Tiny Broadwick: First Lady of Parachuting

Various links

2/2007

Taking the plunge

Broadwick, who later legally adopted Tiny, promoted her in pink bows, bonnet and bloomers. “I was far from being a doll, but that’s the way they billed me,” Tiny said. Her first jump, from a hot-air balloon in 1908, was at the State Fair. She landed in a blackberry bush, but greeted rescuers with a smile.

“Doll Girl,” as she was called, started learning her craft. There were unpredictable winds, perky clouds, all-cotton parachutes and the huge, inflatable hot-air balloons. The balloons stood 92 feet tall and 56 feet wide and were heated by coal oil, with the potential for fire. Without an altimeter, Tiny listened keenly for Broadwick’s drop signal, a blank fired by a pistol. She learned how to get out of jams quickly and to depend on herself.

At her shows, Tiny would hang from long cotton ropes suspended on a trapeze. When the air inside the balloon cooled and it reached its height, Tiny would trigger her parachute and sway down gracefully to cheering crowds.

Tiny occasionally would refuse to go up if she sensed danger. Even so, she tested fate. Her balloon burst from heat scorchings and she fell on a tent. Another time, she landed on a windmill, breaking her arm. Despite the accidents, the daring aerialist eventually developed a riveting act that included 3,000-foot ascensions, trapeze stunts and multi-drops from red, white and blue parachutes.

In 1912, Tiny married a seaman named Andrew Olsen, who left for months at a time. The life proved lonesome, and she returned to regular parachuting in 1913.

Also in 1912, she met Glenn Martin, an ambitious pilot known for his barnstorming exhibitions. They teamed up and Tiny became the first woman to drop from an airplane in 1913. Wearing a dark red costume and a smile, Tiny jumped from Martin’s airplane and swayed down to Los Angeles soil.

Tiny achieved another first that year when she jumped from a hydroplane (and dropped into Lake Michigan). Afterward, a tall, serious-looking man approached her. “You’re too small to do that,” said the man, none other than the great Wilbur Wright. Tiny reported she shook his hand and nervously replied, “Thank you.”

She and Martin became in great demand. On a promotional drop for Los Angeles merchants, they sent 3,000 envelopes with gift coupons fluttering to the earth, while people below of all economic classes leaped high to grasp the goods.

In 1916 she married Harry Brown, who pioneered the Greyhound Bus Line and who later abandoned her. Brown disapproved of her work, so she retired for a while, but resumed jumping in 1920. (She and Broadwick, her foster father, parted ways during World War I, partly due to his growing legal and financial problems.)