Latest / Ruining the Workplace Podcast / EP 2 Sophie Blanchard Ruins Ballooning
Transcript
- Jaden: Hey Danielle I'm Jaden and this is the Ruining the Workplace podcast. Danielle: Hi, Jaden How's going? It's good. I'm good. How was your Thanksgiving break? and I'm Danielle. Jaden: It's good. How are you? Awesome. Coming back. It was actually pretty good, you know? We ⁓ had less people than we thought we were gonna have, so that was actually kind of nice, because it was slightly less stressful. And you know, we're about to leave on a big trip, and so I'm kind of in that space where I'm like, okay, that's done, and now I can focus on the next big thing. Yeah, I'm like, tomorrow. So, no, I'm fine. How are you? How was your Thanksgiving? Danielle: there's a couple of things that really stand out to me about her. ⁓ One being that ⁓ she used ⁓ her husband as kind of like a gateway to ⁓ her own ⁓ interests and passion, then was able build upon that. Because you leave very very soon. Like tomorrow, no big deal. It's fine. And I think I did say earlier how impressive it is that she just kind of forged her own path. It was just not just I'm going to be an amazing balloon artist, but not like balloon artists. But then built onto it by, you know, doing these great performances or these extended travels. And it all started with just, you know, I was sick, so I missed the family celebration, which I'm bummed about because I didn't get the food that I wanted. But I'm feeling fine now. And I saw Wicked for good and I did get to eat pumpkin pie and it was all good. We got snow here in Wisconsin. We got quite a bit of snow. Well, that's nice. It's snowing right now, actually. Super fun. I love that for us. Jaden: Mm-hmm. Danielle: something she wanted to do and then she was able to find her way through that. And I just love that her husband became a stepping stone. Yeah, yeah. Jaden: A catalyst, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's interesting to think about like his perspective of it is obviously like, ooh, I can use her to gain more notoriety. And we kind of said this, is that's the deeply rooted. Danielle: ⁓ how are you feeling? So I always have, I shouldn't say always, I sometimes have a hard time coming back to work after a long weekend. ⁓ how is your Monday going? Jaden: Yeah. Well, this isn't like any old Monday, you know, because I'm sitting here about to get on a plane tomorrow and be in another country. So I'm like, I'm trying not to be checked out, but it's basically impossible. I, I, I'm having all my meetings this morning and then this afternoon, I'm just gonna like, just do my best. I'm just gonna meet everyone else where they're at. Danielle: Right. Right. Jaden: using women as display, you know? It's like, I wonder what is the first example of that? Because this obviously this is a very early one, right? So it's interesting to kind of think of other, yeah. Danielle: room. Yes. God. That's all really anyone is doing is doing best. that's a new topic we can dig into for the next one, It is interesting though that you use that terminology because that's exactly what she was. And when you open up the story talking about her as this tiny fragile little thing who was scared to ride in carriages and she was described as very bird-like and I could see how that would add to his spectacle. Which from my experience thus far is just chaos. Meeting people in the chaos that they are in. don't know. I don't know what your morning has been like, but mine has been ⁓ meetings that shouldn't have even been an email. ⁓ then I just get up from a meeting. So that was actually kind of fun. ⁓ Jaden: Women on display. ⁓ Mm-hmm. Danielle: Like, look at this small little thing who I'm gonna dangle from this balloon. Jaden: That's so funny. I saw something over the weekend that said like, you know, that this meeting should have been an email. It said this meeting should have been ⁓ a sword fight. I was like, yep, okay. I love it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I can't imagine watching something like that. It would be really intense. And then for people to actually see the tragedy unfold the way that it did. you know, I think it probably, just, the sort of the crux of it for me is when, you know, people start talking about how, ⁓ well, women should just didn't, you know, this is proof that women shouldn't be doing that sort of thing. And it's like, why, why do women's failures are, Danielle: Yeah. ⁓ ⁓ so many meetings. I love that. ⁓ I love that. Jaden: Well, speaking of things we love, we want to welcome everybody back to the Ruining the Workplace podcast. Hello. Hello, workplace ruiners. Danielle: Welcome! ⁓ Well, excited because don't know ⁓ what we're going to talk about today. I'm so curious to see what's the ruinous work that's happening in our story Jaden: so often get labeled as like universal warnings. And then the mistakes of men typically seem to be just individual mistakes that they need to course correct on. But like, I feel like the women, us women, women in general seem to get more of the like blanket statement blame, especially when it comes to sort of like turning a new path, particularly in like a field of men's dominated career or whatever. You know what I mean? Danielle: Yeah. ⁓ Jaden: Well, I'm really excited to tell you about it. ⁓ you know, I went with a subject that ⁓ has ⁓ a great story arc ⁓ tragedy is afoot, ⁓ also there's just badass lady wrapped up in all of it. ⁓ I am excited tell you ⁓ about. Danielle: Mm-hmm. sure. