A Brief History
On October 22, 1797, Frenchman and balloonist Andre-Jacques Garnerin performed the first successful descent in a frameless parachute from a height of 3,000 feet. Garnerin had built a silk frameless parachute, the canopy of which we would recognize as a typical parachute today, with the lines running from the 23 foot diameter canopy to the basket Garnerin rode in. The parachute and basket Garnerin rode in were suspended underneath the hot air balloon gondola by a rope running through a hollow tube. (Previous parachute attempts were made with devices umbrella like in construction with umbrella like frames.)
Digging Deeper
The contraption swayed wildly on the way down, and the landing was somewhat rough, but Garnerin was unscathed and lived to perform many other parachute falls. He even was appointed official Aeronaut of France and demonstrated his balloons and parachutes until he died in a construction accident while building a balloon, a wooden beam falling on the 54 year old in 1823.
During his career Garnerin caused a sensation and a scandal when he announced that he would take a beautiful young woman up in a balloon, a risky and risqué proposition, for the authorities at that time (in their paternalistic and condescending manner shown toward women and girls) refused permission for the flight on the grounds that the delicate and sensitive female organs would be adversely affected by reaching flight altitude. (It seems they were unaware that women living in mountainous areas were already at similar altitude and suffered no ill effects.) On top of that, the moral sensibilities of these (morons) were offended by the scandalous nature of a man and woman being alone in a balloon (first mile high club?). Eventually permission was given and Garnerin took Citoyenne Henri for the celebrated balloon ride in July of 1798. Funny thing was, other women had actually been up in balloons before this flight, as early as 1784. Henri survived her flight with her honor intact and with no ill effects!
Garnerin married his protégé, Jeanne Labrosse, who became the first woman ever to parachute and the first woman to regularly fly in balloons, while his niece, Elisa Garnerin, started her aeronautical career at the age of 15 and performed 39 parachute descents in her career (1815-1836), demonstrating the technology across Europe.
All the skydivers and airborne troops, and pilots that escaped their burning planes can thank M. Garnerin for his pioneering work with the parachute. Personally, I subscribe to the idea that jumping out of a plane that is not burning or crashing is a bad plan!
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Poniatowski, Michel. Garnerin: Le premier parachutiste de l’histoire (French Edition). Albin Michel edition, 1983.
The featured image in this article, an etching made in Germany of Monsieur and Madame Garnerin by Christoph Haller von Hallerstein (1771 – 1839), c. 1803, from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, has an extracted image: File:Madame Garnerin, by Christoph Haller von Hallerstein, (1771 – 1839) (cropped).jpg. This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason: this work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or less. This photographic reproduction is therefore also considered to be in the public domain in the United States.
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