This detail about the Smithsonian was news to me so I went reading up on it. Curtiss had been involved in supporting Samuel Langley as the key breakthrough in

This detail about the Smithsonian was news to me so I went reading up on it. Curtiss had been involved in supporting Samuel Langley as the key breakthrough in aircraft, and it happened that Langley had been director of the Smithsonian up until his death in 1906, so the museums had direct access to his papers and prototypes. The Smithsonian changing position and conceding to the Wright brothers' version of events is more of a story of institutional memory rather than them making unreasonable demands