Mary Myers
Mary Myers (also, Mary Breed Hawley Myers and Mary Bred Hawley Myers; 1850 - 1932) was a balloonist, better known as "Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut." She was the first female to solo fly a lighter-than-air passenger balloon and the first person to set an altitude world record for a passenger balloon. With her husband, she set up a business of manufacturing and selling passenger balloons and making exhibition demonstrations of these balloons.
Early life
Myers was born Mary Breed Hawley in 1849 in Breed's Hill in Boston. She descended from the family lines with the surnames of Breed (from the state of Massachusetts) and Hawley (from the state of Connecticut). She had blonde hair.[1]
Mid life
Myers married Carl Edgar Myers on November 8, 1871, in Hornellsville, New York.[2] Her husband, Carl, was an aeronautical engineer. He was born in 1842 at Fort Herkimer, New York. He was at one time or another a banker, carpenter, chemist, electrician, mechanic, photographer, plumber, printer, and writer. At about the age of 40 her husband devoted his full attention to aeronautical engineering and lighter-than-air passenger balloons.[3]
Carl had an interest in what was known at the time as "aerial navigation", the flying in the sky air currents by a person in a large balloon with a gondola baskett hanging under. He invented new or improved systems for producing lighter-than-air gases and constructed hydrogen balloons and "airships". His airships included an aërial velocipede (sky-cycle) and a gas kite.[3]
Her husband patented a fabric for holding hydrogen gas in a large outdoor balloon and from this he became a designer of floating passenger balloons. At first he hired experienced aeronaut test pilots to fly his new designs of balloon assemblies. When he couldn't get a test pilot to fly a new design, he did the flying himself.[2] Myers wanted to become a test pilot herself after watching her husband fly successfully. She decided not to use her real name of "Mary" for her flying performances and took on the name of Carlotta, a derivative of her husband's name.[4] She ultimately became known professionally as "Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut."[2]
The first flight that Myers did was from Little Falls, New York, on July 4, 1880.[2] It was done in sight of the 15,000 spectators that were viewing the event.[2] It was about five o'clock in the afternoon when she stepped into the gondola basket that was the bottom part of the balloon apparatus assembly. She wore a blue flannel suit and a sailor's hat, all which gave her a boyish appearance.[5] Her lifting off moment was synced with a carrier pigeon that was thrown out of the balloon when the ground crew released the balloon gondola basket. The pigeon carried a message to her friends and neighbors in Mohawk, New York, where she lived that her balloon ascent had just started.[6] She rode for about a half hour some 20 miles to the town of Stratford, New York. There she landed safely in a farmer's field. The farmer's son gave her a ride back to Little Falls after she packed up the balloon. There she then took a train back to her home in Mohawk.[1][6]
Not all of her flight ascensions were safely accomplished. A newspaper clipping describes one of her exciting and anxious aerial adventures. The demonstration event at the Chenango county fair grounds at Norwich, New York, on September 9, 1880 went smoothly at first. Her balloon named "Aerial" had ascended quickly upon liftoff and rose above the trees and house-tops. When it obtained an altitude of some two miles she encountered rain. The accumulation of water in her open gondola caused extra weight and her balloon started dropping fast. She jettisoned overboard her ballast sandbags, but to no avail. Her balloon gondola started dragging on the tree tops and eventually got lodged upon the top of a bass tree - eighty feet off the ground. Hunters nearby saw her and came to the damsel's rescue. They obtained a long ladder from a farmer and went to the top of the tree where she was stuck for over an hour in a down-pour rain storm. After cutting down several branches they were able to rescue her, unharmed.[7][8]
Balloon farm
(1892)
Myers and her husband set up a successful business of making and selling hydrogen balloons from their five acre farm in Frankfort, New York.[9] The property with a three story 30 room house was previously owned by businessman Frederick Gates of the local Gates Match Factory. The mansion was originally built in 1878. After Myers' husband purchased the property in 1889 he converted the house to shop facilities for manufacturing lighter-than-air passenger balloons.[10]
