Hammondsport Convention -- part 2

After lunch the group attending the first-ever Tom Swift convention traveled to the Glenn H. Curtiss Aviation Museum. This was greatly expanded since the time when I first saw it in 1990, possibly in another location.

A most Tom Swift fans know, the career of Glenn Hammond Curtiss has parallels to the fictional career of Tom Swift. Curtiss was a motorcycle racing and aviation pioneer who did many of his experiments in Hammondsport, New York, or on the adjacent Keuka Lake. Hence, this town and lake are thought to be the inspiration for Shopton and Lake Carlopa.

The Curtiss-Tom Swift connection was first written up in detail by Dr. John T. Dizer, Jr. and published as "Shopton: Home of the Swifts" in Dime Novel Round-Up #449 (Feb 1970). It was reprinted in a "Leo Edwards" fan magazine called the Tutter Bugle (Oct 1973) and in his book Tom Swift & Company (McFarland, 1982).

In the article Jack Dizer looked at all of the location references in the Tom Swift and Tom Swift Jr. series and trying to fix the location of Shopton and Lake Carlopa based on these descriptions. He included references to distances to major cities and even consulted some old railroad timetables.

The Curtiss Aviation Museum has examples of the motorcycles and aircraft that were either the versions he worked on or were similar vintage examples or recreations. When looking at some of these motorcycles and motorized bicycles it is easy to imagine one that would be similar to the machine that Tom purchased from his eccentric friend, Mr. Wakefield Damon.

There was even a store window mock up with a motorcycle in the window which resembles a photo of a 1915-vintage bookstore window with a motorcycle surrounded by Tom Swift and other Grosset & Dunlap series books. I don't know if the museum folks knew of the rare vintage photo that was published in an internal trade magazine called Grosset & Dunlap's Business Promoter but it was at least a happy coincidence. Of course the museum display did not have piles of vintage books. There was one Tom Swift book in another display.

Curtiss was contacted by people who wanted light weight yet powerful gasoline engines for use in lighter-than-air dirigibles and heavier-than-air airplanes. Although the museum could not hold a dirigible, they had one display of the portion of the gondola with a Curtiss-type engine.

Curtiss joined an aviation experimental group headed by Alexander Graham Bell. With them Curtiss built a few biplanes which forged new methods for aerial control that did not use the Wright Brothers' patented wing warping system. Most aircraft today uses a variation of Curtiss' method rather than that of the Orville and Wilbur Wright.

He took one of these planes to an air show in Rheems, France, which resembles the air show that is described in Tom Swift and His Sky Racer (Grosset & Dunlap, 1911).

Curtiss also experimented with aircraft which could land on and take off from the surface of a lake. These became some of the first seaplanes. Much later there was Tom Swift and His Flying Boat (Grosset & Dunlap, 1923).

One of the more interesting Tom Swift inventions was his House on Wheels (1929). Today we would consider this to be a motor home or recreational vehicle. There were some examples of custom vehicles like this which could have served as an inspiration to the story. Curtiss had an "Aerocar" which was a streamlined trailer with all of the comforts of home. One of these was on display in the museum.

We were given a chance to view the restoration workshop during our tour. We had a dinner catered in the museum. Afterward we had our keynote presentation by Jack Dizer called "How Tom Swift Invented Everything" which reprised a talk he first gave to a science group several years ago. This was accompanied by several dozen interesting slides.

After his presentation, Jack was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award to recognize his five decades of research and writing about series books like Tom Swift. The plaque was laser engraved on wood and represented both the natural materials that Tom Sr. would have used on some of his early inventions as well as a CO2 laser that Tom Jr. could have invented.

The next morning the group reassembled at the museum again to see my presentation called "Tom Swift on the Silver Screen" which recounted details about the history of attempts to put Tom Swift on film or television. The earliest of these goes back to 1914. The most extensive project was in the 1960s when Twentieth Century Fox was trying to make a film based on the first series. I gave a brief version of this topic about 10 years ago at the Popular Culture Association conference. However, so much new material has been uncovered over the years that it was time to revisit it.

After the presentation, attendees were given a wooden keychain fob to commemorate the convention which was laser engraved in the same manner as Jack's plaque.

Since it was Sunday, several people wanted to get on the road so we each went our separate ways. Kim and I drove around Hammondsport to take in the antique stores and otherwise enjoy the area. That evening we went to Avoca, NY, to spend the night at the Caboose Motel before we started to head back to Newark, NJ.

George Dombi and Stephen Disney did a great job organizing this Tom Swift convention on a short timeline. The people who attended all had a good time and I'm sure everyone learned something.