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This collection consists of photographs relating to the work of aerial kite photography pioneer William Abner Eddy (1850 - 1909).
William Abner Eddy (January 28, 1850 - December 26, 1909) developed the diamond-shaped kite that bears his name and was a pioneer in kite aerial photography. On May 30, 1895, Eddy took the first mid-air kite photograph in the Western Hemisphere, lifting a 9 x 9 cm format camera using a train of his dihedral diamond kites.
NASM.XXXX.0752
bulk 1886-1897
Edward Herbert Young, Gift, 1958, XXXX.0752
0.05 Cubic feet
National Air and Space Museum Archives
This collection consists of a cabinet card portrait photograph of William Eddy taken in 1886; three photographs of Eddy kites made by photographer William Snell in a studio at Bayonne, New Jersey, on July 23, 1892 (featuring children Margaret D. Eddy and Henry Wood Shelton); and three 3.5 x 3.5 inch aerial kite photographs of Washington, DC, including two of the Capitol Building, taken in September 1897 by Eddy with the assistance of Edward Herbert Young, an aviation writer and member of the Aero Scientific Club of Washington, DC. Also included in the collection is a round blue cardboard badge, with string, issued to Edward Young for the Aeronautical Trials of the Wright Military Flyer held at Fort Myer, Virginia, in 1908.
Materials are arranged chronologically within a single folder.
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Kite Aerial Photography [William Eddy], Acc. XXXX-0752, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Aeronautics
Kites
Aerial photography
Collection descriptions
Archival materials