In order to foster manned flight, Octave Chanute began publishing experimentally based articles about activity by researchers around the world. Starting in 1891, he wrote a series of articles which were published in The Railroad and Engineering Journal,[a ] of which he was the associate editor of the aeronautics section.

Chanute, a Chicago resident, devoted himself to disseminating information about aviation as widely as possible. He maintained contact and corresponded voluminously with individuals worldwide who were pursuing aviation. His publications and correspondence were helpful to the Wright brothers in their early days.[1]

[a ]As of January 1, 1887, the Railroad and Engineering Journal was formed by the merger of the American Railroad Journal and Van Nostrand’s Engineering Magazine. It was renamed the American Engineer and Railroad Journal in 1893 and later, in 1896, became simply American Engineer.

[1] Dream of Wings: Americans and the Airplane 1875–1905; by Tom D. Crouch; Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989, p. 77.

  Locomotive to Aeromotive: Octave Chanute and the Transportation Revolution; by Simine Short; : Urbana, Chicago & Springfield IL; University of Illinois Press, 2011, p. 186-90.

  Proceedings of the International Conference on Aerial Navigation; Octave Chanute, ed.; New York: American Railroad and Engineer Journal, 1894, 1997; accessed 6/5/2017;
also on Google Books

  Progress of Flying Machines Octave Chanute, ed.; reprint, Minneola NY:  Dover Publications, 1894, 1997; accessed 6/5/2017;
from Library of Congress