The Wright Brothers’ 1911 Model B Airplane plane on display at the Franklin Institute after refurbishment in Ohio in 2003.A precious aircraft designed by the Wright Brothers towers high inside the Franklin Institute, where it has been housed for almost a century. Before going on display, theIts celebrity owner, playboy troublemaker Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, was the millionaire son of a wealthy Philadelphia brewer who learned to fly from Orville Wright.
For months, Lake reached out to the Franklin Institute for information about the provenance of the Wright Brothers plane and requested to see Bergdoll’s letter, only to be told museum workers couldn’t find it. That exchange, of course, only brought up more questions. “It was a complete about-face of their explanation for acquisition of the airplane that they have presented to the public for the past 90 years … without any evidence whatsoever leading to that change,” Lake said.
She says the museum owes them a public explanation and restitution, including “some compensation for our loss.” Lake posits that Sheahan learned about the plane rotting in that abandoned machine shop — potentially from an Inquirer article published on Oct. 8, 1933, exposing the contents inside — and decided to rescue a piece of history. It was also convenient timing, Lake said, as the Franklin Institute was set to open its new building on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and needed a centerpiece attraction for its hall of aviation, having failed to acquire the 1903 Wright Flyer .