Photo Archives

1 Response to Photo Archives

1. Robinson O. Brown says:

   July 1, 2015 at 6:29 pm

   I am a great enthusiast of Ray Daigle’s extraordinary book of Brown Company photo s that my brother gave me a year ago. It has been circulated in the family and lost and I am ordering another copy.

   My question is the availability of images of the photos themselves. In about a month I am considering a short presentation to members of my immediate family (Newell Brown – part of the WR’s – on the evident dedication to private technical innovation and capital investment of a small family company a century ago. I suppose this was typical – if you didn’t innovate yourself, no university or government was going to subsidize it. Bell Labs, General Electric, and RCA were of course, well-known leaders, but the need was industry-wide. In contrast the narrow Wright brothers naively banked everything on their aileron patent, did little added research, and helped retard the American aviation business before WW I.

   If images were available it would forestall having to copy images from the Ray’s book for the presentation. I’d be happy to pay for their cost and the trouble to get them out.

   In any case, the book is a loving and thorough photo record and commentary, that gains everything by naming company employees high and low. I have never run across anything so provocative about a family company sitting athwart a break-through yet basic technology – wood fibers for newsprint and products for an vastly expanding post 1900 consumer market.

   A factoid you may enjoy: American newspapers were reported to use 250,000 additional tons of newsprint to cover the announcement of Charles Lindberg’s transatlantic flight. This was, I believe about the same time I understand the WR’s bought a canary yellow Rolls Royce, which was sold later to a chicken farmer in the 1930’s.

   Regards,

   Rob Brown 415 205-1482