In addition to the images of Wilbur and the Flyer, the photographic negatives in the Léon Bollée collection also document Bollée’s car manufacturing operation. Bollée’s first successful motorized automobile, a three-wheeled vehicle made to hold two people, was called the Voiturette. Although only built from 1895 to 1899, in France the word Voiturette became the name in general use for a small light automobile. Bollée’s father, Amédée Bollée, invented a steam automobile in 1873, when his son was three years old. As an adult, Léon carried on his father’s work developing automobiles, using gasoline-powered internal combustion engines.

In 1903 a larger Bollée luxury car being built in Le Mans, was backed by Vanderbilt money and designed for the American market. Starting in 1904 the Bollée cars were imported and sold by C.C. Worthington of New York City as Bollée-Worthington automobiles. Plans were made to manufacture the vehicle in New York, but they never came to fruition.

The Bollée photograph collection also shows that Léon Bollée was a man of many interests. It includes images of a prize-winning mechanical calculator invented by Bollée in 1889. The Bollée Calculating and Printing Machine was the first calculator capable of direct multiplication--able to multiply one number by another using a simple turn of the handle. He patented it in the United States in March 1896.

Léon Bollée poses on the Wright Flyer, near Le Mans, France, in August 1908.  This photograph was probably taken just before Bollée’s first airplane flight as Wilbur Wright’s passenger in the Wright Flyer.  Bollée had previous experience being airborne in a lighter-than-air balloon.  ID.2000.53.93 (K1800)

The interior of Léon Bollée’s automobile factory shows the assembly of his cars at Le Mans, France, August 1908.  ID.2000.53.61

Léon Bollée demonstrates his Calculating Machine outside his factory in Le Mans, France, about 1900.  ID.2000.53.6