In his bestselling biography The Wright Brothers, the journalist and author David McCullough tells the story of the brothers’ historic flight, casting it as the achievement of two bicycle mechanics in Dayton, Ohio, whose ingenuity and focused determination ushered in the age of propellerdriven aircraft. The Wright brothers belong in the front ranks of this particularly American pantheon. But to get their craft into the air on December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur needed the factories that were then industralizing the Midwest.
