These vintage French aviation postcards, from the Charles Lewis Collection in Dunbar Library’s Special Collections and Archives, highlight the precarious state of powered flight in 1909. Printed in Lille, France, by an unknown publisher, the postcards focus on numerous French aeronauts, including Henry Farman, Louis Blériot, Louis Paulhan, and Baroness Elise de Laroche. The collection also includes international aviation pioneers like Germany’s Count Zeppelin, Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont, and Americans Wilbur Wright and Glenn Curtiss. These air pioneers were among the most famous celebrities of their day.
Visit www.wright.edu/postcards to see more of this collection and to read the details about each postcard.
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- In January 1908, Henri Farman (1874–1958) was recognized for flying the first observed kilometer in a closed circuit, although the Wright brothers achieved the same feat in 1904.
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- Louis Blériot (1872–1936) became the first person to cross the English Channel by airplane in July 1909.
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- In 1906, Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873–1932), a Brazilian engineer and balloonist living in France, made the first powered flight in Europe.
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- Wilbur Wright (1867–1912) and his brother Orville established the first pilot training school at Pau in southern France in 1909
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- Hubert Latham (1883–1912), a popular sportsman, set the world endurance record for monoplanes in 1909.
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- Robert Esnault-Pelterie (1881–1957) built engines and designed monoplanes that included features that would become standard on modern planes.
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- Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin’s (1838–1917) third airship design was one of the few successful early rigid airships.
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- In July 1909, Germé completed a frail biplane based on the Wright brothers’ design.
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- Kluijtmans flew a biplane at the 1909 Rheims aviation meet, but may have had more success flying dirigibles in Japan.
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- Ambroise Goupy (1876–1951) built the first powered triplane to achieve flight and the first biplane with staggered wings.
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- Roger Sommer (1877–1965), an exhibition pilot, flew 37 miles at the First International Air Meet in Rheims in 1909.
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- An exhibition pilot, Louis Paulhan (1883–1963) is best known for winning the Daily Mail London to Manchester Race in 1910.
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- Known as Baroness de Laroche, Elise de Laroche (1882–1919) was a balloonist and the first woman with a pilot’s license in 1909 at Chalons, France.
