1927: A Brilliant Year in Aviation

Chapter 1

1927—A Boom Year

1927 was a year of firsts.  The first transatlantic telephone call was made from New York to London, via radio.  Bell Telephone Co. displayed the first successful long distance demonstration of television.  The first full length talkie film, The Jazz Singer was shown across the United States.  The Harlem Globetrotters played their first game.  A fellow named Clyde Eddy was the first to raft through the entire Grand Canyon. The Peace Bridge linking the U.S. and Canada opened.  And, the first armored car robbery was pulled off near Pittsburgh.  The Federal Radio Commission, later the FCC, began to regulate the use of radio frequencies.  In golf the first Ryder Cup competition between the United States and England was held at Wentworth.

Flagpole sitters were a common sight.  And Frank Heath completed his two year journey on horseback to all 48 states.

During 1927, the stone faces of Mount Rushmore began to be chiseled.  The 1927 Yankees (thought by many to be the best team ever) won the World Series.  Show Boat the first great classic of American Theatre opened on Broadway. In November, the Holland Tunnel (the world’s first double tube underwater tunnel) began transporting commuters between Manhattan and New Jersey.  Grauman’s Chinese Theatre opened in Los Angeles. Anthropologists discovered the Peking Man in China. And, two professors from Harvard invented the Iron Lung. 

The Academy For Motion Picture Arts & Sciences was formed.  Two years later, it awarded its first Best Picture Award to the 1927 film, Wings, the story of aerial dogfights during World War I.  Until 2012, Wings was the only silent film to have won the Best Picture Award.

Sports figures were lauded as heroes.  Jack Dempsey, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Bill Tilden, Bobby Jones, and Johnny Weismuller were considered larger than life champions.  Journalists seemed to be in awe of these men, and ignored their flaws, although after Dempsey’s shocking loss to Gene Tunney, reporters criticized him for lackadaisical training.

It was also the year of odd ball sporting events.  In January, William Wrigley, Jr. of the chewing gum family sponsored a swim marathon from Catalina Island to Los Angeles, a distance of 22 miles.  About 100 swimmers started in the cold waters (below 59 degrees) and swam through rough cross currents making the true distance about 30 miles.  Only one swimmer, George Young from Toronto, made it to the coast, winning the $25,000 prize worth about $300,000 in today’s dollars.

Dance marathons lasting for days with huge prizes to the last couple standing were widespread.

In South Africa, enterprising corporations hired athletes to sprint into the country-side to stake mining claims in a diamond rush.

As an antidote to the success of the time, the Mississippi River flooded in April, causing more than a half million people from Illinois to Louisiana to flee.  A billion dollars in property damage was incurred.

The Mississippi flood and the rampant discrimination in the rescue and cleanup efforts triggered a migration of African Americans away from the destruction.  The migration of African Americans to the industrialized North from the agricultural South had begun earlier in the twenties, but accelerated in 1927.  The prosperity of the country lessened tensions between the races somewhat. Some trade unions began to permit minorities to become members. While the Klu Klux Klan had about 5,000,000 members in 1925, membership shrank to about 850,000 by 1927.  It was said that the Klan appealed to men in the lowest socio-economic class, and with prosperity as high as ever, its attraction waned.

However, in 1927, there were 18 racially motivated lynchings reported.  In March, Clarence Darrow hastily fled Alabama in fear for his safety after delivering a speech in which he roundly condemned the recent lynching of African Americans.

White audiences began to recognize talented Black performers such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Ethel Waters.  Duke Ellington’s band began a multiyear run at the Cotton Club in Harlem for white-only audiences.  However, it was the aptly named Caucasian, Paul Whiteman, who carried the name King of Jazz.

Prohibition had been in effect for eight years, and its efficacy which had once been considered a settled issue was being questioned once more.   Alcoholic beverages were still consumed courtesy of the many bootleggers flourishing during this period.  Death and blindness were fairly common occurrences from poorly made bathtub gin and other concoctions. Al Capone took in an approximate $60,000,000 in sales of alcohol. 

In 1927 World War I, called the war to end all wars, was still on the minds of Americans. The brutality of the War with its long drawn out battles along front line trenches along with the use of poisonous gases led to several conclusions. Isolationist politicians were popular.  Live now, for tomorrow you may die, was a credo frequently repeated by the young. 

Americans were justifiably proud of their achievements in WWI, as evidenced by the frequent use of the American flag, and red, white, and blue color schemes for sporting and civic events as well as in commercial advertising,  Military veterans were commonly referred to by their former rank.  Some fashionable clothing adopted the look of military uniforms.

Also, with the end of the War came a period of economic growth brought about by a number of symbiotic factors. America’s natural resources, e.g. oil, iron ore, coal, copper and lead, provided ready supplies to industry.  Manufacturing processes were streamlined by innovation. Throughout the twenties, unemployment hovered around 3%.  Wages were high.  Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover declared that real wages in the country were higher than anywhere in the world.  Per capita income was more than double what it had been in 1914 before the War.

