George Lehman, a landscape painter, came to do backgrounds for the bird portraits. His first expedition was to the east coast of Florida to find water birds and tropical species. In America, he traveled in search of birds to paint.Īudubon returned from England in 1831 to draw new birds for the folio. When abroad, he supervised the engraving and coloring of the prints. Over the next twelve years, Audubon divided his time between London and America. The first prints were made that same year. There he found both subscribers and engravers for the project. Unable to secure financial backing in the United States, Audubon went to Europe in 1826. And flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker used his war hero stature to sell travel aboard Eastern Airlines. Lindbergh garnered publicity by flying a number of inaugural flights between Miami, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Earhart’s presence made women feel safe in the air. Until that time, most airline passengers were wealthy businessmen and a few adventurous women. Taking its cue from the public adoration for pioneer aviators, the local aviation industry used iconic aviation figures and heroes such as Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart to promote aviation as not only safe, but also glamorous. In Miami, Lindbergh’s flight led to the 1927 formation of the Greater Miami Airport Association, whose first goal was to establish a municipal airport and related infrastructure to meet the needs of all types of aircraft. It also led financier Clement Keys to form the North American Aviation Holding Company, which invested in fledging airlines. For Wall Street investors, this achievement signaled that there was finally money to be made in aviation beyond the military. In May 1927, Charles Lindbergh captured the public’s admiration by completing the first successful trans-Atlantic flight. One major event helped shift negative public perceptions of flying nationwide. All but Chalk’s, however, failed after a brief time, casting dim prospects on the future of passenger flights. Despite negative public perception, Miami did have one hefty advantage when it came to developing passenger flights: the city was at end of a long peninsula and, for continued travel to Cuba and the Bahamas, airplanes were faster than ships.Įarly airlines founded in Miami, such as Chalk’s and Aeromarine Airways, offered flights to the Bahamas and other Caribbean destinations. They also provided sightseeing flights to daring tourists and lessons to recreational pilots. With these limited prospects, early aviators in Miami worked mainly in the fields of airmail service and aerial photography. Worst of all, airplanes crashed due to mechanical failure or adverse weather with alarming frequency. In the early 1920s, flying wasn’t a travel option for many.Īircraft were cramped, noisy and had limited range and when flying over land routes, they also weren’t much faster than trains. It was one thing for thrill-seekers to pay for a 15-minute recreational flight or for World War I military aviators to risk their lives in the sky, and quite another to convince Aunt Betty and the cousins to trade their safe, comfortable train ride from New York to Miami for a flight on a newfangled airplane.
0 kommentar(er)
