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The Wright Company: From Invention to Industry
- Narrated by: Pete Ferrand
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
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Publisher's summary
Fresh from successful flights before royalty in Europe, and soon after thrilling hundreds of thousands of people by flying around the Statue of Liberty, in the fall of 1909 Wilbur and Orville Wright decided the time was right to begin manufacturing their airplanes for sale. Backed by Wall Street tycoons, including August Belmont, Cornelius Vanderbilt III, and Andrew Freedman, the brothers formed the Wright Company.
But all was not well in Dayton, a city that hummed with industry, producing cash registers, railroad cars, and many other products. The brothers found it hard to transition from running their own bicycle business to being corporate executives responsible for other people's money. Their dogged pursuit of enforcement of their 1906 patent - especially against Glenn Curtiss and his company - helped hold back the development of the U.S. aviation industry. When Orville Wright sold the company in 1915, more than three years after his brother's death, he was a comfortable man - but his company had built only 120 airplanes at its Dayton factory and Wright Company products were not in the U.S. arsenal as war continued in Europe.
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Good book wrong title
- By Hectoris on 10-06-16
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The Yugo
- The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History
- By: Jason Vuic
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Six months after its American introduction in 1985, the Yugo was a punch line; within a year, it was a staple of late-night comedy. By 2000, NPR's Car Talk declared it "the worst car of the millennium." And for most Americans that's where the story begins and ends. Hardly. The short, unhappy life of the car, the men who built it, the men who imported it, and the decade that embraced and discarded it is rollicking and astounding, and it is one of the greatest untold business-cum-morality tales of the 1980s.
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Better Than The Car!
- By Chris Reich on 08-25-10
By: Jason Vuic
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Fins
- Harley Earl, the Rise of General Motors, and the Glory Days of Detroit
- By: William Knoedelseder
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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This audiobook chronicles the birth and rise to greatness of the American auto industry through the life of Harley Earl, an eccentric six-foot-five, stuttering visionary who dropped out of college and went on to invent the profession of automobile styling, thereby revolutionized the way cars were made, marketed, and even imagined. Harleys Earl’s story qualifies as a bona fide American family saga. It began in the Michigan pine forest in the years after the Civil War, traveled across the Great Plains on the wheels of a covered wagon, and eventually settled in Hollywood, California.
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Great report of amazing history but could do without the WOKE lean..
- By joshua Shaw on 07-02-22
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Neither Snow nor Rain
- A History of the United States Postal Service
- By: Devin Leonard
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Few institutions are as loved, as loathed, and as historically important as the United States Postal Service, the subject of this landmark century-spanning social, political, and economic history. The United States Postal Service is a wondrous American creation. Seven days a week, its army of 300,000 letter carriers delivers 513 million pieces of mail, 40 percent of the world's volume. It is far more efficient than any other mail service - more than twice as efficient as the Japanese and easily outpacing the Germans and British. And the USPS has a storied history.
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Woa!, the post office's history is America
- By anon on 12-06-16
By: Devin Leonard
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The Network
- The Battle for the Airwaves and the Birth of the Communications Age
- By: Scott Woolley
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the origin story of the airwaves - the foundational technology of the communications age - as told through the 40-year friendship of an entrepreneurial industrialist and a brilliant inventor. David Sarnoff, the head of RCA and equal parts Steve Jobs, Jack Welch, and William Randolph Hearst, was the greatest supporter of his friend, Edwin Armstrong, developer of the first amplifier, the modern radio transmitter, and FM radio.
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The Classic Struggle
- By Jean on 06-01-16
By: Scott Woolley
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The Flight of the Century: Charles Lindbergh and the Rise of American Aviation
- Oxford University Press: Pivotal Moments in US History
- By: Thomas Kessner
- Narrated by: Bob McGraw
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In late May 1927 an inexperienced and unassuming 25-year-old Air Mail pilot from rural Minnesota stunned the world by making the first non-stop transatlantic flight. A spectacular feat of individual daring and collective technological accomplishment, Charles Lindbergh's flight from New York to Paris ushered in America's age of commercial aviation.
