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Glenn Hammond Curtiss (May 21, 1878 - July 23, 1930) was an American aviation pioneer and founder of the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, now part of Curtiss-Wright Corporation.
Curtiss was born in 1878 in Hammondsport, New York to Frank Richmond Curtiss and Lua Andrews. Although he only received a formal education up to Grade 8, his early interest in mechanics and inventions was evident at his first job at the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company (later Eastman Kodak Company) in Rochester, New York. He invented a stencil machine adopted at the plant and later built a rudimentary camera to study photography. On March 7, 1898, Curtiss married Lena Pearl Neff, daughter of Guy L. Neff, in Hammondsport, NY.
Curtiss began his career as a Western Union bicycle messenger, a bicycle racer, and bicycle shop owner. In 1901 he developed an interest in motorcycles when internal combustion engines became more available. In 1902 Curtiss began manufacturing motorcycles with his own single cylinder engines. His first motorcycle actually had a tomato can for a carburetor. In 1903 he set a motorcycle land speed record at 64 miles per hour (103 km/h) for one mile (1.6 km). When E.H. Corson of the Indian Motorcycle Company visited Hammondsport in July 1904, he was amazed that the entire Curtiss motorcycle enterprise was sited in the back room of the modest "shop". Corson's motorcycles had just been trounced the week before by "Hell Rider" Curtiss in an endurance race from New York to Cambridge, Maryland.
In 1907, Curtiss set a world record of 136.36 miles per hour (219.45 km/h), on a 40 horsepower (30 kW) V8 powered motorcycle of his own design and construction. He would remain "the fastest man in the world," to use the title the newspapers gave him, until 1911. By this time, Curtiss' success at racing had solidified his reputation as a leading maker of high-performance motorcycles.