Superb vintage matte-finish 10 x 8 photo of Orville Wright, Henry Ford, and Ford’s grandson (Edsel Ford’s son) William Ford examining a large schematic at the dedication of the reconstructed Wright Home and Workshop at Ford’s Greenfield Village, April 1938, boldly signed in fountain pen, “Orville Wright” and “Henry Ford.” Ford, whose “other” main obsession was his unique collection of historic buildings at Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan, became interested in the old Wright Cycle Company at the urging of William E. Scripps, a Detroit journalist and aviation enthusiast. Orville Wright was invited to visit Greenfield Village in the summer of 1936; five days later, the Wrights’ old landlord, Charles Webbert, sold the Wright’s Dayton bicycle shop building at 1127 West Third Street to Ford for $13,000. It was soon discovered that old Wright home at 7 Hawthorne Street might also be available; a month later, Ford bought it from Lottie Jones, the Wrights’ former washerwoman, for $4,100. Both the shop and the house were dismantled, removed to Michigan, and painstakingly reassembled side by side at Greenfield Village, where they were dedicated on Orville Wright’s birthday on April 16, 1938, and where they remain today. Small and very faint bend to bottom edge, and the slightest suggestion of silvering to dark portion at lower right, otherwise very fine, fresh condition. A beautifully preserved, very scarce, and most notable combination of these two history-changing innovators! Auction LOA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
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