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Flawed but Worthwhile
- By Ray Daniels on 11-11-22
By: Thomas Kessner
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Hershey
- Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams
- By: Michael D'Antonio
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In this compelling biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael D'Antonio gives us the real-life rags-to-riches story of Milton S. Hershey, a largely uneducated businessman whose idealistic sense of purpose created an immense financial empire, a town, and a legacy that lasts to this day.
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The Benchmark for Chartiable, Rich Men
- By Boyd Tschaggeny on 01-30-19
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Meet You in Hell
- Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership that Transformed America
- By: Les Standiford
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is history that reads like fiction: the riveting story of two founding fathers of American industry, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, and the bloody steelworkers' strike that transformed their fabled partnership into a furious rivalry. Author Les Standiford begins at the bitter end, when the dying Carnegie proposes a final meeting after two decades of separation. Frick's reply: "Tell him that I'll meet him in hell."
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an extended journalistic tour
- By D. Littman on 06-08-05
By: Les Standiford
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Boardwalk Empire
- The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City
- By: Nelson Johnson
- Narrated by: Joe Mantegna, Terence Winter (foreword)
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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From its inception, Atlantic City has always been a town dedicated to the fast buck, and this wide-reachinghistory offers a riveting account of its past 100 year, from the city's heyday as a Prohibition-era mecca of lawlessness to its rebirth as a legitimate casino resort in the modern era.
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The Unmasked History of Atlantic City
- By Steven Schuster on 08-07-10
By: Nelson Johnson
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Chocolate Wars
- The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers
- By: Deborah Cadbury
- Narrated by: Deborah Cadbury
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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With a cast of characters that wouldnt be out of place in a Victorian novel, Chocolate Wars tells the story of the great chocolatier dynasties, through the prism of the Cadburys. Chocolate was consumed unrefined and unprocessed as a rather bitter, fatty drink for the wealthy elite until the late 19th century, when the Swiss discovered a way to blend it with milk and unleashed a product that would conquer every market in the world.
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The World of Chocolate
- By Jean on 11-05-14
By: Deborah Cadbury
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Crash Course
- The American Automobile Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster
- By: Paul Ingrassia
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In Crash Course, Ingrassia answers the big questions: Was Detroit's self-destruction inevitable? What were the key turning points? Why did Japanese automakers manage American workers better than the American companies themselves? Ingrassia also describes dysfunctional corporate cultures (even as GM's market share plunged, the company continued business as usual) and Detroit's perverse system of "inverse layoffs" (which allowed union members to invoke seniority to avoid work).
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Contemporary History at Its Best
- By Roy on 04-19-10
By: Paul Ingrassia
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The Bin Ladens
- An Arabian Family in the American Century
- By: Steve Coll
- Narrated by: Erik Singer
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Abridged
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Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the national best seller Ghost Wars, Steve Coll presents the story of the Bin Laden family's rise to power and privilege, revealing new information to show how American influences changed the family and how one member's rebellion changed America.
By: Steve Coll
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Nazi Billionaires
- The Dark History of Germany's Wealthiest Dynasties
- By: David de Jong
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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A groundbreaking investigation of how the Nazis helped German tycoons make billions off the horrors of the Third Reich and World War II—and how America allowed them to get away with it.
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Good but flawed
- By I. M. Rightwriter on 07-11-23
By: David de Jong
What listeners say about The Wright Company: From Invention to Industry
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- D.J.S.
- 12-24-14
an interesting part of history
Would you try another book from Edward J. Roach and/or Pete Ferrand?
A good book. A reminder of how hard running a business can be. An interesting footnote of history brought to light.
Would you recommend The Wright Company: From Invention to Industry to your friends? Why or why not?
Foe someone interested in early aviation history, Ohioan history, or looking to fill out your understanding of various topics, this could be the read for you.
Could you see The Wright Company: From Invention to Industry being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
No
not well suited to the medium, I'd think.
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