Wilbur & Orville Wright

The publication of this revised and updated edition of the classic, Wilbur & Orville Wright: A Bibliography Commemorating the Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Wilbur Wright, April 16, 1867, is an event worth celebrating. I have three copies of the 1968 Library of Congress original: one within easy reach at home, one within easy reach at work, and a third copy squirreled away just in case one of the other two goes missing. All three copies are dog-eared and literally coming apart at the seams. Few books in my library have seen more use over the years. It is fitting to open this new edition with a few words about the extraordinary scholar who created the bibliography. The Wright brothers were still perfecting their invention when Arthur George Renstrom was born in Willmar, Minnesota, in 1905. He earned a BA from the University of Minnesota, a BS in library science from the University of Illinois, and an MS in library science from Columbia University. He joined the Library of Congress staff as a cataloger in 1931, and found his true calling when he became reference librarian of the Aeronautics Division in 1935. Over the next four decades, he developed a well-earned reputa-tion as the leading American bibliographer of the air age, with a string of important publications that includ-ed: Principal U.S. Investigations in Aeronautics, 1918- 1937 (1938); Subject Headings for the Aeronautical Index (1940); Aeronautic Americana: A Bibliography of Book and Pamphlets on Aeronautics Published in America Before 1909 (1943); Aeronautics in Alaska: A List of References (1944); United States Aviation Policy: A Selective Bibliography (1947); and Aeropolitics: A Selected Bibliography on the Influence of Aviation on Society (1948).