![]() In the plus ça change department, it’s interesting to read how Dayton’s alarmists of the 1890s saw the bicycle as something that could corrupt innocent youth, cause children to stray far from home, keep them from reading books, encourage sexual freedom and so on. Then he and Orville developed a love of bicycles, learned to make them and started their own business. Instead, he lived out his teens as a recluse and reader. After the 18-year-old Wilbur was hit with a hockey stick (by a 15-year-old future murderer, whose victims would include his parents and brother) and suffered debilitating facial injuries, he gave up on the idea of leaving Dayton for a higher education. Though Wilbur was much more dominant - he wrote better and seemed a natural leader - he and Orville were careful to share whatever opportunities came their way. ![]() The brothers, five years apart, grew up to do everything together. During the Wrights’ grand, two-day welcome home whoop-de-do in Dayton, a New York Times reporter caught them sneaking off to work in their shop three times on the first day. McCullough appreciates Wilbur’s aloofness, intelligence and austerity, even after he became a celebrity. If Wilbur, the older, bossier and more rigorous brother, ever had an impassioned relationship with any human being who was not a blood relative or fellow aviation enthusiast, this isn’t the book to exhume it. And in the case of the Wrights that may be fitting. McCullough makes his subjects extra-estimable. ![]()
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