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think about how many times have you heard like women are too emotional to be in leadership positions or something like, you know what I mean? It's like, ⁓ you can't make decisions. Is that what you're suggesting? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Jaden: ⁓ Yes. Yeah, like we're too hysterical to think. Yeah. I think the theme that just keeps coming up for me is like this cleaning up after people. Like how many ⁓ subjects can we talk about or times can we have this conversation where it's like, okay, yet again, I have to sort of like pick up where either someone else left off or. ⁓ Sophie Blanchard. Are you familiar with Sophie Blanchard? ⁓ Danielle: I'm not, who, is this a golden girl? Jaden: after they created a mess. And I know that like for me personally, that came up again today where it was like, I'm letting a colleague sort of run with something. And I can see all of the signs that they're not taking notes, they're not tracking, they're not making to-do lists, they're not da-da-da, and then next thing. And all this time goes by, nothing gets done. And then I get asked the question, well, what are we supposed to do doing? And it's like, it's not my project. mean, she's the original Golden Girl. Danielle: Of course, okay. ⁓ Jaden: Okay, so I'm just gonna ask you a couple of questions before we jump into this. How much do you know about hot air ballooning? It's sort of like last episode when you were like, how do you feel about pirating? Danielle: I know very little. I've seen the Wizard of Oz, so I know it's there, right? I saw Wicked this weekend. I know that there are many hot air balloon festivals. I know that I have mid-level interest in riding in one, but also they seem a little bit like death traps. That's the extent of my knowledge, so it's nothing really. Jaden: you are the one who's supposed to be running this. Why do I have to clean it up? So then I have to make the plan and I have to do the reminding and I have to say this. And then ultimately we have to adjust course for the whole plan because the person who was responsible didn't do it. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Well, I love that that is your extent of knowledge because I'm about to blow your mind. Danielle: Have we learned nothing? Collectively, not you and I we. Because it's true, there's so many times where we are still expected to come in and either just know, or have just done it. Like, oh, well, you took notes, right? What about me makes you think I took notes in this? Jaden: Right. So our girl, Sophie, Sophie Blanchard was, ⁓ she wasn't easy to overlook kind of a person while she was on the ground. She was small, soft-spoken and ⁓ some called her fragile. But the sky, she like transformed. So she would become a spectacle, a pioneer of early aviation. ⁓ despite this timid, Right. Yeah, you said you were leading this and I asked you if you wanted structure. You said no. So, ⁓ one like little fact that I did, this is not related to like women specifically or anything, but I just wanted to point out a little bit about hot air ballooning because. Danielle: Yeah, yeah, it's true. Jaden: presence that she had on land, she became fearless in the air and she became the first woman to build an entire career as a professional balloon pilot. So I'm gonna tell you all about her really interesting ascent, pun intended. And ⁓ yeah, let's get into it. Danielle: ⁓ yes, please do. Jaden: In the very beginning of my story, I talked about how Balloon Mania was sparked when the Montgolfier brothers ⁓ first sent their hot air balloons into the sky. And I just wanted to point out that Montgolfier, Mont-Golfier is what it looks like, but it translates into balloon. Like that's, that was their last name. And it actually... Danielle: Thank you. Wait, can I interrupt you before you get into it? I just wanna clarify. Professional Balloon Pilot, is that the title? Is that like a role, like an actual title? Jaden: Yes. Well, as you'll learn in my story, well, yeah, because there's a really interesting distinction between like first woman to fly a plane and first woman who's professionally doing something. So that's a really good question because we're gonna talk about that. ⁓ let's about Sophie's early life and kind of how she got into ⁓ this ⁓ as is called. ⁓ Danielle: Wait for real? Jaden: literally means, yeah, so the French term for balloon is Montgolfier, which literally means the Montgolfier, which is the French word for balloon. it was almost like it was meant to be. Danielle: Okay, I have to be patient, I see. I mean, kind of. That's cool. Jaden: with do you want to flip over to our ⁓ ruining workplace tip of the week? ⁓ Danielle: I sure do. And you know, it's so appropriate that talking about kind of having to clean up behind ⁓ or men ⁓ my tip of the week