“Flight at Any Cost: The Dramatic Race to Invent the Airplane,” a presentation by best-selling author Burton W. Folsom, Jr., Ph.D.

Burton W. Folsom Jr., Ph.D.—a professor, economic historian, best-selling author, and distinguished fellow at Hillsdale College—will present “Flight at Any Cost: The Dramatic Race to Invent the Airplane” on Oct. 21, 2025, at 6:30 p.m. at Carillon Historical Park. The talk recounts the quests of Samuel Pierpont Langley and the Wright brothers to achieve the world’s first powered flight.
In his book, “Uncle Sam Can’t Count,” co-authored with his wife Anita Folsom, Dr. Folsom, a scholar of free-market capitalism, devotes a chapter titled “The Wright Brothers Conquer the Air,” as he compares Langley’s subsidized work to that of Dayton’s self-funded, self-taught bicycle makers. The book examines the history of government subsidies in the U.S., noting that such programs have sometimes struggled to achieve their goals.

An eminent economic historian, Dr. Folsom appears regularly on news programs and is the author of ten books, including “FDR Goes to War” and “The Myth of the Robber Barons,” now in its ninth edition.

ADMISSION: FREE
RSVP: 937.293.2841, Ext. 137