>> Jennifer Harbster: I want to first welcome you. I'm JJ Harbster. I'm the science reference section head for the library's science, technology, and business division here at the Library of Congress. I want to thank you for taking time today to come fly away with us as we explore the library's history of aviation collections. These collections run very deep. So, in the next 30 minutes or so, I will be showing just the tip of the iceberg, of these high flying works. There is a bounty of topics and themes to present and explore. And I hope after this presentation you'll be inspired to explore some of these collections further. So, before we begin the tour, I need to do just a little bit of housekeeping. When you signed in, you probably saw the message that said this presentation is going to be recorded and will be edited before it gets placed on the library's website. Also, in terms of question and answers, please submit your questions and answers using the question and answer feature. And you can submit those questions throughout the presentation. So, if you see something and you have a question about it, you can send that question at that moment. You don't have to wait until the end. However, we'll get through the question and answer period at the end of the tour. And I also need to introduce you to our air traffic controllers; aka, production crew, who's working behind the scenes. Those are science librarians Sean, Nate, and Ashley. Without them, this presentation would not be possible. And they will be monitoring our chat and Q&A throughout this presentation. After the presentation, we will e mail the slides, which will include a list of the illustrations and references mentioned today, along with some of the library's resources. There's also a survey that we will, that will help us assess the program, and also will help us plan for future programs. So, that is done with housekeeping. All right, so let's start the show. First I need to thank some people. Much of what I've learned and discovered about the library's collections come from decades of work by curators and bibliographers and catalogers and acquisition specialists, reference librarians, historians, scholars, and many others. And I really would be remiss if I did not acknowledge their work. I truly rest on the shoulders of giants. And they have helped me to see farther than I could on my own. And so I really must thank them for all their hard work they've done developing and describing and maintaining and preserving these collections. So, whenever I give a presentation about the library's science collections, I tend to start with Thomas Jefferson. It's a very good place to start. The library was founded in 1800, 17 years after the first human balloon ascension in 1783. Initially, the mission of the early congressional library was to support the business of Congress. But that soon changed with the influence of Thomas Jefferson who helped to form the early purchases at the library, which expanded the narrow focus to include sciences and other topics. Jefferson had a really strong interest in science, and he knew the importance that science would bring to this developing country. In 1815, he sold his personal library to Congress, which established the foundation of the library's collections in which we continue to build upon today. Among the books purchased was the very first aeronautical book to enter into the Library of Congress [foreign name]. Or in English, The Art of Traveling in the Air or the Balloons, which was published in 1784. This book provided accounts of ballooning activities and events and discoveries from 1783, which included the Montgolfier brothers' 1783 demonstration of a hot air balloon in France. So, I feel like this is a perfect time for a little bit of aviation trivia. On September 19th, 1783, the Montgolfier brothers demonstrated their hot air balloon in front of the king and queen of France and a crowd of onlookers at the Palace Versailles. But they did not go up themselves. What did they send up? Was it A, the crown of France? B, a fortunate or maybe an unfortunate local, depending on your, if you want to fly in a balloon? A dog? Or D, a duck, a rooster, and a sheep? And you can put your, submit your answers in the chat feature. And it looks like I have a lot of aviation historians here, because it looks like everyone is getting it right. Yes. Okay, so yes, the answer is D, it was a duck, a rooster, and a sheep. And I'm happy to report that all survived the eight minute, two mile flight. So, as the 19th century progressed, the library was gradually building its collections. Towards the end of the 19th century, two events greatly helped to increase material acquired by the library. Starting in 1867, a joint agreement with the Smithsonian called the Smithsonian deposit bolstered the library's science collections with memoirs, transactions, and periodicals of learned scientific societies from throughout the world. The other notable event was the Copyright Act of 1870, which required that material registered for copyright in the U.S. must deposit two copies in the Library of Congress. This helped grow and continues to help grow the collections greatly in all areas of study and formats, and especially in the sciences. However, there was no organized effort to collect aeronautical material until philanthropist Daniel Guggenheim, who saw the potential in aviation. In 1925, he founded the School of Aeronautics, located at New York University. In 