Airways: The History of Commercial Aviation in the United States (Smithsonian History of Aviation Series)

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xiv, 430 pp. "...chronicles the development of air lines in the United States from the dawn of powered flight and the coming of air mail up to the state of the industry on the eve of World War II. Henry Ladd Smith paints telling portraits of air line pioneers, from the familiar Juan Terry Trippe, founder of Pan American Airways, to President Hoover's postmaster general Walter Folger Brown, who presided over the 1930 "spoils conferences" where airmail contracts were divvied up. Smith weaves these portraits into the fabric of the larger story of the conflicts and intrigues, the labors and maneuvers, that went into building commerical aviation in this country." Show more