Charles Frederick Page Invented Aircraft Before the Wright Brothers
This article is based on original reporting by Robin Miller, Staff Writer for THE ADVOCATE, published on August 18, 2024.
The Wright Brothers are celebrated as history's pioneering aviators, known for inventing, building, and successfully flying the world's first airplane. Their legendary test flight of the Wright Flyer on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, forever changed the course of aviation. Today, the Wright Flyer hangs from the rafters of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
However, less well-known is that Charles Frederick Page, a Black inventor, applied for a patent for his airship eight months before the Wright Brothers took flight. So why isn't Page's invention in the Smithsonian? Why didn't it receive more attention? And what happened to it?
The U.S. Patent Office's blueprint for Charles Frederick Page's airship. Page applied for the patent in 1903 and received it in 1906. The patent was granted months before the Wright Brothers received their patent for the Kitty Hawk.
In 1903, during the height of the Jim Crow era in the United States, Charles Frederick Page, born in 1864, was likely omitted from census records because he was born into slavery. After marrying Ida Kelso in 1880, the couple settled in Pineville, Louisiana, where they raised 13 children.
According to a 1930s interview with his daughter Eva in The Alexandria Daily Town Talk, Page worked as a coal digger. Inspired by the flight of a mosquito hawk, he declared, "If a mosquito hawk can fly, I can fly."
A state historical marker now indicates the location of his home, a two-story wooden house on what is now La. 28 East in Pineville. It was there, behind his home, that Page invented his airship.
This past July, the Louisiana State Museum and the Louisiana Civil Rights Museum collaborated to open an exhibit at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. Titled "Pioneer Skies: From Freedom to Flight, the History of Charles Frederick Page," the exhibit commemorates Page's achievement and features blueprint drawings of his airship—a complex mechanical balloon device capable of forward, upward, and downward propulsion.
Page submitted a patent application for his invention months before the Wright Brothers' demonstration at Kitty Hawk. However, due to the typical patent processing time of the era, it took three years for his patent to be granted. The Town Talk interviewed Page during this time about his invention and the life-size model of his aircraft that he built. It was rare for newspapers to highlight the accomplishments of Black Southerners during the Jim Crow era.
On April 10, 1906, Page was finally awarded his patent. In 1904, he had sent his airship to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. Unfortunately, what happened to the airship afterward remains a mystery. All that is known is that it disappeared, answering the question of why Page's invention isn't more well-known today.
Eva Page later told The Town Talk that her father's airship had been stolen and destroyed, "...probably due to the prejudice of the day." Disheartened, Page rejected an offer of $30,000 for his patent and abandoned his invention.
Page's patent was one of the earliest ever granted to a Black man, and it was the first patent on an airship—an extraordinary accomplishment, particularly given the era's challenges.
Charles Frederick Page died at the age of 73 on November 18, 1937. He is buried in Lincoln Cemetery, a burial ground he founded in Pineville.
