Founders of American Aerospace Exhibit Collection

The Founders of American Aerospace Exhibit Collection consists of archival items dating from 1910-1965 that were acquired by the Museum of Flight for use in the "Founders of American Aerospace" exhibit, formerly on display in the Museum's Red Barn from about 2005-2022.

The collection is organized by theme following the layout of the exhibit. Materials include printed ephemera, postcards, correspondence, and sheet music. The items represents early American aircraft manufacturing companies, such as the Boeing Company, Douglas Aircraft Company, Lockheed Aircraft Company and McDonnell Aircraft Company, as well as some of the men who founded the companies, including Glenn Curtiss, Donald Douglas, and James McDonnell. Early airmail service is also represented by materials in the collection.

This collection only consists of archival items purchased for use in the exhibit; the exhibit also included artifacts as well as archival items from other accessions which are not included in this collection. Therefore, the inventory on this finding aid should not be considered a comprehensive list of items included in the exhibit.

Digitized Materials: A selection of materials has been digitized from this collection.

Please note that materials on TMOF: Digital Collections are presented as historical objects and are unaltered and uncensored. See our Disclaimers and Policies page for more information.