1926, after consultation with President Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, he established the Daniel Guggenheim fund for the promotion of aeronautics. His initial contribution was $500,000, which he later added $2 million, and then an additional 500,000. Grants were awarded for the purpose to promote aeronautical education, assist in the development of aeronautical sciences, promote commercial aircraft and airlines, and to further the use of planes in the business and social sectors. Son Harry became the president of the fund. The subject of a national aeronautical library was considered for many years. There was a need for a central point to bring together aeronautical collections that were scattered across the country in various research institutions, libraries, and government agencies. A national aeronautical library would also help to eliminate duplication of material, an effort at these institutions. In 1929, the fund officials negotiated with Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam to make the library the most, the most important aeronautical library in the country and possibly the world. So, soon after, aeronautical materials from the Smithsonian were in navy departments and other government agencies began to transfer their collections to the library. With an initial grant of 104 whoops, we've got, here we go. With an initial grant of $140,000 given to the library, the Guggenheim fund endowed a permanent share of aeronautics, the salary of a chief, and an assistant, and the purchase of several major aeronautical collections. Dr. Alfred F. Zahm, pictured here, a pioneer in aerodynamics, and a director of the Navy Aeronautical Laboratory, was appointed an assumed duty on January 2nd, 1930. The division of aeronautics was soon formed with Zahm serving as its first chief. "It was a splendid purchase." Those are the words of Dr. Albert Zahm published in the 1930 annual report of the Librarian of Congress. Librarian of Congress Putnam called 1930 a red letter year for the library. The library purchased four important aeronautical collections from the Maggs Brother booksellers in London. Encompassing 33 cases and weighing around 3 tons, the collections arrived on the RMS Aquitania on January 15th, 1930. The collections were the Tissandier Collection, which was the largest of the four collections, and the life work of brothers Gaston and Albert Tissandier, famous balloonists, writers, and constructors of an electric dirigible. The collection is rich in material that documents the early history of aeronautics. The image seen here on the screen is a drawing by Albert Tissandier from this collection and illustrates the brothers' ascension on September 26th, 1876, in their balloon Zenith. The Horns Collection. Colonel Herman Horns of Austria was a distinguished military aeronaut, writer, engineer, and inventor. His library chiefly contained German and French periodical sets, technical literature, books, pamphlets. The book here you see on the screen is about air resistance experiments from the Eiffel Tower that was acquired with the Horns library collection. And yes, if you notice, the author of the study is Gustave Eiffel, the civil engineer and designer of the Eiffel Tower. Eiffel is very interested in aerodynamics and meteorology later in life. The Silver collection. Victor Silver was a prominent Austrian aeronaut, owner and editor of two aeronautical publications, and a prolific author of works affixes aviation. His collections span from 1840 to 1920, with a number of rare and earlier works. Chiefly [inaudible] in German and French, his library contained technical works, long runs of periodicals, pamphlets, manuscripts. The book you see here on the screen was acquired with the Silver library collection [foreign phrase] which is a 1909 German translation of Voyage Aryan, or my air travel, which are astronomer and popular science writer Camille Flammarion's musings and experiments from scientific balloon trips. The last of our splendid purchases was the Maggs collection, the unsold stock from the sale catalog of bibliotecha aeronautica, 1920 and 1923. Many of the titles with this purchase were duplicated in the other three purchases. And so they were returned back to Maggs. However, the library kept a little over 100 unique titles of books, engravings, and autographs, illustrating the evolution of the airship and airplane. Flammarion appears again in this collection. He was quite popular with the balloonist. So, featured here is an 1899 edition of his travels in a balloon. The drawing picture, pictured on this slide, is from the 1867 balloons and air travel by Flugans [phonetic] Marion, which is one of Flammarion's many pseudonyms. The book provides many illustrations of aircraft that often lead towards the fantasy, such as the aero station La Manerv [phonetic], which is pictured here. So, let's take a closer look at the Tissandier collection. Praised as the most beautiful aeronautical collection in existence, and I will show you why, the Tissandier collection spans from the 16th century to the 1920s. Its overwhelmingly French, but there are English, German, Italian, Dutch, and other language titles. It's fantastical in its subject matter, filled with early speculations of flight published before ballooning. But it also contains technical information and manuscripts. The library has digitized a great portion of the Tissandier collection held in the Princeton photographs division. There is such a great