Session Organizers:
Jeremy R. Kinney, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
Alan D. Meyer, University of Delaware

Presenters’ Names and Paper Titles:
“Aviation History in the Wider View”:  An Update
Jeremy R. Kinney, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
Alan D. Meyer, University of Delaware

A Look at Aviation’s Pioneering Spirit from the Shop Floor: The Ideology of the Aircraftsman, 1914-1934
John S. Olszowka, Mercyhurst College

The “Logic of the Air”: Aviation and the Globalism of the American Century
Jenifer Van Vleck, Yale University

Commentators:
David T. Courtwright, University of North Florida
James R. Hansen, Auburn University

Chair:
Tom D. Crouch, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Nearly two decades ago, James R. Hansen published a review essay titled “Aviation History in the Wider View” in the July 1989 issue of Technology and Culture.  He noted that most aviation historians up to that point had focused on airplanes or pilots, and to a lesser extent on designers and entrepreneurs.  Hansen argued that this apparent cult-like fascination with hardware and heroes and an absence of the “big questions” being asked in other fields of history led to aviation history falling behind in terms of academic scholarship.  What aviation history needed were broadly synthetic, contextual, and interdisciplinary studies that highlighted its meaning in relation to other fields of history.  In the spirit of the SHOT@50 2007 theme of “Looking Back,” this panel addresses the past and current state of the historiography of aviation as practiced within SHOT.

In “‘Aviation History in the Wider View’:  An Update,”  Jeremy R. Kinney and Alan D. Meyer address the influence of Hansen’s original review essay by documenting historiographical developments in the field since 1989.  Their critique of scholarship published since 1989, especially the work generated to commemorate the 2003 centennial of powered flight, will consider whether the present state of aviation history is a reflection of or an exception to the broader field of the history of technology.

The session’s next two papers offer a perspective on how disciplines outside the field—in this case, labor, cultural, and diplomatic studies—have influenced the current writing of aviation history.  John S. Olszowka documents the working class of aviation during World War I and the pivotal interwar period in “A Look at Aviation’s Pioneering Spirit from the Shop Floor: The Ideology of the Aircraftsman, 1914-1934.”  He examines how progressive ideology influenced an entire generation of workers to forego advances in labor relations to stay connected to aviation’s pioneering spirit.  Jenifer Van Vleck places the cultural history of the airplane within the context of the rise of the United States as a world power in “The ‘Logic of the Air’: Aviation and the Globalism of the American Century.”  Her identification of the airplane as a central element in America’s nationalist globalism generates a broader understanding of postwar commercial aviation.  Both papers clearly place aviation history at the intersection of other fields of history.

For this session, we have altered the traditional one-commentator format.  James R. Hansen, an award-winning aerospace historian and author of the article that inspired the session, and David T. Courtwright, an accomplished scholar and relative outsider to the field, will offer their perspectives on the papers.  We intend that the combined comments will address the crucial and ever-present question posed by critics of the field: “Does aviation history matter?”