File:Samuel P. Langley Commemorative Statue.jpg

English: 1915. Photograph of the Samuel P. Langley commemorative statue at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California, in 1915. The view is of the statue in the distance, including a view of the street and buildings next to it. People are seen with a street vendor in front of the buildings. Langley was the third Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887-1906, and pioneer in astrophysics and aerial navigation. The base of the statue reads, "To commemorate science's gift of aviation to the world through Samuel Pierpont Langley, an American." The exposition was intended to illustrate the function and administrative faculty of the Government of the United States and to demonstrate the nature and growth of our institutions, their adaptation to the wants of the people and the progress of the nation in the arts of peace and war.