as we are approaching ⁓ season and treats, if you're in an office, I'm sure treats will be coming to your office. And if you're at home, you might find treats making their way into your home. ⁓ for God's sake, do not cut off tiny little bits of the treat until there's just like Jaden: Sophie was born Marie-Madeleine Sophie Armand on March 25th, 1778 in the village of Trois-Canon near La Rochelle, France. And she grew up during basically the dawn of human flight. So as a little girl, she was enchanted by the balloon mania that was kind of. Danielle: a quarter of a donut or an inch of a cookie bite left in the dish because you think someone else might want this. Just eat it. Don't leave that behind for somebody else to clean up. Just eat it. I don't understand. I've never understood this. ⁓ And to fully transparent, I'm guilty. I have done this. Jaden: going, it was happening, it was sparked by the Montgolfier. And excuse me, French folks and people who speak French, I don't. So a lot of names in here I'm likely gonna butcher. So please just bear with me, I'm doing my best. ⁓ Anyway, so that was sparked when the Montgolfier brothers, Joseph Michel and Jacques Etienne, sent the first hot air balloons into the sky in 1783. And Sophie was just five years old at this point, but. I'm only guilty of this because I see other people do it ⁓ Danielle: That's it. I had never done this in my life because I love food. So I'm like, no, I'm to take a whole darn thing or maybe half because I know I'll split it with a specific someone. ⁓ I like there was I can't remember which job it was, but it was one of my jobs as an adult where that was like the thing of like, ⁓ I'm just going to take a quarter of this and leave the rest for somebody else. And I'm like, is that it? That's a thing we should be doing. Jaden: She, along with a lot of other people were absolutely like, holy crap, this is the best thing. What is this? This is so exciting. And so her and a lot of other folks went nuts for it. like cities were shutting down. Crowds were surging into the streets to get a load of this like spectacle that's happening in the sky. ⁓ And it's sort of like. Danielle: And no, no, is not a thing we should be doing. Take what you want. Don't leave the tiniest tiny bites in the community kitchen for somebody else. Inevitably throw away. That's it. That's my tip of the week. Jaden: started weaving its way into kind of almost like a pop culture phenomenon because it was kind of taking like bakers were making balloon shaped pastries and fashion designers were starting to incorporate more flowy and balloonist sort of styles into their works. ⁓ So ⁓ was this whole kind of cultural moment starting to develop. And because nobody really understood aerodynamics yet, every launch was kind of like a mix of science experiment, circus act, and a possible funeral. So, danger was just kind of part of the draw, as is common these days. And people just came out in droves to see hot air balloons being launched into the air. ⁓ they were just basically expecting either a triumph or disaster. I love that. Danielle: you. I thought that was really helpful. anyway, this has been so interesting. Thank you so much for sharing about Sophie Blanchard and about balloons. And can I just say As you were ⁓ off your story, I of the most season of Bridgerton in which ⁓ Jaden: And it was entertaining. It was all just very entertaining. So people loved it. so going to Sophie, she, as I mentioned, was a small, tiny, kind of a fragile person. ⁓ And people were hey, this girl's even afraid of carriage rides. She's just didn't even want to ride in a carriage because she was just freaked out by everything. But it was ironic that ⁓ unlike most women the time, she was dreaming of flying. This was her dream. Danielle: a man comes to put on a balloon display. When you were talking about like the start of Balloon Mania, I was like, ⁓ my God, does it overlap with that Bridgerton episode? And it does. So there's. ⁓ It's not the same character, like the same people like Sophie wasn't in it or anything, but ⁓ it is the same time frame, I believe. And they were all like, ⁓ my God, we have to go see this man's balloon. Jaden: ⁓ my gosh. And I will say that Sophie was not totally alone in this. There were a handful of other women at the same time that were developing a taste for particularly balloon flight after basically being used as a spectacle to build more interest. And we'll talk about that. But what we'll talk about is just kind of the roots of women being on display. Like they just run really deep. Here's another example of that. So Sophie's life changed in her late teens when she crossed paths with I love that. Jean-Pierre Blanchard, and he was a famous balloonist, and he was like 25 years older than her. And she was in her late teens, so just keep that in mind. And according to one colorful story, Blanchard had promised Sophie's mother, years earlier, that if she had a daughter, he would return to marry her. ⁓ ⁓ only was he old as fuck, but ⁓ also... ⁓ Can you imagine someone saying that to you? They're like, hey, I'm gonna marry that unborn baby of yours. Danielle: Wait, he this to her mother. Jaden: