Description:
From author Julie Hedgepeth Williams, winner of the 2021 Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism History
In 1910, Orville and Wilbur Wright opened the first US civilian flight school in Montgomery, Alabama. The Wright Brothers hoped to find a climate warmer and more hospitable to flying than their company base of snowy Dayton, Ohio, even as forward-thinking Montgomerians heralded the school as a way to rise above the shadow of the Civil War. Author Julie Hedgepeth Williams chronicles the short life of this flight school as seen mainly through the eyes of the Alabama press, whose reporting and sometimes misreporting "reflected the misconceptions, hopes, dreams, and fears about aviation in 1910, painting a picture of a time when flight was untested, unsteady, and unavailable to most people."Brief description: JULIE HEDGEPETH WILLIAMS is an adjunct communication and media professor at Samford University. She is also the recipient of the 2021 Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism History. Williams is the author or coauthor of eleven books, including Wings of Opportunity: The Wright Brothers in Montgomery, Alabama.
Review Quotes: For a short time in 1910, Montgomery, Alabama, became the center of the world's fledgling aviation industry. Civic leaders, hoping to improve the city's and the South's public image, lured Orville and Wilbur Wright to set up America's first civilian school to train pilots. In Wings of Opportunity, Julie Williams vividly recreates the complex tale of civic pride, two aviation pioneers who had little interest in public image, local journalists who didn't know what to make of them, and the fascination of ordinary citizens with the amazing invention of flight. An accomplished historian, Dr. Williams shows with this account that she is also a masterful storyteller.--David Sloan, professor of journalism, University of Alabama