Tales from the old-timer Lawsonomy’s Faded Gospel
Back in 1949-1950 when I was climbing up Bascom Hill in Madison, every month or two somebody would distribute thousands of tabloid-size fliers around the University of Wisconsin Campus promoting a scientific theory called “Lawsonomy.” The theory set out to explain all of the physical laws of the universe, in terms of “suction and pressure.” It was suction and pressure that kept all of the heavenly bodies, the earth, the sun, the planets and their moons in their orbits. It was suction and pressure that moved the Milky Way and all the far galazies with their millions of suns in their gigantic, majestic spirals off in the far reaches of the cosmos. It was suction and pressure that caused the movements of the winds, the weather, the rotation of the earth on its axis, and it kept airplanes aloft.
The articles related that a man named Alfred Lawson invented the passenger airliner, and there was always a picture of a primitive airplane interior, with two rows of seats and a roomy cabin.
This was apparently offered as proof that Lawsonomy’s “suction and pressure” unified theory was valid. Never mind Archibedes, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. They had it all wrong.
One time on my way to Chicago and a few miles west of Racine, between Union Grove and Sturtevant, I saw out the coach window a long, low building with huge lettering on its side, UNIVERSITY OF LAWSONOMY. What sort of goings on or classes were being offered, I wondered.
I forgot all about Lawsonomy and its university along the railroad tracks, but one day when I was not feeling well, my daughter brought me a library book, “Forward in Flight” the History of Aviation in Wisconsin. Alfred Lawson jumped out of those pages. He was a real person, “a flamboyant, self-educated promoter and ‘can do’ guy. He started the Lawson Aircraft Corporation in Green Bay in 1917, with backing from the wealthy Green Bay papermaking family, the Hobergs. The end of World War I killed Lawson’s chances to sell his biplane trainer aircraft to the US Government. So he moved his operation to Milwaukee and began designing civilian planes that he called “airliners”.
Always operating on a shoestring, Lawson spent much energy seeking financial backers, then built the nation’s first airplane designed to carry passengers on a scheduled basis.
His first plane, with a 95 foot wingspan, had a plywood fuselage and could carry 16 passengers, sitting in wicker seats. (It is possible that these seats came from the Lloyd Company of Menominee). The plane had two 400 horsepower Liberty engines.
It first flew August 22, 1919. Åfter a tour of the country, Lawson and his design team were the toast of the town. He thirsted for more glory, however, and built a bigger plane, called, “The Midnight Liner,” with a 120-foot wingspan, sleeping berths, and seats for 24 passengers, a toilet, and even a shower. It was intended to fly passengers overnight from Chicago to New York. Lawson was in line to get $685,000 in US Government airmail funding if he could get the Midnight Liner airborne by a deadline.
By the end of April the big plane was ready to go, but Lawson had run out of funds to disassemble it and truck it to the Milwaukee Airport on Lisbon Road. So he attempted a takeoff on a 300-foot runway with a plowed field beyond. The Midnight Liner crashed, shattering its 120-foot wings and Lawson’s dreams. The federal money was lost, and there were no more backers for Alfred Lawson’s big passenger planes.
He stubbornly devoted the rest of his life to the cultlike Lawsonomy Movement, and died in 1954, all but forgotten, but still sure he had figured out the riddle of the universe.
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