Balloonmania Belles: Daredevil Divas Who First Took to the Sky, Book Review

This month I read Balloonmania Belles by Sharon Wright and am happy to say this was a great read! Much of the book falls within the FFF timeline of 1880-1930, although the book begins in 1783 when the Montgolfier brothers unleashed the first balloon carrying living beings (animals) into the air successfully in France.

The book follows the lives of Balloonmania’s earliest and most notable flying females. Each chapter is devoted to one or two main belles and their stories are interspersed within a broader historical context. I appreciated that this book was able to provide a lot of information on these ladies that is otherwise very difficult to procure, as there is no comprehensive guide that concentrates on female aeronautical pioneers. I wish the book included even more images of the women it describes, but in doing my own search, I know these are difficult to find if they exist at all.

“Vittoria Colonna, Princess di Teano, centre, in the upper crust queue for an ascent with the Aero Club in 1906.” p. 775

Women’s Tennis at the Turn of the Century

This month is the US Open, and in celebration of the powerful females on the court today, I’d like to take a look back at the women who were playing at the turn of the century. We may look to Serena Williams now for fashionable inspiration as well as her incredible abilities on the court, but 100 years ago female players would typically wear a practical version of their usual day wear clothing.

The women below in this photo stylishly pose in their tennis gear, except that there is no discernible difference between how they dress themselves for the court and how they would dress themselves for day’s activities. The large leg-of-mutton sleeves are typical of the 1890’s silhouettes. The straw boater hats perched on top of their hair (which has been swept up into a top knot) was also a popular choice at this time and into the 1900s for any activity in the sun. Their long dark skirts that contrast the large, light-colored shirtwaists was a preferred look in the 1890s for any woman. The woman on the left wears a necktie and the woman on the right appears to have a bow tie with a starched shirt front. This would have been a slightly more masculine accessory choice, but one that was also very typical for that period. These women emulate what would have been called the New Woman at that time, meaning the kind of woman who was breaking away from a more traditional, home-bound role and was more independent and active – both in a physical and political sense. Still, this represented a large group of women at the time and this look would have been relatively common sight. In short, these women were able to wear their normal day wear clothing to also engage in physical activities like tennis. They are both stylish and mobile enough to play in their wide skirts.

Two Women Dressed for a Game of Tennis, January 1, 1895, Queensland, Australia, State Library of Queensland  [No restrictions]