Frank Purdy Lahm Collection
bulk 1912-1930
1.09 Cubic feet (1 records center box; 1 flatbox)
Major General Frank Purdy Lahm (1877-1963) was the first balloon pilot, the first airship pilot, and the first airplane pilot in the US Army. Like his father, Frank Samuel Lahm, his early interest was in ballooning, and in 1906 he won the James Gordon Bennett International Balloon Race. In 1909 Lahm and Lt. Frederick E. Humphreys were trained by Orville and Wilbur Wright to fly the first plane the US Army purchased from the Wrights. In 1912 he was made commanding officer of the US Army Flying School in the Philippines, and during World War I he was commander of the Second Army Air Service. Following the war Lahm founded the Air Corps Training Center at Randolph Field, a source of great pride to him, but was reassigned in 1931 as air attaché and later military attaché to France and Belgium. When Lahm retired from the military in 1941 he had distinguished himself as recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal and the French Legion of Honor. This collection consists of photographs and news clippings detailing Lahm's military career and his personal life.
World War II Photographs and Publications [Shipley]
This collection consists of materials relating to Vern Dean Shipley's service with the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II including photographs, publications, and Shipley's pilot's log book. The log book covers the timeframe from May 1944 through June 1946. There are six photographs, all black and white, that range in …
Signal Corps Photographs
This collection contains two groups of photographs. The first group, mounted on pages removed from a photo album, contains views of aircraft and facilities at the United States Army Air Service Fairfield Intermediate Air Depot, Fairfield, Ohio, circa 1921. The second group consists of loose photographs of aircraft, most of which are historic views of early Aerial Experiment Association and Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company aircraft by photographer Harry M. Benner.
Arthur Raymond Brooks Collection
This collection consists of the personal papers and memorabilia of Arthur Raymond Brooks. It includes photographs, correspondence, documents, and certificates relating to Brooks' aviation career, as well as personal correspondence, photographs, and diaries (1907-87).
World War I Photographs [Tower Scrapbook]
Prints and photo album pages copied from Roderick Tower's personal scrapbook featuring aircrafts and personnel of the United States Army Air Service during World War I.
Women's Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) and Soviet Women Pilots Photographs [Noggle]
This collection consists of 35 reprints of historical images gathered for Anne Noggle's books, For God, Country, and the Thrill of It: Women Airforce Service Pilots in World War II (published 1990) and A Dance with Death: Soviet Airwomen in World War II (published 1994).
Lewis Selwyn Webster Collection
This collection consists of material relating to the long military career (1918-1948) of aviator Lewis Selwyn Webster, including five of Webster's pilot's log books as well as numerous photographs, letters, news clippings, and other documents. A small section of the collection pertains to Webster's son, Lewis Frazer Webster, who served with the U.S. Air Force and was killed in action in Korea in 1952.
Harold F. Pierce Aviation Medicine Collection
The Harold F. Pierce collection consists of documents relating to Pierce's career in aviation medicine, particularly his service as a flight surgeon in World War I and World War II and his work on the Henderson Pierce rebreathing apparatus. Materials include correspondence, photographs, military records, certificates, technical drawings, and news clippings.
Bellcomm, Inc Technical Library Collection
This collection contains the non-book portion of Bellcomm's Technical Library. The material in the collection consists of technical reports prepared by NASA subcontractors and/or NASA facilities during the first decade of space exploration (1960-1970). The collections also includes some reports issued by the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) at Pasadena, CA, including Space Program and Research Summaries, as well as technical and engineering documents.
Black Wings Exhibit and Book Collection
Hardesty, Von, 1939-
bulk 1981-1986
This collection consists of background material collected in support of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) exhibit "Black Wings: The American Black in Aviation" (opened in 1982) and its companion book (published 1983) by curators Von Hardesty and Dominick Pisano, a related symposium, educational materials, and a travelling version of the exhibit. The collection contains photographs and textual materials used in the exhibit and book, internal correspondence and memoranda, and a large amount of material gathered for research purposes but not used in any "Black Wings" production.
