The Franklin Institute faces questions over Wright brothers plane acquisition

A precious aircraft designed by the Wright brothers towers high inside the Franklin Institute, where it has been housed for almost a century. Before going on display, the 1911 Wright Model B airplane made 748 flights without incident, racing across Philadelphia’s skyways and circling William Penn’s statue in Center City.

Its celebrity owner, playboy troublemaker Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, was the millionaire son of a wealthy Philadelphia brewer who learned to fly from Orville Wright. Known for speed racing and rule-breaking, Bergdoll had reportedly “terrorized the Philadelphia community” with his reckless aerial maneuvers using the two-seat flier his mother, Emma Bergdoll, bought him in 1912.

But by 1933, the plane was among several abandoned vehicles gathering dust and rust in a Delaware County machine shop. Looters had taken its engine and smaller parts while Bergdoll was hiding in Germany as a fugitive after he had escaped police custody for evading the draft.

Two years later, Bergdoll’s flier was put on display at the Franklin Institute, where the treasured artifact is now considered one of the best-preserved planes of its kind.

For decades, the museum has maintained that the plane was a gift from Bergdoll, citing a letter he wrote transferring ownership to museum volunteer William H. Sheahan, a member of the local aviation club with whom he once flew.

Today, though, Bergdoll’s daughter Katharina and granddaughter Lesley Gamble, who both live in Virginia, dispute that claim: After previously trusting the museum’s account, they now believe that the plane was stolen and acquired by the Franklin Institute without Bergdoll’s permission.

The family’s suspicion was raised last year when journalist Tim Lake, a longtime Philadelphia news anchor, contacted them as he researched his book The Bergdoll Boys. Lake had noticed that there was little information about the donor on display, and he was curious about how the museum could have obtained the flier’s title, especially given that in 1921, Bergdoll’s assets had been seized by the U.S. government and were no longer considered his property following his conviction for desertion.

For months, Lake reached out to the Franklin Institute for information about the provenance of the Wright brothers plane and requested to see Bergdoll’s letter, only to be told museum workers couldn’t find it.

Ultimately, when Lake pressed them again before going to publication in April 2023, assistant director of collections and curatorial Susannah Carroll admitted that the museum had no document signed by Bergdoll regarding the gift. Instead, Carroll wrote, the transfer of ownership was a verbal agreement.

“Though there is overwhelming circumstantial evidence of Mr. Bergdoll’s gift of the Wright Model B airplane to The Franklin Institute, at this time, we have not turned up anything signed by Mr. Bergdoll mentioning his gift,” she wrote, adding that Lake “should understand why neither he nor The Institute would desire to have anything in writing documenting the oral gift. Bergdoll was still a fugitive and his assets had been and continued to be subject to government seizure.”

She also noted that the family did not question the gift after it first went on display in 1935. “At no time between 1935 (when the airplane was put on public exhibit) and Mr. Bergdoll’s death in 1966 did he, his mother, Emma, or his wife, Berta, ever claim any right to the airplane, that a valid gift had not been made, or request its return,” Carroll wrote.

That exchange, of course, only brought up more questions. “It was a complete about-face of their explanation for acquisition of the airplane that they have presented to the public for the past 90 years … without any evidence whatsoever leading to that change,” Lake said.

“I just find it implausible that Sheahan was able to communicate with [Bergdoll] in 1933 and therefore get him to say, ‘Oh, yeah, you can have my airplane.’”

Lake and the Bergdoll family wonder how, ethically, the museum could have accepted such an artifact without documentation from the owner. “I had naively assumed that the way they acquired items was aboveboard,” said Katharina Bergdoll. “It’s highly suspicious, in my view.”

She says the museum owes them a public explanation and restitution, including “some compensation for our loss.”

In a statement to The Inquirer, the museum reiterated that the plane was a legitimate gift that neither Bergdoll nor his family had disputed before. The museum did not comment on the existence of a letter from Bergdoll, but shared a photograph of a 1943 letter written by Berta Bergdoll, saying the plane at the museum “was once his own.”

“It was common knowledge that the airplane was at The Franklin Institute from 1934 on, and the government never made any attempt to collect the airplane in or after 1921 as part of its seizure of Bergdoll’s assets, further legitimizing his gift,” the museum’s statement read. “His daughter’s recent claim and her focus on compensation give a clear picture of her motivation. We will continue to honor Mr. Bergdoll’s legacy by sharing the story of the Wright Brothers and his part in it with the world as he always wanted.”

Bergdoll’s intentions are difficult to determine today, but his family believes it’s unlikely that he would have charitably donated the flier, as he was rather possessive. “It was not in his nature to be generous,” said his daughter.

Lake posits that Sheahan learned about the plane rotting in that abandoned machine shop — potentially from an Inquirer article published on Oct. 8, 1933, exposing the contents inside — and decided to rescue a piece of history. It was also convenient timing, Lake said, as the Franklin Institute was set to open its new building on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and needed a centerpiece attraction for its hall of aviation, having failed to acquire the 1903 Wright Flyer (which went to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum).

“I think they took advantage of the fact that Grover Cleveland Bergdoll was on the lam,” said Gamble, the granddaughter.

“I’ve surmised that Sheahan somehow realized that if somebody didn’t save that airplane, it would be taken apart by vandals and lost forever,” Lake said. “It was a valiant deed that they did to save that airplane, restore it, and then put it inside the museum, where the Franklin Institute has been a wonderful caretaker of this airplane for 90 some years.”

Gamble agrees that it could have been a noble mission, but as an art historian, she also points to the history of institutions stealing valuable artifacts around the world under the claim of preservation. Though it’s an ethical dilemma, she believes that if the museum obtained the flier illegally, the institution should be transparent and held accountable.

Part of the harm lies in what the family sees as the Franklin Institute’s erasure of Bergdoll’s legacy and his own small part in the history of aviation. Distancing the flier from the donor was likely due to Bergdoll’s notoriety — Lake called him “the most hated man in America” — as an infamous draft dodger. The Bergdoll name was once painted on an underwing of the plane, and has since been removed; now his daughter believes it should be restored.

This story has been updated to mention a letter from Berta Bergdoll that the Franklin Institute shared after an earlier version of the story published online.