The farm mansion shop facilities had a sewing room to make balloon fabric, a chemical lab for the varnishes needed for sealing the fabric, basement equipment for making lighter-than-air hydrogen gas, a printing press for advertising, a carpentry shop for the gondola baskets, and a machine shop for metal parts.[10][11] Their half inflated balloons on the property looked like giant mushrooms and gave the impression that they were growing balloons on their farm as an unusual agricultrual crop, hence the name "Balloon Farm."[10][12][13]
They made hydrogen balloons for the Weather Bureau. Meteorological studies made by Myers and her husband predicted rain.[14] They also made 21 balloons for the United States Army Signal Corps as military equipment for the Spanish-American War. They had a flight school at their farm for flying lessons on these balloons.[11]
Myers and her husband performed many aerial demonstrations nationwide as a business with their balloons.[15] Their typical schedule was to arrive at a place around noon to unpack their equipment and set up. They would then at the venue location produce the hydrogen gas needed to inflate the balloon. They orchestrated all that was needed to manage a flight demonstration and afterwards packed the balloon and equipment away, clearing the town area for whatever they had planned for later evening events (i.e. dancing, band).[16]
Myers and her husband did hundreds of out of town balloon demonstrations from 1880-1900, carrying over two hundred thousand passengers aloft in a balloon, mostly on tethered short rides.[16][17] A common exhibition they did throughout Pennsylvania was on Fourth of July Independence Day celebrations.[18] Myers even did jumps out of these high altitude balloons, which made her "Carlotta, the most daring lady aeronaut in the world."[19]
Patents
Myers helped contribute to her husband's inventions, patenting the following
The Louisiana Democrat newspaper of Alexandria, Louisiana, reported on July 11, 1885, that Myers had obtained several patents pertaining to passenger balloons. Some in particular described were guiding and steering apparatuses for passenger balloons. These were rudder and steering devices consisting of collapsical parts that could be opened and exposed to the air currents for navigation. Myers had used her inventions in over 150 flights she did.[20]
The passenger gondola platform was described as made of expandable hammock netting surrounding the passenger. She describes the navigation and steering capabilities of the airship through the shorting and lengthening of the gondola hammock netting mesh and a cloth screw propeller that would push her along like a boat propeller.[20]
Another of the steering devices was described as a 5 foot hoop, like a lady’s fan, connected to the balloon platform back by cords. The interaction of the guiding apparatus was described by Myers as that of a rudder on a light boat in water, where the balloon itself tiped and changed its plane level side-to-side depending on the positioning of the hoop steering device. She describes it as altering the aerodynamics of the balloon airship. Myers compares the hoop to that of a rudder in the stern of a boat and as having the same or similar characteristic results. Her passenger balloon airship could be further manipulated for navigation by stepping on the edges of the gondola platform and warping the edges.[20]
Records
- Myers is the first woman of the United States to pilot her own aircraft,[21] which was a lighter-than-air passenger balloon.[4]
- Myers was the first female to fly a dirigible balloon, which she did on 4 July 1880 at Little Falls, New York.[21][22]
- Myers set an altitude world record for a passenger balloon in 1886,[21] going four miles high and without oxygen assistance.[23]
- Myers set a record for the highest number of one-woman piloted balloon trips ever done in the 19th-century, more than all others combined.[24]
- Myers made more balloon flights than any man in America by the time she retired in 1891.[2]
Death
Myers retired in 1891. She and her husband were at the "Balloon Farm" until 1909, when they sold the property. They then moved to Atlanta, Georgia to live with their daughter, Bessie Aerial. Myers' husband died in 1925 at the age of 83 and she died in 1932.[1][10]
Footnotes
- 1 2 3 Perkins, Laura. "The Balloon Farm, Frankfort, NY". Town of Frankfort, New York. Retrieved February 12, 2016.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Corn 2011, p. 5.
- 1 2 Brown 1904, p. 99.
- 1 2 Oakes 1978, p. 9.
- ↑ Bassett, Preston R. (April 1963). "Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut of the Mohawk Valley". New York History (New York Historical Association) 44 (2): 145–172.
- 1 2 Herkimer 1992, p. 85.
- ↑ Corn 2011, p. 6.
- ↑ Standard, Cortland (October 30, 1880). "A Lady Aeronaut's Narrow Escape". The Junction City Weekly Union, page 5 (Junction City, Kansas).