Yes. Danielle: ⁓ gross. How creepy. OK, carry on. Sorry. We need to pause here for a second. That's messed up. OK. This was so great and I feel like there's so many takeaways from the story that we can apply to life ⁓ learn from Sophie. I love it. Yes. Jaden: Well, yeah, no, I share your sentiments and true or not, they did get married around 1796 and pretty soon after that, she became his partner in daredevil aeronautics, which is ⁓ ⁓ I'm actually gonna send you ⁓ picture of our friend, Jean Pierre. So ⁓ you go to the doc that I shared with you and you click into images Yeah. All right. Well, until next time, I'll see you later. Bye. Danielle: Bye. Jaden: we can start to see kind of actually what Sophie looks like. Pretty rudimentary drawings of the time, you know? And I think this is like 1809. I can't quite read it there. But the second picture is Jean-Pierre Blanchard. Look at him. He's just a little man. Danielle: ⁓ my. He's such a small person, but he has, I'm sure it's like the artistry of the day, but he looks both young and, and old, right? Like I'm getting a little bit of, ⁓ like a character from Alice in Wonderland, right? Jaden: and old. Yes, 100%. Yep. Like the king, like a little tiny... Danielle: I love your note this little guy the husband Jaden: Yeah. So, yeah. So now you kind of have a good idea of what Jean Pierre looked like. And he actually had already made headlines as the first to fly across the English channel in 1785. But, by the time he's married Sophie and they start getting their act like 1804-ish, early 1800s, his career was kind of starting to wane a little bit, just because he was getting old. But ⁓ now ⁓ he's Sophie. And the novelty of having a woman, but also someone who looks like Sophie, she was described as bird-like. This really revived the public appeal for him and the act. So she was really excited to join. They performed really dramatic ascent all over Europe, not just France or that particular area. was kind of all over. And the fragile... anxious Sophie really turned into this kind of calm, bold, basically completely transformed. And she said, quote, ballooning felt so magical that nothing on earth compared. In In that time, people were wary of war. I mean, they're just dealing with, I don't know, the French Revolution. So at this point, they're basically looking for like entertainment, distractions, they're excited to see this tiny little French woman and her husband like defy gravity. So anyway, the Blanchards were not happy with just regular, let's just send a balloon into the air and tamely ride around. No, no, no. That did not make money. So they realized that ordinary balloon rides, no. Spectacles, yes. ⁓ was what was gonna attract the paying crowds. So they developed a very exciting act that included dangerous acrobatics on a net or a trapeze that basically just like hung from ⁓ the bottom of the balloon. Danielle: Were they doing the acrobatics or did they have circus people with them? Jaden: Yeah. he was doing the piloting and she would do the acrobatics. Yep. ⁓ Danielle: Of course. ⁓ my God. Well, cause she's so bird-like, she can just fly through the air. Jaden: It's very like, yes, but she would wear like flowy outfits, flashy colors so that people could see her. she was like, this is cool doing this with you. But after of, you know, joint flights with her husband, Sophie was like, you know what, I want to do this on my own. ⁓ And ⁓ in 1805, she made her first solo ascent. ⁓ And then at that point, she became the first ever woman to pilot her own hot air balloon. And it's not like, you you're just jumping in the basket and you're whoosh away, She had to learn altitude, how to work ballasts, fuel, navigation, ⁓ dealing with the wind that's just gonna take you where it's gonna go. ⁓ So. She really had no education, she just learned by doing and she turned into a hot air balloon pilot through this experience. And this really kind of marked her as a pioneer in this aviation history moment, right? Danielle: running through my head is how proud I am of her In that time period, you you kind of had to be shackled to a man to have anything. and I don't know, the details of her relationship with Blanchard, but it was, it's like a good ⁓ stepping stone her in a way. hey, I'm gonna develop these skills under the wing of this guy that I have to be married to. Now I'm gonna do it on my own. that's just so impressive and cool. And ⁓ I think about the historical context that she existed in, that's quite crafty. I'm making some assumptions ⁓ on her, outlook on but it feels like, ⁓ what a smart move. Jaden: Yeah. Well, part of it was she was just so in love with this ⁓ call it a hobby for now. And she just thought, I didn't get super into her relationship with John Pierre because there isn't a ton. I mean, this is, you know, there just isn't a lot to sort of give the inner workings of the relationship. However, she was just really excited that this was her opportunity. And she was like, I'm just gonna take it and I'm just, I'm gonna run with this. And it's interesting you bring up the sort of like... Danielle: Bye. Bye! Jaden: man, woman, like wife, the marriage, the sort of constraints there