3/03/2012

Aviator portraits, Part II

Victor Carlstrom at the Curtiss School, 1916.

Continuing with portraits from the collection, I'll begin with a great photo of Victor Carlstrom.  Victor set a number of world's records before and after coming to the Curtiss School, many of them in Curtiss aircraft.  He perished in a horrible accident when a structural failure caused his plane to disintegrate at about 2,000 feet.  Ivan received a letter and photos of the crash which appear later in the collection.  I'll post what I have when we reach that point.

Captain Ralph Taylor was a student along with a couple of others (Edgar "Happy" Bagnell, and Capt. McMillen) from The Aviation Corps of the Nebraska National Guard.  He also went on to the Signal Corps, and died after only three months of instructing at Mineola, New York.

Captain Ralph Taylor poses with a Curtiss JN 4 at the Curtiss School in 1916.

Captain Thomas Scott Baldwin, of whom I've already written. Apparently, you had to sneak up on him to get a picture.

Captain Thomas Scott Baldwin managed the Curtiss School in Newport News, Virginia.

I was unable to find anything conclusive about J. R. Booth, II of Canada.  However a search of his name did  reveal that a wealthy lumberman of Canada by the name of John Rudoluphus Booth had a number of sons, and a grandson named J. R. Booth, Jr. The dates seem reasonable to make this a possible connection.

J. R. Booth II in a Curtiss model R, 1916.

I'll have a few more portraits coming the the next post.  Thanks for all the +1s and Shares!

-kpw

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