variety of themes and formats in the collection. There are beautiful drawings, whoops, like the one I, like the one in the previous slide, which is by Albert Tissandier, which is another balloon trip in the Zenith. But there are also wood engravings in ink and hand colored design drawings. There are more design drawings and lithograph prints. There are also cartoons and comics and advertisements. There are collecting cards. And there's even a game board. So, under the leadership of Dr. Zahm, the division of aeronautics continued to expand and enrich the library's collections. Following up with the red letter year, another major aeronautical acquisition was made in 1932. The library acquired its first major manuscript collection in the history of aviation. The papers of Octave Chanute, pictured here. Chanute was a civil engineer, inventor, and a pioneer in American aeronautics who had a major influence on the Wright brothers. The bulk of his papers relate to experiments with gliders and his scientific and financial support of aeronautical pioneers. Selected papers have been digitized and are available in the Wright brothers digital collection. So, I think it's time for another aviation trivia question. Who was the first U.S. president to fly in an airplane? And please put your answer in chat. Was it Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or Calvin Coolidge? Oh, we're all over the place with this one. We've got a lot for, for Teddy Roosevelt. Some for Taft. Some for FDR. Yeah, for all I picked, I picked the ones and the time of first flight, right? Well, with the exception of FDR. All right, well, the answer is Teddy Roosevelt. Although he was not a sitting president at the time, he was a past president. So, it's still considered the first president to fly in a plane. So, while participating in the Missouri State Republicans Party Campaign on October 11th, 1910, Roosevelt was invited to fly in a biplane. At first he declines, but then he agrees. This famous flight was caught on film. And the library has restored and digitized it. I highly recommend viewing the four minute silent film. And a link will be provided in this slide deck in which will be mailed to you after the presentation. And this is a snapshot from the film when he got off the plane. And he has just the most glorious smile on his face. And for those that answered FDR, that can also sort of be considered the answer since FDR was the first sitting president to use an airplane for official presidential business. In 1943, he flew to Morocco in a Boeing 314 flying boat to meet Winston Churchill for the 10 day conference in Casablanca. Photographs captured the moment, and those photographs are also available at the Library of Congress. So, technical literature has always been a part of the library's aeronautical collections. The necessity for reliable and current technical and scientific information, as it applies to aeronautics, cannot be understated. World War II brought a vast outpouring of wartime technical and scientific literature. Much of it related to aeronautics. And the division of aeronautics pivoted their focus to the war effort. This period saw an influx of scientific reports, technical memoranda, aircraft industry studies, and government trade organizational publications, both domestic and international. After the victory in Europe, the declassified technical literature continued to pour in. One of the most notable technical collections acquired after World War II was the Office of Scientific Research and Development collection, also known as OSRD, which is the original research conducted by the allies during World War II. The OSRD collection is held in the library's technical reports and standards unit, which contains over 5 million technical reports and thousands of standards. So, with the ending of World War II, the library initiated a great number of science and engineering projects, services, and initiatives. And to handle all this activity in 1945, Librarian of Congress Luther Evans laid plans for the creation of a science division, which would include the division of aeronautics, and other scientific reference services established and projected. In the post war era, the division of aeronautics shifted its focus back to collecting manuscripts, now with the focus on U.S. military aviators. In 1948, aeronautical historian Marvin McFarland came to the library's division of aeronautics from the Pentagon as a special consultant to then chief of the division Richard Ells. One of McFarland's main, main duties, was the acquisition of special materials. At this time, the library acquired the papers of General Spaatz, General Frank. M. Andrews, Henry Hap Arnold, and a host of other notable U.S. military aviation figures. In 1949, the division was established, and the science division was established, and worked in tandem with the division of aeronautics. And also during this year, the Wright brothers papers were gifted to the library. Orville Wright had passed away in 1948. And the brothers papers were conveyed to the library by an instrument of gift. The Wright brothers collection is the keystone of the library's aeronautical manuscript holdings. It contains diaries and correspondences, notebooks, scrapbooks, photos, drawings, and records related to the Wright brothers businesses. The papers are held in the library's manuscript division, and the photos and prints are under the care of the prints and photographs division. You do not need to visit