Glenn Curtiss Collection of Early Aviation Photographs

Many of the photographs and photographic postcards represented in this collection were shot by native Hammondsport, New York, photographer Harry M. Benner. Benner started out photographing the landscape around Hammondsport in the first decade of the twentieth century. He purchased a Hammondsport photography business in 1907, and moved the business to a new building in 1908. It was in this new building that Benner would develop many of his Curtiss aviation photographs. Although Curtiss would hire other photographers, such as William Tomer, Benner acted as a semi-official Curtiss photographer during Curtiss' pre-WWI career.

It was Benner who captured some of the most famous images of Curtiss' ground-breaking new aircraft and other aerial milestones, such as the flight of the White Wing in 1908. Harry Benner was best known for his line of immensely popular photographic postcards showing Glenn Curtiss and his aircraft from 1908 to 1916, which connected the public with Curtiss' work and the rapid developments in aviation technology. A large number of the photographs in this collection were taken by Benner in Hammondsport, most of which bear his copyright stamp.

There are three photographs in the collection taken by the Ernest Heiser Company of Cleveland, Ohio, at the Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Centennial Celebration. The photographs show Glenn Curtiss and John A.D. McCurdy participating in the celebration's two-day long aerial show between October 13 and 14, 1910.

The photographs in this collection capturing Philip O. Parmelee's famous first commercial cargo flight, made from Dayton to Columbus, Ohio, were shot by the Baker Art Gallery of Columbus, Ohio. Founded by Lorenzo Marvin Baker in the mid nineteenth century, this studio became one of the most famous photography businesses in Columbus during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For historical information on Curtiss' aviation career and his aircraft represented in this collection, see the various publications on Curtiss listed in the Additional Sources section of this finding aid. Folder 27 in Box 1 contains a brief historical sketch of Curtiss' career between 1908 and 1915 written by this collection's processor.

Non-Curtiss Events Represented in the Collection:

As an advertising gimmick, Max Morehouse of the Columbus, Ohio, dry goods store Morehouse-Martens Company arranged with the Wright Brothers to have two parcels of silk carried on a Wright B Flyer from Wright Aviation Field to Columbus. The silk, after being cut into pieces, was to be sold at the store after a flying exhibition by the Wright B Flyer. On November 7, 1910, Philip O. Parmalee, a Wright Brothers pilot, took off from Wright Aviation Field with the 200-pound package, making an approximately 65-mile flight to Columbus. It was the first commercial cargo flight in history. This collection contains five unique photographs of Parmalee, Max Morehouse, and the Wright B Flyer in Columbus, Ohio. Early in 1914, W.A. Dean opened a flying-boat school in Toronto, Canada, at Toronto Harbor, with a Curtiss flying-boat (nicknamed the Sunfish) he purchased from the American Curtiss Company. Dean's school was in competition with the Curtiss Aviation School in Toronto. Thus, to draw in customers, Dean hired an expert flying instructor from the Curtiss Company in the U.S.-Theodore C. Macaulay. Despite offering competitive prices for flight instruction, Dean's Toronto School did not offer as professional a training program as did the Curtiss school. Theodore Macaulay left Dean's School in 1915, becoming an instructor with the Curtiss Aviation School in Toronto. By 1916, Dean was unable to compete with Curtiss in Toronto, and he closed his flying-boat school. There are two photographs of Dean's flying-boat in his Toronto flying school, with several unidentified men shown.

Victor Vernon was trained as a flying-boat aviator at Glenn Curtiss' Hammondsport, New York, flying school in 1914. After receiving his pilot's certification, Vernon started his career as an exhibition pilot in his "Betty V" Curtiss Model F Flying-boat in Buffalo, New York, finally ending up in Portland and Bar Harbor, Maine, in the summer of 1914. During his time as an exhibition aviator, Vernon had to disassemble the Betty V every time he traveled to a new location (except for the Bar Harbor flight), in order to ship it there ahead of time. Vernon was invited to make an exhibition flight in Bar Harbor, Maine, for September 4, 1914, by the Bar Harbor Labor Day Celebration Committee Chairman. With his expenses covered by the committee and substantial pay for the one-day job, Vernon made the longest flight over water at that time, flying over the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Bar Harbor, Maine, on September 3, 1914. The next day he gave an exhibition of his Curtiss flying-boat for the town's Labor Day celebration. This collection contains a photograph of Vernon floating in his flying-boat on Bar Harbor on Labor Day 1914, as well as five photographs of Vernon's Betty V flying-boat hull while it was disassembled from the rest of the plane.