Sinclair Lewis, photographed by Arnold Genthe, date unknown. Larger.
It may be that Orville and Wilber made history at Kitty Hawk, but California didn't take long to establish it's own leadership in early aviation.
Best known for works satirizing mid-western values, an early novel by Sinclair Lewis captured the thrill of being a part of California's new-found love of the airplane through the persona of Carl Ericson, a young man about to solo for the first time, slicing the sky above San Mateo.
. . . Carl felt very much in the limelight, waiting in the nacelle of the machine for the time to start. The propeller was revolved, Carl drew a long breath and stuck up his hand—and the engine stopped. . . . Again the propeller was revolved, and this time the engine hummed sweet. The monoplane ran along the ground, its tail lifting in the blast, till the whole machine seemed delicately poised on its tiptoes. He was off the ground. . . .
He exulted at the swiftness with which a distant group of trees shot at him, under him. He turned, and the machine mounted a little on the turn, which was against the rules. But he brought her even to keel so easily that he felt the mastery of the man who has finally learned to be natural on a bicycle. . . . He grinned exultantly. He wanted to shout.
The Trail of the Hawk appeared in 1915, well before Sinclair Lewis wrote Main Street the 1920 novel that established his literary reputation.
Main Street, first edition book jacket, 1920. Larger.
Sinclair Lewis knew as much as anybody about American small towns and their fascination with and fear of California. So when he wanted to give two characters from his novel Main Street a bit of a break, he sent them here.
In winter, California is full of people from Iowa and Nebraska, Ohio and Oklahoma, who, having traveled thousands of miles from their familiar villages, hasten to secure an illusion of not having left them. They hunt for people from their own states to stand between them and the shame of naked mountains; they talk steadily, in Pullmans, on hotel porches, at cafeterias and motion-picture shows, about the motors and crops and county politics back home. Kennicott discussed land-prices with them, he went into the merits of the several sorts of motor cars with them, he was intimate with train porters, and he insisted on seeing the Luke Dawsons at their flimsy bungalow in Pasadena, where Luke sat and yearned to go back and make some more money. But Kennicott gave promise of learning to play. He shouted in the pool at the Coronado, and he spoke of (though he did nothing more radical than speak of) buying evening-clothes. Carol was touched by his efforts to enjoy picture galleries, and the dogged way in which he accumulated dates and dimensions when they followed monkish guides through missions.
Main Street appeared in 1920, and was quickly followed other novels in which Sinclair Lewis savaged the towns and cities of the American midwest.
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