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Chronicling America is a searchable digital collection of historic newspaper pages through 1963 sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
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Also, see the Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries, a searchable index to newspapers published in the United States since 1690, which helps researchers identify what titles exist for a specific place and time, and how to access them.
As the world geared up for the next military conflict, the introduction of planes was an opportunity to develop advanced war machines. Though their usefulness was unknown and debated, it was assumed that they would have an important role in the next war. When the First World War was declared, all the testing, trials, and experiments were put to the test on the war front. Read more about it!
The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.
The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.
| September 9, 1908 | Orville Wright preforms official trial in front of army board August, |
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| 1909 | Aviation Field at College Park, MD is established by the army signal corps. |
| July 15, 1910 | Glenn Curtiss preforms stunt practicing dropping “bombs”. |
| February 17, 1911 | Curtiss successfully stops at U.S. cruiser with air boat. |
| August, 1914 | The First World War breaks out. |
| April 6, 1917 | The United States entered the war. |