because Sophie, so, okay. So Sophie is widely regarded as the first female. professional balloonist. And so the distinction here is that at a time when aeronautics was brand new field dominated by men, she managed her and she turned this passion into a paying profession, but like, Here's where it gets a little twisty. of course we have some tragedy in the story, like more than once. on 20th of 1808, Jean Pierre had a heart attack in a balloon. So he's up floating around. He's flying this balloon over the Hague ⁓ and he a heart attack. Well, some documents say he had a stroke, but in any case, he had some sort of a medical event that caused him to fall from the balloon he was operating. he dies, but not till a year later. ⁓ So... Either medical record keeping was poor or newspapers sensationalized everything relating to the accident and it just was not reported on correctly, but he did not die for another year. ⁓ this time, I know. ⁓ ⁓ this is what it's hard to tell. ⁓ incident occurs ⁓ his health is just waning for the next year. So Sophie's like, well, ⁓ I've got this and I'm gonna manage everything around this business. He's gonna try a few more times to go up in balloons and he's successful, but it's not what it was. So she's sort of like, okay, well, how am I gonna like keep this going? But during this time, she starts managing all of his finances and all the scheduling and basically running the operations for this business. She's like, well, I'm gonna take over. ⁓ And what's sort of funny about this is like balloon accidents at this point are just. horrifyingly common, you know? And so for her to commit and be like, nope, this is what we're doing is just kind of wild for that reason. But again, she loved it so much. So ⁓ this point, she's running the operations ⁓ in Jean Pierre dies. ⁓ so literally had to just take everything over at that point, but what she is realizing along the way, ⁓ Mr. John Pierre had some very poor money management issues. so our girl rising to the challenge and now a widow, she is facing significant debts left by her husband. now that ballooning was not just a hobby or a side hustle, she's like. I have to do this. It's the only thing I know how to do. It's a financial necessity. So she continues running the business. She's staging flights across Europe, paying off her husband's creditors flight by flight. So ⁓ doing this, she achieved a very rare feat for women and particularly of this era, she had complete financial independence through her own professional skills. So that's what I mean and that is what it means by her being widely regarded as the first professional balloonist because she literally had to do it for a living and she was the first to do that. Sophie's career ⁓ coincided with the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, and he took a personal interest in her exploits and he was really impressed by all of what he had seen so far. ⁓ He thought had a lot of courage and showmanship. And if we know anything about Napoleon, we know that he had quite the flair for exuberance. he just really everything. ⁓ loud, exciting, flashy. obviously Sophie was all of these things, right? So he appoints Sophie as the empire's aeronaut of official festivals, which effectively made her a one woman ⁓ air corps celebrations, okay? And in 1810 to celebrate Napoleon's marriage to the Archduchess Marie Louise, Sophie flew her balloon over the festivities and set off fireworks over the crowd. And Napoleon was so excited that he ⁓ then gave her the honorary title of Chief Air Minister Ballooning, which is like, ⁓ okay. a whimsical post created just for her. And can I just say a whimsical post? Hi, you're now our chief of whimsy. ⁓ Yes, please. Danielle: Right? ⁓ my god, that's that's the new profession to strive for, Jaden: ⁓ ended up being one of very few women of her era to hold any kind of official post at all. ⁓ And honestly tracks because Napoleon, as we know, was obsessed with spectacle, public spectacle and patriotism. And Sophie gave him both in spades, hence the ⁓ whimsical posts. he even ⁓ brought her to explore military uses for balloons. ⁓ And he a plan, yes, pun intended, ⁓ to invade by air. And Sophie was like, ⁓ yes, let's But also, ⁓ we can't that, babe. ⁓ And she stood up to him and said, technology will not support this plan that you have. And this was so rare. Like nobody speaks truth to power this way, especially a woman and especially somebody is serving loyalty or loyalty to ⁓ Napoleon, but she understood the tech better than he did and he trusted her. So not long after that though, Napoleon's empire ended up falling and... our girl Sophie remained unbothered. So King Louis XVIII was restored to power shortly after that, and he was so impressed by her reputation that he kept her on the official aeronaut of the Restoration. ⁓ so she basically became the first woman to serve as an official aviator under two different regimes, long before, you know, Air Force or being a pilot was even, they weren't even professions at this point. That's pretty notable. Danielle: it is so cool that she was like consulting on army matters, which is such a man's game ⁓ at the time, right? no Napoleon, we