Paul E. Garber
American museum head (1899–1992)
Paul Edward Garber (August 31, 1899 - September 23, 1992) was the first head of the National Air Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. Through his work and effort, the most complete collection of historical aircraft in the world was gathered and preserved. It contains the sole survivors of many interesting historical aircraft types.
Biography
Garber was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, but spent his childhood in Washington, D.C., and grew up with clear memories of flight demonstrations by the Wright Brothers at Fort Myer, Virginia in 1909. He joined the Army at age 18 and served as a sergeant during World War I. He was transferred from the D.C. National Guard to the Aviation Service in the U.S. Signal Corps. During World War II he was a commander in the United States Navy and later was in the Navy Reserve.
World War I ended before he started planned flight training. After the war he took a job as a ground crewman and messenger with the U.S. Postal Airmail Service. In 1920 he joined the Smithsonian and for the next 72 years worked for the preservation of the world's aviation heritage.
In 1946 President Harry S. Truman created the National Air Museum as a separate entity of the Smithsonian. Garber played a key role in the process and was assigned as a Curator to the Museum.
The public source identifies “Paul E. Garber” as american museum head (1899–1992). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Paul, Garber and American.
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The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7150416. VIAF identifies the subject as 21022237. The Library of Congress control number is n82041969. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1899, 1992, 1909 and 1920.
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This entry incorporates text from “Paul E. Garber” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.