the library to accept access this collection, because the library has digitized the papers and photos, which are accessible from the library's website. And you can tell that I love aviation trivia. So, time for another aviation trivia question. What famous flyer was appointed as an honorary consultant of aeronautics at the Library of Congress? Was it A, Amelia Earhart? B, Charles Lindbergh? C, Glenn Curtiss? Or D, Howard Hughes? We've got Charles Lindbergh, we've got Howard Hughes, we've got Charles Lindbergh, we've got Charles Lindbergh, we've got Amelia Earhart. So, the answer is Charles Lindbergh. In 1954, Charles Lindbergh was appointed a the library's honorary consultant in aeronautics. And he assisted the library to acquire aeronautical manuscripts. In addition, he also donated some of his papers, photographs, and a scrapbook to the library. The bulk of his collection, of his collection, relates to his work on the 1953 book The Spirit of St. Louis. When the science division was created in 1949, it became apparent that a separate aeronautics division was unnecessary. And in 1952, it was relieved its custodial duties and became the aeronautics section within the science division. McFarland rose to the chief of the division renamed science and technology division. The holdings of the division of aeronautics was dispersed throughout the library. Its prints and photographs collections were transferred to the print and photographs division, its maps to the map division, and so on. This is one of the reasons you will find aeronautical collections across the library's research centers. The aeronautics section ceased in 1976, and the era of the library's specialized division of aeronautics sadly came to an end. But that did not stop the library from continuing to collect notable works in the history of aviation and the aeronautical sciences. In 1970, the library purchased the editorial files of the French aviation magazine L'Aerophile, published from 1893 to 1947. L'Aerophile became one of the premier journals of the early history of aviation. The first years were devoted to balloonists. And in the later years, the focus pivoted to artificial wings and gliders and then to engine powered planes. The library has a complete run of the magazine, along with around 15,000 items, or 150 boxes, of blueprints and manufacturer information of early aircraft, reports of accidents involving flyers and balloonists, photographs of aircraft and engines and various other aircraft equipment, aerial photographs from World War I, and a series of French cartoons from the period 1909 to 1912 that are related to aviation. The collection also holds one of my, one of my favorite collections. And this is what I'm calling the women of the L'Aerophile collection. The L'Aerophile contains hundreds of photographs of early aviators and designers. And these are some examples of some of the women you will find in the collection. So, at the top center is Amelia Earhart. And the lower center is Madame Frank [phonetic]. To the left is Mademoiselle Dutro [phonetic]. And to the right is Madame Docte [phonetic]. So, on the topic of magazines, the library is strong in runs of aviation magazines and journals, from the popular to the technical, and from the aero clubs to industry, domestic, and international. In addition, you can find early aviation news stories using the library's chronically numerical digital newspaper archive. The library also holds an extensive collection of domestic and international historical and contemporary aeronautical charts and maps. There are also thematic aviation maps, historic balloon flights, aero club maps, air mail routes, souvenir passenger maps, and much more. The library's geography and map division has digitized a great deal of their aeronautical themed maps, which can be accessed from the library's website. The library also has a diverse collection of aerial photos, historical and contemporary, as well as domestic and international in scope. The library's prints and photographs division has digitized a great number of these bird's eye views. And I highly recommend exploring them with the prints and photographs online catalog. Here are a couple of examples. An aerial view of Dupont Circle in D.C. from 1924. In Paris from a balloon during the exposition of 1889 in this stunning view of San Francisco, taken from an airship in 1906. Another way to learn about the history of aviation is through the firsthand stories of our veterans. The veterans history project of the American Folklife Center collects, preserves, and makes accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from the veterans and better understand the realities of war. There is a great deal of digital material to explore. You can search by military, military branch, or you can explore themes such as wings of war, Hispanics in service, African Americans at war, and Asian Pacific Americans. The title of today's presentation, Come Fly Away With Us, was inspired by the song Come Fly With Me, made popular by Frank Sinatra in 1958. When studying the history of aviation, the creative expressions in popular culture should not be overlooked. The library's music division has digitized a great number of early sheet music and scores, and the theme of flight and space travel is clearly represented in the library's collection of song, instrumental, and orchestral works. Along with the notated music, the cover art of flying machines and patriotic missions, famous flights and