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Apr 11, 2024 · Born in Dayton, Ohio in 1874, Katharine was the youngest of five siblings, and Bishop Milton Wright and Susan Koerner Wright’s only surviving daughter. This meant that when Susan died of...
- Elizabeth Yuko
- 1 min
- Woman of The House
- Oberlin
- Veni, Vidi, Volavi*
- The Social Manager
- A Change of Focus
- Marriage and Beyond
Katharine lost her mother to tuberculosis when she was just a month shy of 15 years old, and the loss devastated her. Milton sensed that his daughter's grief was especially deep. Never one to council inaction, he suggested that she might work through her grief by making a personal memorial to her mother. Her mother had died in mid-summer, and Katha...
Milton, for his part, apparently felt that Katharine should have some career training to fall back on when he had passed on. In 1893 he sent her to college to become a teacher – one of the few careers available to women in that era. She would become the only one of the Wright children to earn a college degree. Katharineattended Oberlin College in n...
Upon return from Oberlin, Katharinealso resumed her position as head of the Wright household, although she hired a maid, 14-year-old Carrie Kayler (later Grumbach), to help with cooking and cleaning. By all accounts, Katharine was a taskmaster, riding Carrie hard and none to gentle with Orville and Wilbur. In many ways, she had grown up to be her f...
By 1908, Wilbur and Orville had two solid contracts, one with a consortium of French investors and the other with the United States Army. Wilbur went to LeMans, France and Orville to Fort Myer near Washington, DC, each to demonstrate their flying machine. The initial flights had gone extremely well for both brothers and Katharine begged them for de...
While she was in Germany, a group of American investors came together to underwrite the Wright Company, a corporation for the manufacture, demonstration, and sale of of Wright aircraft. With the incorporation, there was no longer any formal place for Katharine in the airplane business. Instead, she found herself doing volunteer work. She became the...
Not long after Scipio arrived, Katharine slowly began to fill another emotional vacancy -- so slowly that she was unaware of it for several years. Since they had renewed their friendship in 1909, she and Harry Haskell had exchanged occasional letters. Their contact increased when Orville and Katharine began their feud with the Smithsonian and Harry...
She worked closely with her brothers, managing their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, when they were away; acting as their right-hand woman and general factotum in Europe; assisting with their voluminous correspondence and business affairs; and providing a sounding board for their far-ranging ideas.
- Bat men. In 1878, when Wilbur was 11 years old and Orville 7, their father brought home a helicopter-like toy made of paper, bamboo, and cork with a rubber band as a motor.
- More Wright brothers. There were more brothers than just Orville and Wilbur. Their mother and father had five sons and two daughters; one of each sex died in infancy.
- No middle names. None of the Wright children were given middle names. However, their father, a bishop of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, tried to give them distinctive first names, as he thought the name “Wright” was too common.
- Dropouts. Although neither brother received a high school diploma, both were well educated. Beyond the high school level, they were mostly self-taught through extensive reading.
Mar 14, 2022 · Katharine Wright has long been known as “the sister of the Wright brothers” – but she was so much more. In celebration of Women’s History Month, we recently sat down with our friend Mackensie Wittmer, Executive Director of the National Aviation Heritage Area in Dayton, Ohio, for an interview with Harry Haskell, step-grandson of ...
Aug 5, 2022 · She had four older brothers, including the famed Orville and Wilbur. When Katherine was nearly 15, their mother died from tuberculosis, leaving her to manage the household. Despite her heavy burden at home, Katharine pursued a bachelor’s degree at Oberlin College.
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Sep 17, 2013 · A strong example of how Katharine supported her brothers is found in a letter she wrote to her good friend Agnes Beck in September 1908. Her brother, Orville, was demonstrating their plane for the U.S. Army Signal Corps at Ft. Myer, Virginia.
