Chapters 1-2 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 1: What Amos Root Saw

The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane by Russell Freedman begins Chapter One with the following quote:

"No one had ever seen what Amos Root saw on that September afternoon in 1904."

Chap. 1, p. 1

Amos Root had heard about a flying machine and drove 200 miles to see it for himself. Root stood in a cow pasture in Dayton, Ohio and watched as Wilbur Wright made a circle in the sky above him. Root watched as a pilot lay face down on the lower wing, steering the aircraft to a landing in the grass.

Wilbur Wright was the pilot. Wilbur and his brother Orville had built the aircraft in the workroom of a bicycle shop. The brothers had permission to try it out on the field called Huffman Prairie. What Root witnessed was a test...