aviators, illustrates our collective aviation history. And if you're looking for aviation inspired sound recordings, or radio broadcasts, the library's national jukebox hosted by the library's recorded sound research center provides wonderful examples. And so this concludes our tour of the selection of the library's historical aviation collections. And I want to thank you again for joining us today. Should you want to learn more about the library's aeronautical collections, I highly recommend exploring the 460 page compilation of aeronautical and astronautical resources at the Library of Congress. This comprehensive guide provides a tour of the other materials that I did not have time to do today. A link to a digital copy will be in the slides that will be e mailed to you shortly. And so now let's get to questions. And I will turn my video on. >> Okay, we have a couple of questions. >> Jennifer Harbster: Okay. >> If anyone else has any questions, please pop them in the Q&A or even in the chat box. Are the collections connected to those at the Air and Space Museum? And if so, how? >> Jennifer Harbster: Well, yes, the Air and Space Museum is, has a library and an archives. But, you know, they also have the objects themselves. We do work with air and space. There is some stuff that we have that they don't have, and vice versa. We've also, back in the 50s and 60s, we also transferred some material to them. Those were aviator metals that we thought would be better served down at the Air and Space Museum. So, there is a, there is a connection. Tom Crouch, who is an aviation historian, and used to work at Air and Space, used to do research here with us, but also with air and space. So, they, I guess they work in tandem, or they complement each other. >> Okay. Do you know of any other treasures in manuscripts? >> Jennifer Harbster: Oh, my gosh. I do. There is a lot of stuff. What I really like, there are, there are a few women aviator, women aviator manuscript collections. And why is her name, is it Harriet Quimby, I think is the name, there are, there are, there are some good stuff there related to women in aviation. There's also these American, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics collection, which is phenomenal. There's tens of thousands of items in that collection. I also, I'm very, I'm very fond of helicopters and rotary winged craft. And we have the Sikorsky papers as well. So, that's a favorite of mine. >> Okay. Before the Wrights took to the air, they were bicycle designers. Is there much of their bike work present in the collection that the library holds? >> Jennifer Harbster: Yes, there is. So, that's one of the businesses that's represented in their, in the papers. So, a number of years ago, we did a bicycle, a big bicycle exhibit across the library. And manuscripts brought some of that stuff out. So, they had like letterheads, I believe there's some photographs, and like other business type of records, like ledger kind of things. Yes, so the answer is yes, there is. >> Okay. The next two are about sort of specific things, which you may or may not know. Does the LSE have the latest edition of Jane's All the World's Aircraft for the public to look at? >> Jennifer Harbster: Okay, I like, I like that this person knows what Jane's is. Jane's is an amazing collection that started, I believe it was like in the late 1800s from Britain. It's used in military, military science technology kind of stuff. So, in terms of the latest of Jane's World's Aircraft, we do have it, but we have it available through a subscription through the product. So, we do not have a print edition of that. We have moved to the electronic, so I'm not sure if we'll get some of the print. But we do have All the World's Aircrafts that go back to the very first volume, which I believe was called Airships at the time. The name switched. >> Okay. What was the most unexpected thing you found researching this topic? >> Jennifer Harbster: Most, hmm, I was really trying to find a lot of stuff about Charles Lindbergh and his role as a consultant in aeronomics. So, I had some of our manuscript archivist help me find some stuff. The scrapbook that he had is pretty cool. I'm trying to think if there was something that I was like I never knew that. But I, oh, well, it was really, there was one thing that I was on the hunt for were those metals, the aviation metals. According to the records, we had like 150 of them. And so I had, I was reaching out to our prints and photographs curators and archivists and manuscripts going where did these things go. And we finally reached out to Air and Space, and they said, oh, we have them. And they actually sent us the whole memos and everything of the transfer with a spreadsheet of every single one of the metals. So, that wasn't like a [inaudible] that we had, but it was, we figured out what happened to those. Also transferred was Admirable Bird's lamp or something, it was very interesting. >> Okay, during your research, who was the most fascinating aviator you learned about? >> Jennifer Harbster: I'd have to say I am, I don't know if I would say he's an aviator, but Chenette [phonetic] is my favorite. Chenette [phonetic] was what I would consider Google, the Google of his times. But also provided financial support. So, the Wright brothers and other of these sort of aeronautical pioneers would write him letters, because, you know, they didn't really have the web back then and e mail, so they would write, do correspondence