can't fly balloons to England, it's not gonna work. I don't even feel like you'd see that level of confidence in today's Like be like, ⁓ I'm just going to check a couple of things. And then they would come back and be like, yeah, we can't fly them that far. ⁓ really? I think I just said that. Jaden: Well, yeah, and actually, since you said that, let's talk about some notable moments in her career because obviously ballooning at this time was unbelievably dangerous. I think it still is, but not quite to the extent that it was. So like every part of her job descriptions could be followed by, and then you might die. ⁓ ⁓ talk about some notable moments before we get to her final flight, which is kind of the like crescendo of all of this, ⁓ And will say that notable moments is such an understatement in this context, seriously. ⁓ her were so spectacular. that they could basically divert an entire city's attention. there was an opera opening up in 1810 and it was just this very, big premiere, Carl Maria von Weber's opera, Sylvana, which is probably really popular with people who are super in opera, not me. ⁓ this was big deal. So in Frankfurt, this is where that happened, a crowd turnout was so significant that it apparently distracted from the premiere. 1811, she traveled from Rome to Naples ⁓ balloon. about 140 miles. ⁓ And completed the full successfully. She took a break in between, but this really of helped her solidify ⁓ her reputation as a serious aeronaut not just a performer. Cause she didn't do this for the spectacle of it. She just wanted to see if she could actually make the journey. And she completed this long distance flight before long distance ballooning was expected of anyone. ⁓ just notch in the accomplishment belt. ⁓ And of long flights on another ⁓ flight Rome that same year, she ascended to approximately 12,000 feet. ⁓ And was not intentional. She later claimed to have fallen asleep, ⁓ like deep sleep due to thin air before. landing finally in another town in Italy called Taglia Cozzo. this is actually one of the earliest documented accounts of altitude induced hypoxia while in flight. Are you familiar with hypoxia? Danielle: No, I think you should tell me what it is. Jaden: Okay, so it is it's basically you're just not getting any oxygen to your brain and so It's you know when thin air like, know, you hear people ascending Mount Everest and they need to take oxygen This because hypoxia will set in so basically it causes confusion restlessness difficulty breathing because you can't rapid heart rate and like bluish skin and then you can pass out and and then you might die. So she's um Like, okay, cool, you know, that happened and I'm back and it's all fine. And later in 1811, she ascended rapidly to avoid a hailstorm and once again, lost consciousness and just floated around for 15 hours before finally coming back down to land. Danielle: 15 hours? That's insane though. I would not have expected their balloons at the time, or any balloon honestly, to have enough fuel to last that long. That's crazy. Jaden: Mm-hmm actually is 14 and a half, but close enough Well, and the end plan duration became one of the longest flights recorded at the time. So it just feels very on brand for her ⁓ have that happen. Danielle: Oh my gosh. Oh yeah. Absence is like whatever. It's no big deal. I'm just breaking records unintentionally. It's fine. Jaden: Or accidentally setting records. So over the next several years, she continued pushing the limits of early aviation and it was pretty extreme in some cases. She crossed the Alps by balloon and this was ⁓ dangerous due to unpredictable winds and intense colds and ⁓ comparably she did ascent to Turin. Danielle: girl is wild, I love it. Jaden: in 1812 and temperatures dropped so sharply that she got a nosebleed and icicles were forming on her face and hands. ⁓ I she's really just going beyond, ⁓ putting herself into these situations But she loved the danger. She loved the spectacle. And I think most of all, she just felt really, powerful being able to do this flying. So. ⁓ 1817 rolls around, she's on her 53rd flight and she accidentally mistakes a soggy marsh for solid ground. So she's going to come down for a landing. Her balloon catches on a tree and tips over her gondola and she falls out into this marshy water and gets tangled up in the rigging of her balloon. fortunately there was a bunch of bystanders. nearby and they were able to pull her out before any real damage was done. So she's basically just testing death ⁓ on the rug, And as if ⁓ all of this not enough, As I mentioned earlier, she started incorporating pyrotechnics into her nighttime routines, so she's out here giving the Napoleon marriage. ⁓ And actually, she celebrated ⁓ their their baby's birth kind of in the same way she did a flight over crowds and let off leaflets and then did some fireworks. So this was becoming a pretty popular activity ⁓ ⁓ were drawing enormous crowds. ⁓ ⁓ only was it ⁓ popular, impressive, daring, but nobody else was doing anything like this. So ⁓ here's where it sort of, we're gonna go down. Okay, we're gonna go down with Sophie. The danger factor cannot be overstated here because Sophie was