I have just read and will soon review David McCullough‘s most recent book, The Wright Brothers, just published by Simon & Schuster (May 2015). Here are five of McCullough’s key points among dozens that I found of special interest:

o Wilbur and Orville Wright never married because Wilbur was “woman-shy” and Orville would not marry until his older brother did.

o They “worked together six days a week, ate their meals together, kept their money in a joint bank account” and even, according to Wilbur, “thought together.”

o According to McCullough, “The difficulty was not to get into the air but to stay there.” The Wrights built their first aircraft from split bamboo and paper. Kitty Hawk (North Carolina) had open space and an ample supply of a precious commodity: wind. The idea was to master gliding, after which Wilbur reckoned it would be easy to add a motor. “Maintaining equilibrium was the key—not much different than riding a bike.”

o They lived and worked at a time, according to McCullough, that was “alive with invention—recent wonders included the Kodak box camera, the Singer electric sewing machine and the safety razor. McCullough celebrates Dayton as “a city in which inventing and making things were central to the way of life.”

o McCullough again celebrates the basic values normally associated with pioneers such as those on whom Walter Isaacson focuses in The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. Wilbur and Orville Wright do indeed exemplify what can be accomplished when having a vision, determination, ingenuity, resiliency, and very hard work. John T. Daniels witnessed the first successful flight (lasting 12 seconds on December 17, 1903) and said that the Wrights were “the workingest boys he had ever seen.”

I highly recommend David McCullough’s latest book.