organization of the Dayton Wright Company facilities and the stages of early mass manufacture of airplanes from images of the following departments: Mill, Dry Kiln, Star, Wire, Motor Test, Wing, Engine, Final Wing, Landing Gear, Propeller Stock, and Balancing. As the collection contains no written documents, it is best used as a supplement to research on World War I mass manufacture of aircraft.

Prints of the negatives are available for reference in the collection and in digital versions online in CORE Scholar at http://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/special_ms152_photographs / .