The manufacturing sector of the economy was growing.  The automobile industry was as robust as it had ever been, with Henry Ford showing the way with his assembly line production of the Model T.  Chevrolet and other brands were catching up, as the Tin Lizzie was getting old, and late in the year, Ford offered the brand new Model A, not only in black, like the Model T, but in yellow, red, green, and blue.

Labor unions were in their early stages of development.  While we know now that they became a strong element later, in 1927 their very existence was still in doubt.  Whether there was a legal right for workers to organize into labor organizations was an open question.  And strikes as a tactic to gain the upper hand in dealing with management were generally considered illegal.  Notably, in November, Colorado, State Police opened fire on striking mine workers, killing six in an incident known as the Columbine Mine Massacre.

Radios, toasters, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, coffee percolators, waffle irons, and washing machines were new and every household wanted one.  Many were bought with newly popular installment payment plans.

World population reached 2 billion. The United States was home to 118 million people, with 40% living in rural areas, compared to 300 million and 16% in 2010.  There were 324,000 arriving immigrants that year, mostly from Europe.  Newspaper circulation rose to 38 million, about one copy for every two literate persons over the age of 10.  William Randolph Hearst’s 22 papers sold 4 million copies every Sunday. 

With the advent of tabloid journalism in the 20’s, some newspapers emphasized the bizarre, the sensational, and the gossipy side of news, filling their pages with plenty of photos.  Wire services, such as Associated Press and United Press, allowed even rural newspapers to keep up with world news.

In 1927 life expectancy was 59 years, up ten years from 1900.  Death from influenza, tuberculosis, and pneumonia was declining. 

Women, who had only been given the right to vote in 1920, were acting more unrestrained. Some were brazen enough to drink (despite prohibition) and smoke in public. The full corseted dress and long flowing hair of the Gibson Girl gave way to the Flapper look with short skirts, short hair and small cloche hats.

One in every 5 wage earners was female.  Working women could be found in 537 of the 572 listed occupations.  However, the general view was that women only worked until they landed a husband, and wage discrimination was the norm.  A common practice was to pay males who were thought of as the head of the household more than single women in the same job.

Ivory Soap was a favorite because it floats.  You’d walk a mile for a Camel.  And you gargled with Listerine because even your best friends won’t tell you.

You’re darned tootin and He knows his onions were common vernacular.

Favorite songs included, Five Foot Two Eyes of Blue, Baby Face, and I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate.  The weekly country music show, Grand Ole Opry, began its weekly broadcast from Nashville. on NBC.

About one quarter of 12 year old boys were members of the Boy Scouts, which in 1927, had been in existence for 17 years.  Boy Scouts were seen as a bridge back to the self-reliant frontier days of the country in the face of the migration to urban areas taking place.

Stock market and real estate prices were galloping higher almost daily. Everyday people were buying securities on margin and real estate with no down payment. With rising prices no one could lose.  The economy was a classic bubble. However, the reason it was a bubble is that no one recognized it would end. The steady rise in real estate and equity prices also spawned several get-rich schemes that were nothing more than scams. 

Authors have analyzed 1927 as a year of transition.  Charles J. Shindo, in his book, 1927 And The Rise Of Modern America, writes:  While many Americans still believed in the Victorian values of modesty, hard work, and respect for tradition, status, and place, others defiantly broke from convention in their work and personal lives and in their actions and their words.

Others have noted the rise in consumerism that seemed to take hold of every day Americans. Frenchman Andre Siegfried in America Comes Of Age, A French Analysis, comments, Success [ in World War I ] made possible luxury in every-day consumption and the extension to the many living  conditions previously reserved for the few.  The resulting consumerism he concluded would bring about a sense of moral superiority.

Gerald Leinwand,’s book, 1927, High Tide of the Twenties, explains: Like a great wine, 1927, was a vintage year.  The issues of that year . . . seem for the most part to have stayed with us.  Then as today the scientific and technological marvels were such as to free Americans from their traditional moorings while utopian visions of a glorious future, clashed with a fear of the unknown and perhaps unknowable tomorrow.

On the one hand, Americans celebrated the new, but on the other feared the loss of the old, especially the values and traditions of earlier generations.

Sources:

Churchill, Allen, The Year The World Went Mad, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New York, 1960

Forden, Leslie, The Glory Gamblers, Ballantine Books, 1961

Leinwand, Gerald, 1927, High Tide of the 1920s; Four Walls Eight Windows, New York, 2001

Siegfried, Andre, America Comes of Age, A French Analysis, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1927

Shindo, Charles J., 1927 and the Rise of Modern America, University Press of Kansas, 2010

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Chapter 2

The Birth of Aviation: 1900-1926

In August 1900, the assistant postmaster of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, shuffled through the mail in his home that doubled as the Post Office, and found a letter from Wilbur Wright of Dayton, Ohio.  The letter requested to know if there were some treeless areas at Kitty Hawk suitable for a few experiments in kite flying.

Later that year, the experiments began.  On October 3, the first flight with a man aboard (Wilbur) was attempted.  The outsized, unmanageable kite was quickly brought down before it could crash.  Townspeople watched with amusement and disbelief as the Wrights put one or the other of them in a large kite secured to a post and struggled to control it in the seaside gale.  The story survives that the town undertaker brought his hearse to Kill Devil Hill each time word got out that one of the brothers would be going up.

