THE BANNING COLLECTION

"Much of this material is now poised to be shared broadly as part of Pan Am Historical Foundation's new endeavor, Clipper Hall."

by Eric Hobson

"The first glance I had of the Eugene Banning Collection showed the first of several rolling carts moving toward the back of the black Chrysler minivan I had rented to bring the material from a soon-to-be-empty rental unit adjacent to Miami International Airport to my basement in Franklin, Tennessee. 

By the time the van was loaded I had taken possession of 29 banker's boxes and another dozen assorted boxes/tubes/plastic bins of materials that I had said, somewhat impulsively, 'Yes. Sure, I'll get them and work to get them ready for a permanent archival home.'

Since then, with the support of Pan Am Historical Foundation grants, my team of Belmont University students has 

1. Sifted the "collection" and has returned materials to Pan Am families that are more personal than historical, removed materials that have zero Pan Am connection, and identified materials with little-to-no-dating in an attempt to determine what (if any) Pan Am connection these documents might have.

2. Determined that the "Banning Collection" extends beyond Captain Banning himself and includes significant caches of material from at least three other Pan Am pilots.

3. Digitized hundreds of photographs including many that we have been able to identify by location and date.

4. Digitized the complete flight logs (student to last flight) for Eugene Banning, George Price, and one of Pan Am's earliest pilots, Roy Keeler.

5. Sorted by chronology and correspondent, and digitized Captain Banning's saved correspondence.

Much of this material is now poised to be shared broadly as part of Pan Am Historical Foundation's new endeavor, Clipper Hall.

Our next step is to sort/order Captain Price's correspondence related to the first Pan Am reunion, so that it, too, can be made available to interested parties. Then, there remain boxes of Pan Am ephemera for the Belmont University team to sort, organize, identify and digitize!" -- Eric Hobson

Spring 2021 Clipper Newsletter Article about the Collection

"Gene Banning Collection Donated to PAHF, Volunteers Help Retrieve, Catalogue and Preserve Historic Materials" 

Banning Collection Excerpt from Spring 2021 Clipper Newsletter

Eric Hobson's review, sorting, and mission of discovery with Capt. Banning’s Collection

"It wasn’t just Covid-induced cabin fever that got me to volunteer last December (2020) for the mission to secure Capt. Gene Banning’s collection. It was a mix of scholarly excitement, responsibility to history, and not a little romantic adventure mixed in.

Still, I jumped to help ensure that Captain Banning's decades-long research was preserved, and that future scholars didn't have to wait too long to access this trove. My goal is to provide other researchers a detailed map to this one-of-a-kind collection, so they don't have to dig blindly while hoping to strike gold (an all-too-common experience in accessing archival materials)."

Capt. Banning’s Boxes: A historical treasure (Photo by Eric Hobson).

"My Nashville-Miami-Nashville odyssey has already paid back ten-fold. While sifting through the materials in the 29 boxes that filled the back of the "Ebony Clipper," (my rented mini-van) I've learned that the collection holds more than we believed going in. The collection isn't based on one PAA Captain's collection, but two! Close friends, Captain Gene Banning and Captain George Price, represent the bulk of this collection, augmented by other PAA captains whose papers/memorabilia both men preserved."

Gene Banning at work, somewhere in postwar Europe, circa late 1940s (PAHF Collection).

"I'm humbled as I contact family members of PAA personnel to offer to return non-PAA materials; hopefully, these PAA pioneer families can fill gaps in their family tapestry.

The sorting, culling, indexing process for the Banning Collection will take months. That said, selfishly, I wish I had years of hands-on time, because the material is so rich and varied. There are so many stories that I wish I could claim for myself. Yet, the sooner this treasure is made available to the world, the better.

I’m honored to curate the Banning Collection...for as long as needed. For now the work continues." -- Eric Hobson

 A treasure unearthed: Manufacturer’s data plate salvaged from NC823M when it was lost in 1944 off the coast of Cuba. The aircraft was famously known as the Pan American Clipper during the pioneering survey flights by Ed Musick across the Pacific. (Photo: PAHF Collection).

VIDEO

The Pan American Clipper

Footage taken at Dinner Key, Miami in the days before the Sikorsky S-42 Pan American Clipper left for its epic first survey flight of the Pacific.