Katharine Wright

Notable people · Aviation · Educator

Katharine Wright

Dayton Latin teacher, Oberlin trustee and suffragist who was the indispensable partner of her brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, nursing Orville after the 1908 crash and acting as the family's voice in Europe.

Born August 19, 1874, Dayton (family home, 7 Hawthorn Street)
Died March 3, 1929, Kansas City, MO

CC0 · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born: August 19, 1874, Dayton (family home, 7 Hawthorn Street) (Montgomery County) source
Died: March 3, 1929, Kansas City, MO source
Buried: Woodland Cemetery, Dayton (with her parents and brother) (Montgomery County) source
Also known as: Katharine Wright, Katherine Wright, Kate Wright, the Wright sister
Education: Central High School, Dayton, OH
: Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, to 1898, BA
Known as: Aviation, Educator
Organizations: Wright Company

Life story

Katharine Wright was born in Dayton in 1874, the youngest surviving Wright child. After their mother died of tuberculosis in 1889 she ran the household while studying.

She attended Central High School and Oberlin, graduating from Oberlin in 1898, the only Wright sibling with a college degree. She taught Latin and English at Steele High School.

She helped run the bicycle shop while her brothers worked at Kitty Hawk and left teaching after Orville was injured in 1908. In 1909 she travelled to France and received a French academic honour.

She moved with Orville to Hawthorn Hill in Oakwood in 1914 and married Henry Haskell in 1926; Orville refused to attend. She died of pneumonia in 1929.

Ohio ties

Dayton, 7 Hawthorn Street (1874-1914)
birthplace and family home; ran the household after 1889 Montgomery County · source
Dayton, Central High School and Steele High School (c. 1890-1908)
pupil at Central High; teacher of Latin and English at Steele High, 1898-1908 Montgomery County · source
Oberlin College (1893-1898; trustee 1924-1929)
student and 1898 graduate; leader of the Dayton alumni group; college trustee; married at Oberlin in 1926 Lorain County · source
Hawthorn Hill, 901 Harman Avenue, Oakwood (1914-1926)
helped plan the house and ran it for Orville and their father Montgomery County · source
Woodland Cemetery, Dayton (1929)
burial with her parents and brother Wilbur Montgomery County · source

Timeline

1874 Born on 19 August at the family home on Hawthorn Street in Dayton, the youngest child and only surviving daughter of Milton and Susan Koerner Wright. source
1889 After her mother Susan died, she took on much of the running of the household, especially during her father's long absences as a United Brethren bishop. source
1893 Entered Oberlin, after attending Dayton's Central High School. source
1898 Graduated from Oberlin College with a bachelor's degree, the only one of the Wright children to finish college, and began teaching Latin and English at Steele High School in Dayton. source
1901 When her brothers began spending seasons at Kitty Hawk, she helped run the bicycle shop, packed their supplies and handled their letters and the press. source
1908 Left teaching in September to be at Orville's bedside after the Fort Myer, Virginia, crash of 17 September that killed Lt. Thomas Selfridge, and never went back to the classroom. source
1909 Joined Wilbur in Pau, France, with Orville, flew three times with Wilbur, and was named an Officier de l'Instruction Publique when her brothers received the Legion of Honour. source
1914 Marched in a Dayton woman suffrage parade on 24 October with her father and her brothers Orville and Lorin, ahead of the unsuccessful Ohio suffrage amendment vote. source
1914 Moved into Hawthorn Hill in Oakwood with her father and housekeeper Carrie Grumbach on 28 April, before Orville returned. source
1923 Elected to the Oberlin College board of trustees, serving from 1924 until her death. source
1926 Married Henry J. Haskell, an Oberlin classmate and editor of the Kansas City Star, at Oberlin on 20 November; Orville opposed the match and did not attend. source
1929 Died of pneumonia in Kansas City on 3 March; Orville, who had shunned her since the wedding, came days before her death and asked that she be buried in Dayton. source
1931 The Katharine Wright Haskell Memorial Fountain, a marble fountain with a bronze boy-and-dolphin copied from a Renaissance sculpture in Florence, was installed near the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin, commissioned by her widower. source
1981 The Katharine Wright Memorial Trophy was established by Gates Learjet; the National Aeronautic Association awards it annually with the Ninety-Nines. source
2007 The Oberlin fountain, crumbled and taped off for years, was restored by Fairplay Stonecarvers after a $60,000 fundraising drive led by family and alumni. source
2022 The Haskell family gave the Katharine Wright Haskell Papers, mostly her letters to Henry Haskell, to Wright State University Libraries in Dayton. source

What Katharine is known for

Oberlin College graduate 1898
Latin and English teacher at Steele High School until 1908
Supported brothers' European publicity 1908-09

Stories

Picking Hawthorn Hill

By 1910 the seven-room house at 7 Hawthorn Street, where the family had lived for 42 years, could not hold the stream of visitors, and the Wrights bought a building lot in Dayton in March. Katharine thought it too small, too near the centre of town and wrong for the house they had in mind. So in 1911 Wilbur and Orville looked again, and in February 1912 bought a 17-acre wooded hilltop in Oakwood that they named Hawthorn Hill. Wilbur died that May. On 28 April 1914 Katharine, her father and the housekeeper Carrie Grumbach moved into the finished house while Orville was away.

