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Library of Congress LC-H814-T-2523-002. Fair use may apply.
Glenn L. Martin built his first aircraft in 1909 organized his aircraft manufacturing company on 16 August 1912. A merger with Wright proved unsuccessful and Matin reestablished Glenn L. Martin Company on 10 September 1917 at Cleveland, Ohio. The company manufactured a small number of bombers for the Signal Corps towards the end of the First World War.
The company was kept afloat through the late 1920s
only by Navy contracts, and Martin sold the plant in 1929. He then
built a new plant near Baltimore, Maryland, that specialized in metal
aircraft and was perhaps the most advanced aircraft manufacturing
facility in the 1930s. Navy and, increasingly, Army Air Corps
contracts helped keep the company solvent through the Depression years.
Foreign military orders, particularly from the Dutch, for aicraft like the B-10 permitted a cautious increase in manufacturing floor space starting in 1939. Martin also produced the B-18, which was an innovative aircraft in its day but was badly obsolete by 1941.
During the war, Martin produced the B-26 Marauder and PBM Mariner at its Baltimore and Omaha plants. Production averaged 111 B-26 and 28 PBM per month during their production run.
References
CentennialOfFlight.gov (accessed 2012-7-1)
Craven and Cate (1955; accessed 2012-7-1)
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