- ↑ Stanley 1995, p. 339.
- 1 2 3 4 "Gates-Myers House". Outlook (Oneida County / Department of Planning) 17 (3): 3. Summer 1988.
- 1 2 Lebow 1998, p. 10.
- ↑ Dieffenbacher 2002, p. 104.
- ↑ Bostick, Carolyn. "Balloon Farm a piece of area's aeronautical history". Utica Observer-Dispatch (Utica, NY 13501). Retrieved February 13, 2016.
- ↑ Scientific_American 1891, p. 277.
- ↑ D'Imperio 2009, p. 170.
- 1 2 Stanbridge, Joanne (2016). "Lady Carlotta". Storydell. Joanne Stanbridge. Retrieved February 13, 2016.
- ↑ Fogel & Harwood 2012, p. 61.
- ↑ Trimble 1982, p. 24.
- ↑ Gilkeson 2014, p. 223.
- 1 2 3 "A woman’s flying machine". The Louisiana Democrat (Front Page - Vol 40, No. 107). July 11, 1885.
- 1 2 3 Bobowski, Rita C. (Aug 3, 1980). "Smithsonian News Service - Women were pioneer pilots during 1900s". New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, page 53 (New Braunfels, Texas).
The first American woman to pilot her own aircraft-a balloon- was Mary H. Myers at Little Falls, N.Y., in 1880. Mrs Myers, later billed professionally as "Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut," became known throughout the Northeast for her ballooning skills and was often hired to perform at festivals. In 1886, she established a new world altitude record of four miles in a balloon filled with natural gas instead of hydrogen-a record even more astonishing because she did it without using oxygen equipment.
- ↑ Kane 1997, p. 47.
- ↑ "Timeline of Women in Transportation History". Transportation.gov. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION. 2015. Retrieved February 14, 2014.
Mary Myers - 1880; Mary Myers was the first American woman to solo in a dirigible. / Mary Myers - 1886; Mary Myers set a new world altitude record of four miles – she ascended to this height without benefit of oxygen equipment.
- ↑ Betz, Peter (July 28, 2014). "Area’s woman balloonist was adventurous". Leader Herald (Gloversville, NY 12078).
Sources
- Brown, John Howard (1904). Biographical Dictionary. Biographical Soceity.
- Corn, Joseph J. (13 October 2011). Into the Blue. Library of America. ISBN 978-1-59853-185-5.
- D'Imperio, Chuck (2009). Great Graves of Upstate New York. iUniverse. ISBN 978-1-935278-31-3.
- Dieffenbacher, Jane W. (2002). Herkimer County Valley Towns. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-0977-8.
- Fogel, Gary B.; Harwood, Craig S. (11 October 2012). Quest for Flight: John J. Montgomery and the Dawn of Aviation in the West. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-8781-5.
- Gilkeson, John Jr (2014). Middle-Class Providence, 1820-1940. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-5435-6.
- Herkimer, County Historical Society (1992). Herkimer County at 200. Herkimer County Historical Society.
- Kane, Joseph Nathan (1997). Famous First Facts, Fifth Edition. item 2198: The H. W. Wilson Company. ISBN 0-8242-0930-3.
The first balloon pilot who was a woman was Mary H. Myers, who flew a balloon in 1880 at Little Falls, NY. Myers performed at fairs as Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut. In 1886 she rose to a height of four miles, a world altitude record in a balloon.
- Lebow, Eileen F. (1998). A Grandstand Seat. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-275-96255-5.
- Oakes, Claudia M. (1978). Women in Aviation. Smithsonian Institution Press.
Billed as "Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut" she made her first solo balloon flight on 4 July 1880, at Little Falls, New York.
- Scientific_American (1891). Scientific_American. Munn & Company.
- Stanley, Autumn (1995). Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-2197-8.
In 1885, with her husband Carl, she patented a Guiding apparatus for balloons. One year later, she set a world altitude record that is still astounding: without benefit of oxygen, she soared four miles above Franklin, PA.
- Trimble, William F. (15 June 1982). High Frontier. University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 978-0-8229-7426-0.