using hydrogen balloons, not hot air. ⁓ ⁓ you know how hydrogen works, then you know it's extremely flammable. ⁓ ⁓ plus fireworks equals chaos. And of course, this is the part of the act that ultimately led her to her untimely death. So... ⁓ I'm gonna actually share another picture with you. So if you wanna look at the images tab, ⁓ she's flying over the crowd, over restoration of the monarchy with King Louis the 18th and then below. It's just kind the better depiction of like what balloon in gondola look like. So you can tell it's like super tiny. It's like a little chair. You it's not the basket that we think of today. Very rudimentary. Balloon was much smaller. Usually made of like silk or burlap or something like that. So just a very different thing than we have today. But what I really want you to see, and I'm gonna share this link with you. This is a... Pause, hold on. So this is a print depicting ⁓ her death. And actually it's a puzzle and I would like it for Christmas. Danielle: ⁓ Jaden: Is that not the most amazing puzzle you've ever seen? Danielle: have questions. Who decides this should be a puzzle is the first one. Jaden: So this is called, I mean, why not? So this is called La Morte Madame Blanchard or the death of Madame Blanchard in 1819. So her final performance was over Marie Antoinette's Tivoli Gardens. Danielle: Amazing. Jaden: And ⁓ during this performance, hydrogen caught fire from her own fireworks ⁓ and it sent her plummeting the sky. a lot of Parisians looking in as this blazing balloon quote, lighted up Paris like some immense moving ⁓ And our poor girl, our pioneering Sophie fell to her death. Then as she's dramatically and quickly descending her ⁓ gondola gets caught on rooftop ⁓ and tips over and spills her out. And that's where she falls, breaks neck and dies in front of ⁓ a quick side note, I'm going to be in Paris and I have the address of where she dies. It's like 10 minutes away from where I'm staying. So not can I go see the site where Sophie's life came to an end, but I can also visit her grave site at ⁓ cemetery. So I'm excited. Yes, I'm going to do Are you for real? ⁓ Danielle: you going to do that? ⁓ It's like hoping like you can't throw this out there and then not go. Love it. Okay. Jaden: No, I absolutely am and I'll report back because I'm very excited. And you know, the public reaction to her death was a mix of grief and kind of morbid fascination. ⁓ Like the spectacle of her aeronautic events, huge crowds attended the funeral And her tombstone actually has a carved image of ⁓ her. ⁓ ⁓ It's not just her in a balloon, it's a balloon that's on fire. So Danielle: what the death balloon. They put her death balloon on her tombstone. Jaden: Yeah. Yeah, they were like, well, let's just do the one that killed her. Danielle: Wow, okay, that's a choice. Jaden: It is a choice and I can't wait to see it. I will take a pic and I'll share it. But the epitaph poignantly reads, Victum de son al et don son intrepidii, which translates to victim of her art and her Intrepidity which is like iconic. And one more thing. So this event actually made her the first woman to die in an aviation incident. So once again. Danielle: Amazing. ⁓ my god. Jaden: Tophie is just out here breaking records and setting records. Danielle: Sophie girl do let take a break. Jaden: I know, I'm tired for her as we know. So to kind of like put a bow on all of this, ⁓ I wanna kind of explore the themes of let's just it defying gravity ⁓ and convention a right? So as a balloonist in the early ⁓ 1800s was perilous for like but obviously for women, it also meant Danielle: Mm-hmm. Jaden: defying strict social conventions, and many people were just fine declaring that like, ⁓ the sky is new place for a woman. And critics were like staunch in their argument that the upper air, there's so many things that are just so incredibly ridiculous. And so a couple of those things include the upper air being too cold, too thin and too rough for the weaker sex. The other one I really like is that the cold air not suitable for women because it may damage their fragile undercarriage. Danielle: That's that one seems like that could be accurate. I don't know. Jaden: ⁓ my lady parts are freezing. Danielle: As someone who lives in a cold climate. But also, no, wait, hold on, let me back up because ours are internal. I think we'd need to be more worried about men's parts. Never mind. Jaden: you Yeah. That's so funny. And know, Sophie was very aware of all of this. And every time she took flight, she also carried the weight of expectation that women were unfit for such daring feats. you know, the sad thing is that like when she died, people were just like, well, this proves a woman shouldn't have been there at all. And in a balloon is just no place for a lady. Danielle: Thank you. now. But at the same time, during that time period, you could say the same thing about like childbirth. You're worried about that? We got a story for you. good. ⁓ Jaden: ⁓ for sure. Like you want to talk about undercarriage. Yeah, you think a little air is gonna bother me? Yeah, So, yeah, so despite the skepticism, Sophie persisted and really kind of carved out a unique niche. And at