SAMUEL P. LANGLEY - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 11/12/1901 - HFSID 148445

SAMUEL P. LANGLEY. TLS: "S.P. Langley" as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 2p, 5x8, separate sheets joined at edge, Washington, 1901 November 12. To Albert Bigelow Paine, "St. Nicholas," Union Square, New York. In part: "I want to thank you very much for being good enough to send me a copy of the Little Lady's book, and to tell you that as far as I can judge you have done something which will not only please little children, but those of their elders who still retain a sympathy with them. I fear that owing to my absence from the country when the article appeared, I have not expressed to you my appreciation of the sympathetic nature of your article on the Children's Room in the St. Nicholas for September. I feel that you have done the subject full justice, and if I have any complaint it is that you have brought my personality in a little more prominently that I might have wished." Author ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE is best known for his three-volume biography of Mark Twain published in 1912. The Children's Room was created by Langley. It is still functioning in the original Smithsonian building now referred to as "The Castle." Langley had become Secretary of the Smithsonian in 1887. In 1901, he converted the South Tower room of the museum to The Children's Room. According to The Castle by C.R. Field et al, "He felt that if children were to benefit from the educational possibilities in museums, a different approach to exhibit design would be necessary." While Secretary, he continued his studies of solar radiation begun during his 20 years as director of the Allegheny Observatory at Western University of Pennsylvania (now University of Pittsburgh). Langley then began studying the possibilities of flight in heavier-than-air machines and built models of planes. One model achieved a flight of 3000 feet on the Potomac and another of 4200 feet, the first flights of mechanically propelled heavier-than-air machines in the world. A full-sized machine, designed to carry a pilot, failed in two trials, in late 1903. Langley served as Secretary of the Smithsonian until his death in 1906. "CA" in unknown hand at upper left of first page. Signature lightly smudged, pin holes at top, folds and slightly creased (not at signature), slight separation at top and bottom mid-vertical fold. Overall, fine condition.