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Herbert Hoover and the Development of Commercial Aviation, 1921–1926

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

David D. Lee
David D. Lee
Affiliation:
David Lee is professor of history atWestern Kentucky University.
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Abstract

Between 1921 and 1926, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover took an active role in shaping the relationship between the federal government and the fledgling commercial aviation industry. In this article, Professor Lee shows how Hoover, drawing largely on a form of American corporatism, prompted the industry to formulate answers to its own problems through trade associations, groups which would then cooperate with government to implement those solutions. Such thinking was an important ingredient in the Air Commerce Act of 1926, the first federal law regulating commercial aviation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , Spring 1984 , pp. 78 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1984

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References

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29 Ibid.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

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37 W. C. Mullendore to Hoover, 13 January 1925; “Aviation, 1925”; Jesse Jackson to Hoover, 19 March 1925; “Aviation, Commercial, 1925”; all in Commerce Papers, Hoover Library; New York Times, 12 August 1925.

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39 Hoover to Dwight Davis, 12 August 1925; “Aviation, Los Angeles, 1925–1926”; Herbert Satterlee to Hoover, 23 November 1925; “Aviation, Commercial, 1925”; Satterlee to Hoover, 21 January 1926; Hoover to Satterlee, 25 January 1926; “Aviation, Commercial, 1926–1927”; all in Commerce Papers, Hoover Library; House Select Committee of Inquiry, inquiry, 816–17; New York Times, 12 August 1925.

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48 Hoover to Hiram Bingham, 23 September 1925; James Wadsworth, Jr., to Hoover, 5 December 1925; Clarence Young to Hoover, 7 December 1925; Hoover to Wesley L. Jones, 9 December 1925; “Commerce Department; Bureau of Aeronautics; Legislation, 1925–1926”; all in Commerce Papers, Hoover Library; Congressional Record, 69th Cong., 1st sess., 828–30, 7314–17; New York Times, 9 December 1925; Komons, Bonfires, 80–81.

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