The Wright Stuff     by Betty Gabrielli Photos courtesy of the Wright State University Archives and Special Collections December 15, 2003 Oberlin College photograph of Katharine Wright, 1898 Oberlin College graduation photograph of Katharine Wright Editor's Note: Additional information about Katharine Wright at Oberlin College archives web site. Two exhibits related to the birth of flight and the Wright/Oberlin connection are on view now through spring on the first and second floors of the Wright Laboratory of Physics. In addition, photographs, letters, documents, and personal treasures that once belonged to Katharine are on permanent display at the International Women's Air & Space Museum at Cleveland's Burke Lakefront Airport.   Katharine Wright's first time flying Wilbur and Katharine Wright seated in the Wright Model A Flyer with Orville Wright standing nearby. This was Katharine's first time flying. Her skirt is tied with a string. When our nation observes the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' historic first flight at Kitty Hawk this Wednesday, attention should also be paid to their younger sister, Katharine. That there may have been "no Kitty Hawk without Kitty Wright", as newspapers at the time declared, has been forgotten. Doug McInnis, Class of 1970, in researching an article on Katharine Wright Haskell for Oberlin Alumni Magazine, writes that Katharine was the "stalwart of the trio, the emotional and organizational glue that held together the reticent bachelor brothers." Without her drive, intelligence, and social adeptness, Wilbur and Orville might well have been left in the dust by well-connected competitors in their headlong rush to conquer the air. Katharine's devotion to Oberlin College was equally as strong. Born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, she arrived at Oberlin (which was deemed by her bishop father as a suitable school for a proper young lady) in the fall of 1893, and proceeded to major in Latin and Greek, join the Ladies' Literary Society, and serve as an editor of the Hi-O-Hi yearbook. After graduation, Katharine returned to Dayton, where she taught Latin in a high school for 10 years while Wilbur and Orville researched, experimented, and traveled to Kitty Hawk for test flights. Always supportive of her brothers' dream to fly, Katharine stayed behind to help manage the family bicycle shop and handle her brothers' correspondence. Her modest teacher's salary–just $6-a-week–helped prop up the household budget and likely allowed the brothers ample time to experiment. After the successful 1903 flight–and her brothers' ensuing fame–Katharine gave up her teaching career to help turn the plane from a curiosity into a viable business. New research, although it dispels the notion that she actually sewed the muslin to cover the wings and measured wood to build the flyer, has revealed other vital roles she played in the Wrights' post-Kitty Hawk achievements.   Group photograph of Oberlin College class of 1898 Sitting on the porch steps of a house at Oberlin College is a group of students from the class of 1898. Katharine Wright is seated second from the left in the third row. To help promote the new flying machines, Katharine traveled extensively with her introverted brothers, running interference with the press and with presidents, kings, and dignitaries at home and abroad. In 1910 she made her own first flight with Wilbur in Pau, France–possibly becoming the first woman in the world to fly. Returning to the U.S. with Wilbur and Orville, she met with President William Howard Taft and was feted in a two-day celebration in Dayton. Three years after their triumphal tour, Wilbur died of typhoid. Orville subsequently faded to the background of the aviation scene and largely dropped from public view. Katharine then turned her energies to the suffrage movement, and later to her duties as an Oberlin College trustee and class officer. Katharine was married late in life to longtime friend Henry Haskell, Oberlin Class of 1886, a widower and editor of the Kansas Star. Their wedding in 1926 caused a deep rift between Katharine and Orville, who had been her constant companion after Wilbur's death. Until the last few hours of Katharine's life in 1929, when she was dying of pneumonia, Orville refused any contact with her. Even so, Orville's ties to the College remained almost as strong as Katharine's. In 1910, both he and Wilbur received honorary degrees, and Orville, who loved to go to Oberlin football games, left a hefty sum to the school upon his death in 1948. The donation led to the renaming of the physics building as the Wilbur & Orville Wright Laboratory of Physics. Katharine Wright will receive a full profile in the Winter 2003-04 issue of Oberlin Alumni Magazine.