This collection consists of the following secondary source material relating to Alfred Lawson: photographs, newspaper and magazine articles, biographical information, advertisements, and his published writings. There are also some large broadsides relating to his lectures on Lawsonomy.
Biographical / Historical:
Alfred William Lawson (1869-1954) was born in London, England. Three weeks after Lawson's birth his family moved to Ontario, Canada. In 1872 the family moved again, this time to Detroit Michigan, where they became American citizens. In 1908, after a career in baseball, Lawson settled in Philadelphia where he launched a popular aviation magazine entitled _Fly_. Two years later he moved to New York City and started another aviation magazine entitled _Aircraft_. When the United States entered World War I, Lawson established the Lawson Aircraft Corporation to build training planes for the Army. Two prototypes were built, but orders were not contracted before the War was over. Lawson then formed the Lawson Airplane Company to build aircraft for the Lawson Air Transportation Company. The Lawson C-2, which Lawson called an airliner, was completed in August 1919. The following week it traveled from Milwaukee to New York City and Washington, DC. In 1920, on the basis of the success of his first airliner, Lawson designed a larger aircraft. Completed in 1921, an attempt to takeoff from a small field resulted in a crash and the end of his company. In 1928 Lawson made another attempt to enter the airline industry with a 100 passenger design, but it was never completed. Lawson spent his remaining 23 years promoting his economic philosophy, 'Lawsonomy.'
General:
Additional material: Two posters from this collection were transferred to the National Air and Space Museum Aeronautics Division.
NASMrev
Provenance:
Vivian J. Smith, gift/transfer, 1999, 1999-0046, unknown
Restrictions:
No restrictions on access
Rights:
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests
Seele, Jean W. (Jean Warren), 1924-1993 Search this
Extent:
12.11 Cubic feet ((1 shoebox) (7 slide and card cabinets))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Color slides
Color negatives
Black-and-white negatives
Photographs
Date:
[ca. 1950s-1970s]
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of approximately 6000 color slides and over 2000 negatives/prints (a mixture of color and black and white) of civil and military aircraft taken by Seele, circa 1950s-1970s. The shots were taken in the United States, specifically in the Midwest. Aircraft from the following manufacturers are represented: Aero Commander, Arrow, Aeronca, Beechcraft, Bell, Bellanca, Boeing, Bristol, Bucker, Callair, Cessna, Consolidated, Convair, Curtiss, Dassault, de Havilland, Davis, Dart, Douglas, ERCO, Fairchild, Fleet, Ford, Goodyear, Great Lakes, Grumman, Howard, Hawker Siddeley, Hughes, Heinkel, Jodel, Junkers, Lockheed, Ling-Temco-Vought, Lawson, Parsons, Pitts, Pitcarin, Piper, Pazmany, Piaggo, Porterfield, Republic, SAAB, Sikorsky, Stampe, Stearman, Stinson, Swearingen, Taylor, Vickers, and Waco. In June of 2001 the Smitihsonian's Museum of American History transferred an additional shoebox of Seele photography that had been sent directly to them from the widow. This color images included balloon events as well as aircraft shots. The ballooning images are color prints taken mostly around Topeka, Kansas, while the aircraft images are color transparencies of aircraft taken, again, mostly around Topeka.
Biographical / Historical:
Jean Warren (J. W.) Seele (1924-1993) was born in Topeka, Kansas, and spent almost his entire life there. After his graduation from Topeka High School he was enrolled for about one and a half years at the Spartan School of Aeronautics, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Although he worked for a few years at Bendix Aviation Corp, Kansas City Division during the 1950s, most of his professional career was spent as an engineering technician for the Kansas Department of Transportation. While he was not directly employed in the aviation field, Seele's hobby was photographing aircraft. Over a twenty year period, Seele photographed aircraft and at various times he was the official photographer for the National Antique Airplane Association, and for the annual fly-in sponsored by the Experimental Aircraft Association at Rockford, Illinois. Seele's photographs often appeared in the publications of both organizations, and several of this photographs also appeared in Jane's All the World's Aircraft during the 1970s.
General:
Additional materials: photographs taken by Seele of the Kansas countryside, including many of threshing demonstrations, were transferred to the Archives Center at the National Museum of American History.
Provenance:
Charline Seele, Gift, 2000, 2000-0057, NASM, except for images not taken by Seele.
Restrictions:
No restrictions on access
Rights:
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests
