 rville
drew his brother Wilbur into the printing trade first as a consultant on press
construction, then as a writer and editor. The Bishop began to funnel some of the United
Brethren's printing contracts to his sons. The first of these was a pamphlet, Scenes
in the Church Commission, written by Wilbur Wright. More significant was the imprint
of the publishers -- Wright Bros. It was the first time that phrase appeared in
print.Wilbur and Orville built a second, larger press capable of printing 500 to 1000 sheets and hour, and its construction was ingenious enough to attract the attention of other professional printers. They received at least one contract from another printing firm to build a similar press, and there may have been others. Ed Sines, by then an employee of the Wrights, recalled that a "...pressman for a Chicago house...walked into the front office and asked if 'that Wright press was running today.' When we told him it was running, he said he would like to see it. Well, he went back to the press room, stood by the machine, looked at it, then sat down beside it and finally crawled underneath it. After he had been under the machine some little time he got up and said, 'Well, it works, but I certainly don't see how it does work.'" |
Click
on a photo to enlarge it. The Wright brothers first print shop was in this building at 1210 West Third Street in Dayton, Ohio.
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In Their Own
Words
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