Source

Three or four letters a day

Katharine had known Henry J. Haskell and his wife Isabel since all three were Oberlin students. After Isabel died in 1923, Haskell began writing to Katharine again, and as friendship became romance she wrote daily, sometimes three or four letters in a day. She kept the romance secret from Orville for a long time, knowing how much he depended on her. When they finally told him, he opposed the marriage and did not attend or acknowledge the ceremony at Oberlin on 20 November 1926. The letters, which cover Oberlin, the Kansas City Star, the Wright patent fight and her views on women's rights, are now at Wright State University in Dayton and are being put online.

Source

The fountain that fell apart

After Katharine's death, Henry Haskell commissioned a hand-cut Italian marble fountain for Oberlin, topped by a bronze boy with a dolphin copied from a Renaissance sculpture in Florence that the couple had seen. It was installed near the Allen Memorial Art Museum in 1931, with steps reading 'To Katharine Wright Haskell 1874-1929'. With no money for upkeep, the water stopped and the marble began to crumble until it was taped off. In 2006-2007 a family and alumni campaign raised $60,000, and Fairplay Stonecarvers of Oberlin spent eight months cleaning and repairing it.

Source

Honors and things named for them

Officier de l'Instruction Publique (France, 1909)
Katharine Wright Memorial Trophy, National Aeronautic Association (1981)
Oberlin trustee (1923)

Named for Katharine Wright

Katharine Wright Haskell Memorial Fountain (Oberlin, Lorain County) source
Katharine Wright Memorial Trophy (National Aeronautic Association) source

Family

brother: Wilbur Wright
brother: Orville Wright
spouse: Henry J. Haskell

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

1 Hawthorn Hill (National Historic Landmark; NRHP 74001585), Katharine's home 1914-1926
901 Harman Avenue, Oakwood Montgomery County · source
2 Wright family plot, Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum (coordinates are for the cemetery)
118 Woodland Avenue, Dayton Montgomery County · source
Birthplace, 7 Hawthorn Street (house moved to Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan, by Henry Ford in 1936-1937) (demolished)
Dayton Montgomery County · source
Katharine Wright Haskell Memorial Fountain, by the Allen Memorial Art Museum
Oberlin College, Oberlin Lorain County · source

Places in Ohio to see

Hawthorn Hill (home)
901 Harman Ave, Oakwood, Montgomery County Oakwood · Montgomery County · official page

Ohio places

Where Katharine Wright was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Born: Dayton, Montgomery County ZIP 45402 · Dayton · Montgomery County
Lived: Oakwood (Hawthorn Hill), Montgomery County ZIP 45419 · Oakwood · Montgomery County
School: Oberlin, Lorain County ZIP 44074 · Oberlin · Lorain County
Buried: Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Montgomery County ZIP 45409 · Montgomery County

Myths and corrections

Things often said about Katharine Wright, and what the record shows.

Often said Katharine did the mathematics behind the Wright brothers' invention.

The record The story was made up by French journalists during the 1909 European tour, and Katharine tried to refute it in later years. Her contribution was managing the household and shop, correspondence, publicity and social diplomacy, not the engineering. source

Often said Orville never saw his sister again after her 1926 marriage.

The record Orville shunned the couple for more than two years, but at their brother Lorin's urging he went to Kansas City and was with her days before she died on 3 March 1929. He then asked Henry Haskell to let her be buried in Dayton. source

Documents

Primary records: patents, letters, court and government files, nominations and old county histories, each at the archive that holds it.

Katharine Wright Haskell Papers (MS-700), finding aid, Wright State University Libraries Special Collections and Archives 1922-1929, Wright State University Libraries
Digitized letters of Katharine Wright to Henry J. Haskell, 1922-1926 (CORE Scholar) 1922-1926, Wright State University Libraries
National Historic Landmark nomination: Hawthorn Hill, Oakwood (74001585) 1991, National Park Service, NPGallery
Katharine Wright's Life Story, Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park National Park Service

Pictures

Free to use with the credit shown. Select a picture for the original and its license.

Katharine Wright mit Kneifer Brille und selten gut sichbarem Sicherheitskettchen mit Halt im Haar
Public domain
Wilbur and Katharine Wright seated in the Wright Model A Flyer with Orville Wright standing nearby. This was K...
Public domain
Wilbur and Orville Wright Signed Photograph, Also Signed by President William H. Taft and other notables. The ...
Public domain
Group picture of Orville Wright, Bishop Milton Wright, Katharine Wright, Earl N. Findley, nephew Horace Wright...
Public domain
Katharine Wright graduating from Oberlin College in 1898
Public domain
Smithsonian Web ID #: WEB13510-2013
Public domain
Katharine's portrait upon graduating from Oberlin in 1898.
Public domain
Oberlin College photograph of Katharine Wright in 1898. She was a sister of aviation pioneers Wilbur and Orvil...
Public domain
Katherine Wright Haskell, former teacher, sister of the famous Wright brothers
Public domain
Katherine Wright, Bishop Milton Wright, Orville Wright
Public domain
Vintage Post Card of Orville, Wilbur, and Katherine Wright
Public domain
Title: Orville, Wilbur, and Katherine Wright, with others Abstract/medium: 1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in. or s...
Public domain