"Visionary entrepreneurs are often credited with creating America's commercial airline industry, and federal airline regulation is assumed to have played no significant role until President Roosevelt signed the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938.".

"In Airlines and Air Mail, F. Robert van der Linden boldly reinterprets the growth of the airline industry, persuasively arguing that it was the Progressive Republican policies of Herbert Hoover that actually put commercial aviation on the map in the United States.

Led by Hoover's postmaster general, Walter Fogle Brown, the government promoted the combination of strong private financial enterprises with substantial government guidance through economic incentives to develop commercial aviation in the public interest while avoiding the problems experienced earlier during the development of the railroads.

Through the use of air mail contracts, the federal government provided a critical indirect subsidy and a solid economic foundation for this nascent, industry."--BOOK JACKET.