One Summer: America, 1927

The first two chapters do not advance the chronology of the narrative relayed in the prologue, but they provide background and detail about the story’s central characters and issues. Chapter 1 illustrates the excitement for drama and spectacle in the 1920s through the example of the Sash Weight Murder Case. In a staged break-in homicide, a woman and her lover bludgeoned and strangled the woman’s husband to death and attempted to frame anonymous Italian anarchists in order to claim a life insurance policy pay-out. Bryson explains, “Each day for three weeks, jurors, reporters, and audience listened in rapt silence as the tragic arc of Albert Snyder’s [the victim’s] mortal fall was outlined” (31). Sensationalized journalism and a boom in readership across newspapers and tabloids helped the story take hold.

Just as that case wrapped up (the truth came out) in early May and Americans began to wonder what new scandal or stunt would captivate their interest, Charles Lindbergh announced his intention to compete for the prize money in the Air Derby. Chapter 2 recounts the unimpressionable and uninspiring story of Lindbergh’s family and upbringing. He made few friends and failed to show adeptness in much of anything until he took up aviation after flunking out of college. He trained himself in stunt flying and delivered mail before receiving more formal flight training, and Bryson insists that this combination of preparation and exposure to different plane technologies led to his ultimate success.

Bryson also provides background on American aviation at the time. He explains, “American aviators had to turn a hand to whatever work they could find—dusting crops, giving rides at county fairs, thrilling spectators with stunts and acrobatics, dragging advertising banners across the skies, taking aerial photographs, and above all carrying mail” (43). The United States lacked both opportunity and infrastructure in the aviation industry and only began to catch up on the eve of the summer of 1927 (44).

Lindbergh himself was “almost preposterously wholesome,” tall, and gangly. He seemed altogether unremarkable, and Bryson notes that “his chances of successfully crossing the Atlantic were generally presumed to be about zero” (38). A small company quickly built his plane, The Spirit of St. Louis, in San Diego as the first attempts at the prize failed. The plane was largely canvas and altogether “little more than a flying gas tank” (49). Both Lindbergh and his plane were unlikely champions.

Chapters 3–5 depict mounting drama in the weeks and days leading up to Charles Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic. They also continue to illustrate the culture and society of 1920s America.

Chapter 3 centers largely on Herbert Hoover, who will continue to occupy a central role in the narrative later in the book. This chapter explains how Hoover garnered a reputation as “the world’s most trusted man” by working in international disaster and crisis relief (53). He was also self-aggrandizing and worked tirelessly to advance his own political career. Hoover worked in both the Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge presidential administrations and expanded his influence, even though “he was dazzlingly short on endearing qualities” (58-59). In the spring of 1927, Hoover worked to relieve communities impacted by a terrible flood of the Mississippi River—“the most epic natural disaster in American history in extent, duration, and number of lives affected” (53), but one that is relatively unacknowledged in historical accounts of this period.

Chapter 4 returns to Lindbergh, who remains on US soil (and in US air space) but slowly emerges as an idol and contender in the aviation race. As the other American teams hoping to attempt the New York to Paris flight crumbled from personality and technical problems, Lindbergh geared up to take a flight alone in a specially made lightweight craft. His niche in American popular culture solidified because he represented a rigid wholesomeness that captivated socially conservative Americans, who simultaneously lamented the invention of dance moves, new styles, and public behaviors they recognized as “moral decline” and “sordid habits” (69).

The hype surrounding the aviation contest trumped other news that should have been downright incendiary—like the tragic bombing of an elementary school on May 19. Following the massacre, “For the next six weeks on every day but two the lead story in the New York Times was about aviation” (85). Amidst a backdrop of Prohibition, organized crime, publicized murders, and a culture entirely in flux, Charles Lindbergh remained at the center of attention.

This section depicts the cross-Atlantic flight of Charles Lindbergh, which serves as the primary event in these chapters yet does not occupy much space in the actual narrative. Bryson writes, “If Lindbergh was nervous, he gave no hint of it” (88). The takeoff was precarious, as the plane narrowly cleared wires that surely would have sent the plane into “a crash no human could survive” (89). Rather than explosive and triumphant cheering, however, the crowd was eerily silent. They knew this contest had already led to tragedy for multiple competitors. The fact that Lindbergh was undertaking the journey alone made him even more intriguing and the undertaking even more dramatic.

Bryson doesn’t say much about Lindbergh’s in-flight experience but instead moves the narrative to Paris, where people scramble to reach Le Bourget airfield outside the city once news of Lindbergh’s imminent arrival reaches continental Europe. Bryson explains how significant this interest and support was: Many Europeans were bitter toward Americans in the light of American wealth and isolationism following World War I, which had left cities like London and Paris in partial financial ruin (95).

Chapter 7 is brief and elaborates on the celebrity Lindbergh received in the immediate aftermath of his flight. Americans received the news of Lindbergh’s landing with “the kind of jubilant cacophony made when wars end” (99). He was an instant and unmatched celebrity and regarded as an American hero. Lindbergh had wanted to take a tour of Europe, but President Coolidge arranged for him to come home almost instantly to be lavished by Americans. Once Lindbergh departed, “life in France returned to normal” and anti-American sentiment exploded again (103). Lindbergh’s accomplishment was a temporary and unprecedented reprieve from social melancholy because it represented such an extreme leap forward for technology and human daring.