Before 1900

Longmont Daily Times, 4 December 1926, p. 4
1900s, 1910s, 1920s, Before 1900, Film, Periodicals, Pictures

Gospel airships, heroic hearts and holy scriptures

Proselytisers are famously early adopters of communications technology (see: the Gutenberg Bible). It shouldn’t be surprising that missionaries were intrigued by the development of aviation: a Baptist minister, Reverend F. W. Boreham, even claimed that It was with a view to winging the Gospel to the uttermost ends of the eaxth that the first airman […]

Popular Mechanics, October 1922
1900s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, After 1950, Aircraft, Art, Australia, Before 1900, Civil aviation, Periodicals, Pictures, Words

The never-arriving aerial train

John Ptak asks of this cover from the October 1922 issue Popular Mechanics: ‘why?’ It’s a good question. The accompanying article doesn’t really help: Consider yourself aboard a giant airplane whose whirring propellers rapidly drive from view faint objects on the earth far below. As towns and hamlets recede in the distance you realize that

london sydney days, 1859-1952
1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, After 1950, Australia, Before 1900, Civil aviation, Grants, Pictures, Plots and tables, Tools and methods

Breaking the tyranny of distance

[Cross-posted at Airplay.] Australia is a long way from anywhere, even from itself. It nearly always takes a long time to get to where you want to go. Historian Geoffrey Blainey famously popularised the idea that this remoteness has shaped Australian history and culture in the title of his 1966 book, The Tyranny of Distance.

1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, Academia, Aerial theatre, Before 1900, Conferences and talks, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Videos

Seminar: ‘Staging the aerial theatre’

Last Friday, 3 October 2014, I gave the Humanities Research Seminar at the University of New England on the topic of ‘Staging the aerial theatre: Britishness and airmindedness in the 20th century’ (kindly introduced by Nathan Wise), in which I expanded upon my ideas for a research project involving aviation spectacle. You can watch the

Scroll to Top