The Genius of Alfred W. Lawson

Lawson at his Desk in 1926

"An earnest worker's face; an intent, serious, untrivial brow with lines in it; lines beneath and around the eyes of a man used to seeing through and seeing hard what lies before them; slightly waving, thin dark hair, thinned by thinking, and a mouth that has a stubborn, can't quit set--this is one's first impression of Lawson received across a desk from him...One has the same impression--the think-it-through, stick-to-it, push-through-to-the-end impression--when one sees him in his aviator's togs out on the field..."  --Keith Colegrove, Air Travel, November 1917

 

Relatively unknown in the annals of aviation history, Alfred W. Lawson might be described as an eccentric genius, one well ahead of his time.  Beside the Airliner, some of his other accomplishments remain worthy of note:

(1) Publisher of Fly magazine, 1908-09, and Aircraft, 1910-17
(2) National League baseball pitcher, 1890s
(3) invented the lighting system for night baseball, 1901
(4) author and editor of several aeronautics books
(5) first to devise sleeping berths, airborne bathrooms, heated cabins, and heated rudder pedals for open-cockpit planes
(6) first to offer passengers night flights
(7) US patent #1,568,855 in 1925 for his passenger compartment design
(8) proposed transatlantic flight in 1918 by placing a string of floating airports between USA and Europe
(9) proposed a transcontinental air route
(10) proposed an airborne post office; and last, but certainly not the least
(11) coined the word "Aircraft" and trademarked it in 1908, but it quickly fell into generic use after generically appearing in
       Webster's Dictionary of 1912, where he worked as Aeronautics Editor.

 

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The Chicago Evening Post featured Lawson in an article in the August 28, 1919 edition:

Air King Lawson Tells Plans for Plane Traffic

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