Join Education Director Aimee Bachari for a chat with Curator Jordan Berson about the fascinating Elmo N. Pickerill Collection at the Steamship Historical Society of America. Elmo Neale Pickerill served as Chief Radio Operator aboard the world’s biggest ocean liner SS LEVIATHAN for most of the ship’s career. Pickerill had already made a name for himself in the fields of aviation and wireless radiotelegraphy, and he had been to sea. He was known to be an accomplished and daring innovator with nearly 20 years of experience under his belt. The Wright brothers taught Elmo Pickerill to fly and he had also studied radio with Guglielmo Marconi.

Among his accomplishments, Elmo Pickerill was credited with making the first ever airplane-to-ground radio communication, while solo-piloting a biplane in August 1910. During the flight Pickerill was said t ...