this time, formal scientific and military roles were, they're totally close to women. And she essentially just created her own job as a professional aeronaut entertainer. And that kind of helped the novelty of, ⁓ well, okay. So. it was helpful that the novelty of a female pilot was drawing crowds because obviously that, you know, it's a double edged sword at first, because it reduces her to a sideshow attraction, but ultimately it gave her the platform to kick ass, which is so cool. And, you know, of course, exhaustingly, Sophie had to be not just as good as her male counterparts, but more spectacular to be taken seriously. And she... really embraced this challenge by giving insane, unforgettable, and often fire performances. ⁓ a lot of dudes were mad about it. that's, know, a lot of the criticism came from the male space. But as we know, Sophie gained the respect of very influential supporters, men, Napoleon, Louis the 18th. And that was really like, you know, public validation of her skills. Anyway, so all this happened at the same time that Sophie had to kind of like navigate life as a woman in an era where married and widowed women just, you know, they rarely live independently. And after John Pierce's death, she remained single, self-reliant, and that was a really unusual path at the time where women were expected to marry or just not be in the public eye. ⁓ she doubled down on her career. She managed the business ⁓ completely on her own. She just carried it forward. ⁓ And really her financial and professional autonomy just made her a quiet trailblazer for women in the workforce long before. There were even concepts of such a thing. And, her running a business alone in the ⁓ 1810s such a radical act. So I had no idea that Sophie was my role model, but talk about going down in a blaze of glory. What a bad ass. ⁓ Danielle: ⁓ my gosh. Amazing. Amazing. it was such a roller coaster. You took me new heights and new places. ⁓ I really think that, the autonomy that you'd mentioned, you that she was able to have ⁓ maintain, right? Like nobody we know of, it sounds like, was like, girl, you gotta, you have get remarried. you have to, somebody has to run this business with you. She was like, I'll figure it out. And I, like, if I were to pick out something to take from this, it's like, what can I, what can I learn from Sophie or what can I do with this? It's a, I think it's the like, Jaden: Mmm. Danielle: making your own path. Like, yes, it was her dream to fly balloons and she married a man who did balloon flight. But then she kind of molded it into her own thing, right? It wasn't just I'm the assistant or I'm the trapeze artist. It became no, I'm the balloon person now. Jaden: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Danielle: and I'm running all of the business and I'm going to keep figuring out how to do it, like probably a little bit out of desperation because she had to pay the debts and report herself. But then to just continue to push herself, you know, and you'd mentioned the flight from Naples to Rome, like just to see, just to say that you could do it, you know, like that's awesome. It's not just the sign show. It's not just the spectacle. It's truly like pushing herself. to a new level of greatness, which is so admirable. And I feel like we could learn from that. Be like, where can I push myself? What more can I be doing? What's my leg up, in a way? Jaden: Yeah, I love that you said that too, because I think her entire career slash life, it's just like a reminder that progress often comes from women who are pushing boundaries like publicly, visibly, and sometimes in very dangerous ways, ⁓ like setting fireworks off of a balloon while flying it over a crowd of people. I don't know. But you know what the other interesting thing about Sophia is that like she didn't have any formal training. She just learned by doing. She absorbed knowledge from her Danielle: Yeah. Yeah. Jaden: experiences and then she just took it and ran with it and that is also so interesting for her to not only ascend into something just like being professional with ⁓ you know basically taking a hobby and turning it into a professional but also getting noticed by very very powerful people right and managing to make career sort of marks in a way that you know she probably she never had any of that planned I'm guessing I don't know what her support systems were I don't know what her family life was like Danielle: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Jaden: So it's hard to say what the sort of infrastructure was like for her, if this all just sort of like happenstance she's so interesting. Danielle: Yeah. Yeah, it's really fascinating. I want to know if she received any kind of compensation for her aeronaut whimsical titles. Like, was she on Napoleon's payroll? I wonder, you know, like, hey, she's also finding new revenue streams. That's cool. Okay. Jaden: Yeah, yeah, because we know that she was getting paid for the stuff that she was doing on her own, whether or not she was paid for actually being ⁓ in these named roles is not clear to me. Yeah, that's a good question. We'll have to follow up with that. Danielle: Right. I wonder. ⁓