Wings of Opportunity: The Wright Brothers in Montgomery, Alabama, 1910: America's First Civilian Flying School and the City that Capitalized on It

Wings of Opportunity: The Wright Brothers in Montgomery, Alabama, 1910: America's First Civilian Flying School and the City that Capitalized on It. By JuUe Hedgepath Williams. (Montgomery, Ala., and Louisville, Ky.: NewSouth Books, c. 2010. Pp. 168. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-1-58838168-2.)

This short, lively, and weU-iUustrated volume tells the story of the nation's first civUian flight-training operation at an "aviation camp," estabUshed in March 1910 by Orville and Wilbur Wright and situated on a cotton plantation on the outskirts of Montgomery, Alabama (p. 59). Author Julie Hedgepath Williams relates the episode as both a significant chapter in aviation history and an important case study of southern civic boosterism in the Progressive era, one fueled by commercial interests and the local press.

The Wright bromers completed the first successful powered flight in 1903, but their singular success remained shrouded in secrecy....