Sophie Blanchard
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Sophie Blanchard (25 March 1778-6 July 1819) was a French aeronaut. The widow of famous balloonist Jean-Pierre Blanchard, she was the first woman to work as a professional balloonist and became the first woman to be killed in an aviation accident. She is also commonly known as Madeleine-Sophie Blanchard, Marie Madeleine-Sophie Blanchard, Madeleine-Sophie Armant Blanchard and Madame Blanchard.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early career
Sophie Blanchard was born Marie Madeleine-Sophie Armant at Trois-Canons, near La Rochelle.
In 1804, at 26, she married Jean-Pierre Blanchard who had become the world's first professional balloonist. Variously described as Blanchard's "small, ugly, nervous wife", "small with sharp bird-like features" and later as "small and beautiful", she was apparently more at home in the sky than on the ground, where her nervous disposition meant she was easily startled. She was terrified of loud noises and riding in carriages, but was fearless in the air. She made her first ascent in a balloon in 1804; she and Jean-Pierre were facing bankruptcy and they believed a female balloonist was a novelty that might attract enough attention to solve their financial problems. She was not the first woman balloonist: on 20 May 1784, the Marchioness and Countess of Montalembert, the Countess of Podenas and a Miss de Lagarde had taken a trip on tethered balloon in Paris. Neither was she the first woman to ascend in an untethered balloon: that honour belonged to Elizabeth Thible who had made an ascent on 4 June 1784. She was, however, the first woman to pilot her own balloon and the first to adopt ballooning as a career.
In 1809, her husband died from injuries sustained when he fell from his balloon in the Hague after suffering a heart attack. After his death, Sophie continued to make ascents, specialising in night flights, often staying aloft all night.
[edit] Later career
She conducted experiments with parachutes, launching puppies from her balloon, and as part of her entertainments she would launch fireworks, and drop baskets of pyrotechnics attached to small parachutes. She used a hydrogen-filled balloon, as it allowed her to ascend in a basket little bigger than a chair, and meant that there was no requirement to tend a fire as would have been necessary in a hot-air balloon.
She became a favourite of Napoleon and he appointed her as his Chief Air Minister of Ballooning to replace André-Jacques Garnerin in 1804. She made ascents for his entertainment on 24 June 1810 from the Champ de Mars in Paris, at the celebration mounted by the Imperial Guard for his marriage to Marie-Louise of Austria, and again at the "Féte de l’Emperor" in Milan on 15 August 1811. On the birth of Napeoleon's son, Blanchard took a balloon flight over Paris throwing out leaflets proclaiming the birth. She also delighted Louis XVIII on his restoration to the French throne in 1814 and was dubbed "Official Aeronaut of the Restoration".
She was known throughout Europe and gave many displays in Italy. In 1811 she travelled from Rome to Naples, splitting the journey in half with a stop after 60 miles (97 km), and ascending to a height of 12,000 feet (3660 m) where she claimed that she slept for a while. In the same year she lost consciousness after having to ascend to avoid being trapped in a hail storm near Vincennes and spent 14½ hours in the air. She crossed the Alps by balloon, suffering a nose bleed because of the altitude, and almost drowned in 1817 when she mistook a flooded field as a safe landing spot.
[edit] Death
On 6 July 1819, while making an ascent to start a display over the Tivoli Gardens in Paris, her hydrogen-filled balloon caught fire and, entangled in the net which surrounded it, she fell to her death:
There was a terrible pause, then Mme Blanchard caught up in the netting of her balloon, fell with a crash upon the slanting roof of a house in the Rue de Provence, and then into the street, where she was taken up a shattered corpse.
The fireworks that were attached to her balloon had apparently been knocked out of position by a tree as she ascended, and when she had lit the fuses they headed towards the balloon instead of away from it (later reports suggested she had left the gas valve open allowing sparks to ignite the gas and set fire to the balloon).
The balloon descended slowly, and it was thought that she would have survived if it had not struck the roof of the house in Rue de Provence and pitched her out of the basket into the street below. Although attempts were made to save her, she died ten minutes later from a broken neck. In total, she had made 67 balloon ascents. There was an immediate appeal to the citizens of Paris for donations and a memorial (topped with a representation of her balloon in flames) was erected for her in the cemetery of Père Lachaise. A novel by Linda Donn based on Blanchard's life was published in 2006, entitled The Little Balloonist.
[edit] References
- Mike Walker (2004). Powder Puff Derby: Petticoat Pilots and Flying Flappers. Wiley, 304. ISBN 0470851414.
- David J. Shayler (2005). Women in Space - Following Valentina. Springer, 410. ISBN 1852337443.
- Don Dwiggens (1973). Riders of the Winds: The Story of Ballooning. New York: Hawthorn Books.
- Edouard-Marie Oettinger (1850). Bibliographie Biographique.
- Robert Whitworth. Flights of Fancy. Prints George. Retrieved on 07 February, 2007.
- History of Ballooning. Retrieved on 07 February, 2007.
- (1819) "Abstract of Foreign Occurences". Gentleman's Magazine.
- Frederick Saunders (1853). Salad for the Solitary. Lamport, Blakeman and Law, 284.
- Charles William Wason (1897). Annual Register. Baldwin, Cradock and Joy.
- Samuel Mosheim Smucker (1857). Memorable Scenes in French History: From the Era of Cardinal Richelieu to the Present Time. Miller, Orten, and Co., 385.
[edit] External links
- WOMEN IN FLIGHT: Balloons, Parachutes, Airplanes, and the Search for Equity. Presentation by John H. Lienhard, Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Houston.
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Blanchard, Sophie |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | 18th century aeronaut |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 25 March 1778 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Trois-Canons, Charente-Maritime, France |
| DATE OF DEATH | 6 July 1819 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Paris, France |
