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The Winged Gospel: America's Romance with Aviation
by: Joseph J. Corn

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 629.1300973
EAN: 9780801869624
ISBN: 0801869625
Label: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: May 17, 2002
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Sales Rank: 417703
Studio: The Johns Hopkins University Press

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Product Description:
From the day when two bicycle mechanics made the first flight at Kitty Hawk until the end of World War II, Americans invested extraordinary hope in airplanes, expecting them to revolutionize daily life and transform the world. For many, the flying machine became a virtual god. Exploring these early years of aviation, Joseph Corn describes the fascinating, and often bizarre, plans for the future of manned flight (including the Depression-era dream of 'an airplane in every garage') and brings back to life the famous and lesser-known aviators who became American heroes–Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Calbraith P. Rodgers, and many others. Rich in colorful detail, The Winged Gospel: America's Romance with Aviation provides a vivid picture of America in the first half of the century and the exuberant and often utopian response to a major new technology.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

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- The early days of aviation
The Winged Gospel reconstructs America's first era of manned flight and brings back to life the famous and lesser-known aviators who became the nation's heroes: Charles Lindbergh, whose achievement was a great event of the 20s... Amelia Eahrhardt, one of the many women aces... Calbraith Rogers, who made the first transcontinental flight, surviving a dozen crashes, a broken arm and collarbone, and a score of wounds caused by the metal fragments of an exploded engine... And many others. The book provides a vivid picture of America in the first half of the century-its aspirations and concerns-as expressed in the exuberant and often utopian response to a major new technology.

Rating:

- Ok, I confess!
I have been infatuated with airplanes ever since I first laid eyes on one when I was about six years old. Love came later when I got a bit older. I first flew when Dad, who was with the Ford Motor Company, was sent to Paris after WWII. In 1949 my mother, brother and I flew on a TWA Lockheed Constellation, the "Star of Indiana" from Detroit to join him in Paris. All the relatives and friends came out to see us off. It was an event! That is the way flying was in those days. There was a romance about it. Winging one's way across vast expanses of land and water to a destination far away in the comfort of a speeding airliner was an adventure in itself.

Our return from Europe was aboard the Ile de France sailing from Le Havre to New York. It was a rough winter crossing; not as much fun as the flight over. From New York to Detroit we again took to the air, this time aboard an American Airlines DC-3. Right ... Read More

Rating:

- Outstanding Analysis of the Romance of Aviation
This is a classic study of the social history of the airplane and why Americans have been so attracted to its use. First published in 1983, it is now available in this 2002 edition with a new preface. I first read "The Winged Gospel" soon after its publication and found it a path-breaking, provocative study that emphasized beliefs about the airplane held by the machine's early advocates. I recently reread it and was impressed once again by its insight and the reasonableness of its thesis.

Stanford University historian Joseph J. Corn saw "air mindedness" in the first part of the twentieth century as something akin to a secular religion. It had articles of faith, creeds, acolytes, ceremonies, and sacred relics and spaces. The ability to fly represented the opportunity to transcend the earthly realm and reach a "higher plain," something that many viewed as both romantic and religious experiences. Like all religions, ... Read More

Rating:

- Good explanation of America's facination with early aviation
Joseph Corn's "The Winged Gospel" is a loving study of why many Americans were fascinated with aviation during the first half of the twentieth century. Corn explores the religous flavor which became associated with the airplane, and how a career in aviation became regarded as a mystical, "higher calling." Corn also examines how the bombing raids of World War II, especially on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, shattered that optimism. Corn devotes separate chapters to such phenomenon as the unique freedoms discovered by women aviators, the belief of "an airplane in every garage," and the boundless optimism in the future brought about by the airplane held by people in the grip of a crippling depression. Although his prose tends to be a little dry at times, Corn manages to coherently present a time when people embraced technology, and placed all of their hopes in its "miracles." As Corn ably proves, that time is something ... Read More

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