and ask him questions like what is the wingspan, you know, of, you know, a raven, or something, they would ask him these kind of referency type of questions. And then he would go through his library, or he would correspond with other folks and get the information, and then write it back to say the Wright brothers. And so this went on and on and on when they were, you know, tried to figure out the aerodynamics of flight and stuff like that. So, Chenette [phonetic] is probably my favorite because he was, you know, that sort of central point where everybody was coming to asking for help, almost like a librarian does. So, yeah. And you can read some of those letters in the Wright brothers digital collection. >> Okay, how would someone consult the L'Aerophile collection? >> Jennifer Harbster: Ah, you would talk with us. The tech reports and standards unit as part of the science, technology, and business division. You would make an appointment to look at the collections, because they're in a closed kind of stack situation. And, yeah, we have sort of finding aid to what's in the boxes. And there's like 150 of them. And I know, I know some of this stuff. Some of the other stuff that's in those collections are the early airline travel, so photographs of what they wanted airplanes to look at or look like were very loungy and almost like a living room. So, there's some really great stuff in there that spans, you know, ballooning all the way up to sort of, you know, airline travel kind of stuff happening. So, yeah, talk with us, and our tech reports and standards unit. >> Okay, if anyone else has any questions oh, here. Is there a collection relating to air traffic control? >> Jennifer Harbster: Hmm, I have to think about that one. There possibly could be. I would imagine we have material like reference type of handbook material, or teaching material in that respect. So, but in terms of manuscript, possibly. I'd have to look. There's probably, I would imagine there's photographs. We would have some photographs. But we have a lot of, you know, documents, government type of documents that would, you know, outline, you know, responsibilities of air traffic controllers and stuff like that. >> Okay, you talked earlier about World War II documents. Would any of those be captured German and Japanese documents on aeronautics? >> Jennifer Harbster: Yes. So, the library has copies of the captured German and Japanese air, air, I can't remember the proper term that we call that collection. So, we do have those on microfilm. And we've digitized a number of those. And we make them available in the reading room so you don't have to use the microfilm, because the microfilm is very fragile and not very serviceable. So, we do, we have the original capture German documents. But we returned those back to their countries of origin. So, we have copies of those. Air technical. Thank you, Tomoko [phonetic]. So, captured German and Japanese air technical documents. >> Okay. Does Library of Congress have current paper aerospace periodicals the public is allowed to look at, such as Aviation Week, Flight, and Ad Astra, et cetera? >> Jennifer Harbster: Yes, we do. And we have one of the strengths of the library's collections are these very long runs of magazines and journals. So, yes, we will have those in print format. We will also probably have access to the more current stuff through one of our databases. So, the answer is yes. And I see here one of our manuscript archivists put a link to a blog post about some of the aeronautical manuscripts that was recently published I believe last month. So, I'll make sure to get that to you guys as well after the presentation. >> Okay, it says since CAP, which I think is civil air patrol, just celebrated their 80th year, is there a section for civil air patrol? >> Jennifer Harbster: I would imagine that. I have not explored that. But I would think we would have things like that in our, what we call the general collections. And so those are our books and serials. So, if there were things coming out like documents, reports, those sort of things, I'd have to look up at the catalog. And if you would like, you can submit a question through our ask a librarian, and we will look up and see what we have in that regard. But I would imagine we do. >> Okay, does anyone else have any other questions? >> Jennifer Harbster: And please fill out the survey that we sent out because we'd really like to do some more programs. And I was thinking with the theme of aeronautics. And so maybe we can do a program that's about women aviators and pilots or do one on helicopters, or, you know, do something that's a little more specialized. So, if you have ideas, please feel free to share them with us. We always appreciate them. And sometimes act upon them and do it. >> Okay, that looks like that's the last question. And a whole bunch of thank yous. >> Jennifer Harbster: Oh, yeah. So, okay, the civil patrol images, we have a lot of those in our print and photographs collection. So, a lot of images. Okay. >> All right, there's no more questions. >> Jennifer Harbster: Yeah, and Ashley, yeah, and if you do have other questions, you can use our ask a librarian. And you will receive a PDF of the slide shortly and again all of the references that I talked about are at the end of the slides. >> I just put the link to the ask a librarian for science in the chat box. >> Jennifer Harbster: All right, so thank you everybody. And enjoy the rest of your day. [ Music ]