Carruthers, John Franklin Bruce, 1889-

Biographical and Historical Notes

Biography of John Franklin Bruce Carruthers

John Franklin Bruce Carruthers was born in Fort Scott, Kansas, on August 31, 1889, the son of James B. and Anna (Wood) Carruthers. He graduated A.B. from Princeton in 1912. From 1912 to 1914, he served as assistant to the minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. In 1917, he proceeded A.M. at Princeton, and graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary. From 1917 to 1918 he served as assistant to the minister of the Church of the Covenant (now the National Presbyterian Church) in Washington, DC. He was ordained to the ministry of the Presbyterian church in 1918. During World War I he served as chaplain of the U.S.S. Oklahoma, and in 1919 became head chaplain for morale, education and recreation, 6th Division, Bureau of the Navy. In 1919, he married Mabel Grandin, by whom he had one son and three daughters. From 1919 to 1924 Carruthers was chaplain, Manson professor, and head of the Bible department of Lafayette College, from whom he received the D.D. in his final year. In 1924, the family moved to California, settling the following year in Pasadena, where Carruthers and his wife became active in civic affairs. From 1924 to 1926, Carruthers served as professor of religious education and from 1926 to 1928 as lecturer in archaeology at Occidental College. Carruthers also served as lecturer in archaeology on the University of California extension faculty, 1927-1928. From 1930 to 1935, Carruthers was research assistant to Rufus von KleinSmid, president of the University of Southern California (USC) and chancellor of the Los Angeles University of International Relations (forerunner of the USC department of international relations), and as secretary of the USC Institute of Arts and Sciences. During World War II, Carruthers was chaplain of the First Aero Squadron, Camp Hopkins, Bainbridge Island, Washington, and president of the Pacific Coast Japanese Problem League. In 1944, he ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic Party primary for the 47th assembly district in the California state legislature. In 1950, Carruthers and his wife deeded his collection of aviation books and materials, which constituted the library of the Institute of Aeronautical History, to Claremont Men's (now Claremont McKenna) College, and in 1952 the president of the college, George C. S. Benson, appointed him to the honorary position of Director of Research, Library of Aeronautical History. He died at his home in Pasadena on January 13, 1960.

Carruthers' independent means enabled him to pursue a wide variety of interests. In 1926 and 1930 he traveled on behalf of Near East Relief (now the Near East Foundation), investigating post-war conditions in Russia, Syria, Greece, Iraq, Lebanon, and Turkey. He was founder or co-founder of several organizations, including the American Society for Persian Art and Archaeology, the Interstate Collegiate School of Religious Education and Social Service, Los Angeles, the Aero Educational Research Organization (later Institute of Aeronautical History) in 1927, Town Hall of Southern California in 1935, the United Nationals Chaplains League in 1945, and the Military Order of Chaplains of the United Nations in 1946. He also served as president of the Board of Trustees of the American School for Girls in Damascus, chairman of the National Small Business Research Bureau of the American Religious Radio Association, president of the Southern California Council on Religious Education, trustee of the Institute of Family Relations and of the American College in Teheran, and member of the Board of Overseers of the California College of China.

The Institute of Aeronautical History

According to newspaper accounts of December 1933, Carruthers began seriously collecting aeronautica some five years previously. More or less simultaneously, in 1927, he created the Aero Educational Research Organization, whose purpose, according to a 1952 flyer, was "to advance the cause of Aeronautical Progress, by means of Historical and Educational Administrative Research, primarily in the field of The Humanities". No records of the organization have been identified, and what little is known of it is derived from contemporary newspaper accounts, letterheads, and the program for the memorial service held to honor Charles E. Taylor at the Portal of the Folded Wings, Valhalla Memorial Park, Burbank, in 1956. The organization was incorporated in February 1933. At some point between 1937 and 1949, its name was changed to the Institute of Aeronautical History. Carruthers appears to have been its only chairman, and its first four presidents were Roy Knabenshue, Commander George Noville, Percival G. B. Morriss, and Albert A. Merrill; Walter Brookins also served as president. In 1933, the poet Edwin Markham accepted an invitation to be the organization's poet laureate.

Over time, the Institute became the nexus of a web of organizations that in 1956 consisted of the following:

Although the primary purpose of the Aero Educational Research Organization/Institute of Aeronautical History was historical research and to support Carruthers' aeronautical collection, the Organization was among the backers of Cecil Allen's ill-fated entry in the 1935 Bendix race from Burbank to Cleveland (Allen was killed when his Granville Brothers composite R-3 "Spirit of Right" crashed upon takeoff on August 30 from Union Air Terminal in Burbank).

Despite the enthusiasm of Carruthers and the pioneer fliers of his generation, neither the Institute of Aeronautical History nor any of its related organizations appears to have attracted the support of younger generations, and none is currently active.

From the guide to the James Carruthers Memorial Aviation Collection of the Institute of Aeronautical History, Circa 1700-2004., (Honnold/Mudd Library Special Collection and Archives)