?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(AVIATION.) Photo album kept by a Harvard Flying Corps aviator who served in the first World War. 100 items (54 photographs, 16 postcards, 6 pencil drawings, 5 pieces of correspondence, 8 manuscripts, and 11 pieces of ephemera) plus clippings laid down on 39 scrapbook leaves. Oblong 4to, 9¾ x 11½ inches, original plain red limp cloth, staining and moderate wear; two items torn out from rear, otherwise minimal wear to contents. Also one smaller album: 12mo, 4½ x 3½ inches, original limp gilt calf, worn, with 42 photographs inserted into 11 album leaves. Also a binder of additional material removed from larger album: 27 war-date items (photographs, correspondence, ephemera) and 61 other items from the 1947-1975 period. Various places, bulk 1916-1919 and undated
As a Harvard student in 1916, George Clarke Whiting (1894-1981) of Hingham, MA helped organize the Harvard Flying Corps, which trained pilots for the coming war. Upon graduation in 1917, he enlisted in the Aviation Section of the United States Signal Corps. He trained at the Curtiss Flying School in Miami; the School of Military Aeronautics in Austin, Texas; and the Royal Flying School in Oxford. In March 1918, he was sent to the front as a lieutenant with the Royal Flying Corps before joining the American Expeditionary Force.
Whiting's album includes dozens of aviation-related photographs plus clippings and ephemera. Five aerial photographs are signed in the negative by R.B. Hoit of Miami, circa 1917.
Ephemera includes Whiting's signed contract to study at the Wright Flying Field [Mineola, NY], 21 July 1916; an engraved menu for a "Dinner in Honor of Mr. Orville Wright Given by Mr. Grover C. Loening," New York, 9 February 1917; Whiting's graduation certificate from the Royal Flying Corps; his typescript memorandum to his commanding officer, suggesting improved training methods, 7 July 1918; and an elaborate illuminated Christmas message on "Peace on Earth" created by Whiting's wife and mother in 1917.
Whiting married in 1917, while very briefly back in Massachusetts en route from Texas to Europe. His 30 July telegram to his father makes the arrangements: "Leaving Austin arriving Boston Friday morning enroute France. . . . Inform Martha make necessary preparations for return of prodigal." Clippings document the exploits of Whiting and his fellow American pilots. One is headlined "Harvard Flier Drops His Hun: Lt. Whiting Celebrates Decoration Day with a Hit."
The album also includes 6 pencil drawings: a house in Austin, TX from 1917; the Victoria Arms in Oxford, England in October 1917; a view of a ship titled "One of Our Convoy Leaving B___ Bay"; and 3 of "Sunnyside Farm." Also included are photos and clippings from his days of rowing crew at the Stone School and Harvard.
Accompanying the main album is a much smaller one titled "Officers, 148th American Squadron, 8.1.1918." with 42 photographs inserted, each 2½ x 1¾ inches. They consist mainly of casual portraits of Whiting and his fellow officers in uniform at their base; none are captioned.
Also included is a voluminous binder of material found loose in the larger album. Highlights include a 4-page typescript of "Harvard Preparedness in Aviation" circa 1917; a worn broadside for a charity boxing tournament in Stamford, England featuring Whiting and numerous other military men, 26 November 1917; 7 photographs and 4 pieces of ephemera from Whiting's role as vice president of the Skyway Corporation, the world's first scheduled passenger helicopter service, in Boston, 1947; and 50 letters and pieces of ephemera from reunions and historical aviation inquiries, 1963-1975.
