Richard Rathbun
Richard Rathbun (d. 1918), of Buffalo, NY, was Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian and director of the Smithsonian National Museum—a Langley appointee. His primary interest was biology.
Rathbun received a letter from Wilbur Wright in 1899 which prompted him to send a packet of useful to the Wright Brothers. He referred them to Progress in Flying Machines by Octave Chanute; all three volumes of the Aeronautical Annual by James Means; Story of Experiments in Mechanical Flight and Experiments in Aerodynamics by Langley; On Soaring Flight by E. C. Huffaker; Empire of the Air by Louis-Pierre Mouillard; and The Problem of Flying and Practical Experiments in Soaring by Otto Lilienthal.
Hallion, 2003 (pp. 180–182) calls Rathbun "The Unsung Bureaucrat".
Letters received by Richard Rathbun
