History Preserved
The Collection of the National Model Aviation Museum
as seen in Model Aviation November 2010
The National Model Aviation Museum Archives contains records of aeromodeling and the AMA, including documentation about early model airplane clubs. One of these pieces is an overview of the Jordan Marsh-Boston Traveler Junior Aviation League (JAL), which was published in the Boston Traveler.
Jordan Marsh & Company (a Boston department store chain) and the Boston Traveler newspaper formed the JAL in 1929. Their first public address introducing the club was made on April 6, and 1,500 people attended the event.
Speakers included the JAL’s leading organizers: Edward R. Mitton, Jordan Marsh’s vice president of merchandising; Joe Toye, chief editorial writer for the Boston Traveler; and Capt. Willis C. Brown, who eventually became an AMA president. He started as an instructor for the JAL and later became the director, staying with the organization through 1940.
According to a piece in the June 6, 1936, Boston Traveler:
“The Jordan-Traveler Junior Aviation League was formed with but one object in mind; to give the boys and girls of Boston and vicinity an opportunity to receive at each weekly meeting reliable information and instruction from qualified experts in the aviation world, thus guiding their interest in aviation …
“The club was founded on the belief that the transportation of tomorrow will be through the air, as that of today is fixed to land and water.
News about the JAL was published in the Boston Traveler each Friday. Weekly meetings were held on Saturdays from September through June.
Contests that attracted most of the JAL membership were held the first Saturday of each month. Most other Saturdays featured meetings at which aviation notables of the time would discuss topics that dealt with aviation.
According to an undated Boston Travelernewspaper clipping, Amelia Earhart once attended a JAL meeting. She handed out miniature gas engines as awards to three boys whom the club had sent to the Nats in New York that year.
Club membership also included the opportunity to attend an occasional aviation-related movie at the local theater.
The NAA sanctioned the JAL’s annual New England Championship Model Airplane Contest, the first of which was held May 30-31, 1930. Competitors flew both indoor and outdoor events, and it was dubbed “the little Nats.” The two competitors with the most points won a trip to the “big” Nats.
The JAL had a weekly newsletter, Wing Overs, which was edited by Albert Lewis (who later became the second AMA president) and written by JAL members. The publication promoted itself as “the oldest model airplane weekly in the world.”
In April 1934 the JAL became a branch member of the Junior National Aeronautic Association (“Junior NAA”). By 1935,membership in the JAL exceeded 4,000.
The club waned during World War II, as many JAL members went to war. Trying to bring back the spark after the War proved to be impossible, and the organization closed its doors in 1948.
However, in the almost 20 years that the JAL was active, it had inspired thousands of children to reach for the skies, both with their imaginations and with their airplanes.
The information in this article was derived from various newspaper clippings, Wing Overs, and other materials maintained by the National Model Aviation Museum Archives. If you have materials documenting the history of aeromodeling that you would like to donate, please contact the museum. MA
—Jackie Shalberg
Museum Archivist