Some Early Ephemera Postcards with Captions, Undated Photography with Notes

Thought to be the only surviving photograph (photographer unknown) of the first “skywriting,” the word “CLOUD” appeared in the blue cloudless sky above Fort Wayne, Indiana, on the morning of 3 April 1911. The caption on the reverse reads: “Concocted by aviation pioneer and Fort Wayne native, Art ‘The Bird Boy’ Smith (seen here as the period, there, dotting the terminal D) and deployed in his home-built aeroplane, its engine barely audible, the artificial cloudlike cloud remaining decipherable for upwards of a minute before it dissipated, dispersed by the high altitude zephyr.”

A limited edition of this hand-tinted postal card was commissioned to commemorate Art Smith’s inaugural airmail flight between his home city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the terminus at Toledo, Ohio. The photograph depicts Smith’s signature “skywriting” technique there aloft above his hometown, apparently misspelling the name of his former wife, “Aimme.” Smith insisted that the smoke should be read as a motto for the new communication enterprise, mainly, “Aim Me!” Though rare, examples of this postcard may be found with the airmail stamp hand-canceled by the Postmaster of Fort Wayne himself, Harry Baals.

The caption on the reverse of this photograph reads: “Photographed over Lake Wawasee near Syracuse, Indiana, on a summer’s sunset in 1916, this ‘skywriting’ was accomplished by the originator of the technique and, at the time, its sole practitioner, Art Smith, The Bird Boy of Fort Wayne. It was said that the smoke generating apparatus for the stunt is attached to the frame of Smith’s homemade aeroplane and manipulated by one’s feet. This particular manifestation serves as both artifact and its artist’s signature. The smoke is said to be harmless, benign as the vapors that arise each dusk from the lake below.”

Art Smith, The Bird Boy of Fort Wayne, and the inventor of “skywriting” is captured (in this undated photograph) in the midst of transcribing the final letter of the word “LOOK” to the azure firmament over Ohio, when interrupted by a flight of migrating Canada geese. Notes handwritten on the reverse read: “Captain Art Smith, a veteran of the Great War, reported he took evasive maneuvers when startled by the determined and fast-moving flock in formation, avoiding what would have been certain disaster in the vicinity of Van Wert.”