The Wrights returned in the summers of 1901 and 1902.  In 1901, disgusted with their progress, they left after only 6 weeks.  In August 1902, they returned with a larger craft, with thin wing surfaces and a vertical rear rudder.  During this summer the maneuverability of the glider was evident as Wilbur was able to make controlled shallow turns in the tethered kite.  Wilbur and Orville engaged in friendly competitions to see which could glide down the hill and land with aplomb. 

Resuming again in September 1903, the brothers brought not only the gliders, but also a motor. Experiments began until a windstorm tore up their camp in November which put off any attempt at flight until December.

One of the Outer Bankers who assisted the brothers recalls:  I saw them flip a coin to see which one would go first.  Wilbur chose heads and won.  He walked over and assumed what the Bankers referred to as the ‘belly bumpums’ position on the lower wing and, trembling with cold and anticipation, called for the restraining wire to be clipped.  Orville and [another man] ran alongside for about forty feet to hold the wings and keep the plane from tipping. The propeller turned slowly enough so that the revolutions could be counted. It climbed a few feet and settled to the ground near the foot of the hill.  It had been in the air for all of 3 seconds.  This was exactly the result the brothers had been hoping for.

Since this attempt had been on a hill, the Wrights decided to try again on a flat surface so skeptics would not claim the flight was only due to its downhill glide.  After a day’s wait for the wind to pick up, the steady breeze was up to over 20 miles per hour.

The plane went off with a rush and left the rail as pretty as you please, recalls a witness.  The nose rose to about 10 feet and then suddenly pointed down.  Orville managed to level it out, but then it came to earth.  Compared to some of the graceful glider flights, this attempt appeared to be just another bungled attempt.  The plane had covered 120 feet in about 12 seconds.  The next two flights of the day were short lived failures.  But the fourth flight of the day was aloft for 59 seconds and covered 852 feet.  These short hops were man’s first powered flights and the birth of aviation.  Before another attempt could be made a gust of wind flipped the craft over and caused considerable damage.  On December 22, the brothers packed up and left North Carolina.

Back in Dayton, the local paper refused to print a story of the first powered flight believing it was a hoax.  The only paper to run the story, the Virginian-Pilot, published a wildly inaccurate account based on second hand, largely imaginary reports.

The Wrights continued their experiments at Huffman Prairie, north of Dayton.  Since they were content to conduct the tests in private, it was months before the efficacy of their claims was believed.  In 1904, in a plane in which the pilot could sit rather than lie down belly bumpums they made flights of up to a mile and gained respect from the few bystanders who witnessed them.  The Dayton Daily News finally believed their claims.  And, the Wright Brothers became known, but skeptics still doubted powered flight was real. The Wright Brothers continued to experiment and make improvements to their flying machine, especially as to controlling their aircraft.

By 1908, others, including Glenn Curtiss and Tom Baldwin were designing and manufacturing planes in the United States.  In Europe, Trajan Vula, Alberto Santos-Dumont, and J.C.R. Ellehammer had made short flights.

In May 1908, the Wright brothers returned to Kitty Hawk to prepare for contract negotiations with the U. S. and French governments. According to Thomas Parramore, it was these flights that answered all skeptics and showed that the Wrights had, after all, solved the mystery of flying.  Wilbur left for France and Orville to Fort Myer, Virginia, to secure the contracts.

By this time, the Wrights and others had set up flying schools and were training pilots to give exhibitions at State Fairs and carnivals.  This proved to be profitable, and as an unintended consequence, as pilots gained experience, they assisted in the development of flying mechanisms and the refinement of techniques creating safer and better flying machines.

In 1909, the first flight across the English Channel was made by Louis Bleriot.  In 1911, another Frenchman, Roland Garros flew across the Mediterranean Ocean from France to Tunisia.

World War I (1914-1918) brought about tremendous advances in aviation, and, in the number of aircraft built.  Planes were built for the War that went faster and further.  Light engines with higher horsepower were developed.  Maneuverability was imperative. While the original Wright Brothers design of aircraft used propellers in the back pushing the plane, by the end of the War almost all aircraft used the propeller to pull the aircraft from the front, a tractor design.

The United States, England, France, and Germany manufactured thousands of airplanes for the War.  France alone produced over 68,000 aircraft in the War effort.

After the War the United States government sold off about 6,000 Jennies (Curtiss JN4-D) as surplus.  France likewise offered many of its war planes for sale.

Trained U.S. pilots returning from the War gobbled up the war salvage Jennies and became barnstormers going from town to town to demonstrate the art of flying to the townsfolk. After a short few years, pilots were unable to attract a crowd by merely flying into town and landing in a nearby pasture.  As a result, the barnstormers began performing stunts.  Diving to within only feet of the ground, rolling over to fly upside down, and loops were crowd favorites.  Some of the pilots put on mock dog fights overhead.  After the show, the pilots offered rides for a price.  At first, a flight was about $5.00.  A few years later, after the novelty wore off, short sightseeing flights could be had for only fifty cents.

The next phase of air show performances included