We can all understand what the Wright Brothers' invention of the airplane achieved, but their breakthrough continued to shape modern culture. Here Vanessa Schwartz engagingly considers the jet plane's power to define a new age at a critical moment in the mid-20th century, arguing that the craft's speed and smooth ride allowed people to imagine themselves living in the future. Surveying Eero Saarinen's airports, David Bailey's photographs of the jet set, and Ernst Haas's experiments in color photojournalism, Schwartz also examines the period's most successful example of fluid motion meeting media culture: Disneyland.