Tiny Broadwick

Ready to drop

Georgia Ann Thompson Broadwick (April 8, 1893 in Oxford, North Carolina – 1978 in California), or Georgia Broadwick, was an American pioneering parachutist. She was nicknamed 'Tiny', as she weighed only 85 pounds (39 kg) and was 5 feet (1.5 m) tall.

Biography

Born to parents George and Emma Ross on April 8, 1893, Georgia Ann Thompson weighed in at only 3 pounds. The last of seven daughters, Georgia was given the nickname "Tiny" due to her small size.[1]

At the age of 15 she saw Charles Broadwick's World Famous Aeronauts parachute from a hot air balloon and decided to join the travelling troupe. She later became Broadwick's adopted daughter. Although she would eventually make her jumps from an airplane, in her earlier career she was jumping from balloons. Billed as "the doll girl," Tiny began performing aerial skydives and stunts while wearing a "life preserver" designed by her adopted father. On December 28, 1908, Tiny made her very first jump out of a hot air balloon.[2] The skydiving family traveled around and performed at fairs, carnivals, and parks. The appeal of the Broadwick Flying troupe, according to Tiny, was that "it was a very neat and fast act."[3]

"Tiny" with chute

Among her many other achievements, she was the first woman to parachute from an airplane, which she is credited with accomplishing on June 21, 1913, over Los Angeles, with aviator Glenn L. Martin as the pilot.[4] However, she previously made at least two jumps from Martin's plane during an exhibition in Chicago's Grant Park the week of September 16, 1912.[5] These early jumps included a well-publicized jump on January 9, 1914, from a plane built and piloted by Martin, 1,000 feet over Griffith Park in Los Angeles, California.[6][7][8] She was also the first woman to parachute into water.

In 1914, she demonstrated parachutes to the U.S. Army, which at the time had a small, hazard-prone fleet of aircraft. The Army, reluctant at first to adopt the parachute, watched as Tiny dropped from the sky. On one of her demonstration jumps, the static line became entangled in the tail assembly of the aircraft, so for her next jump she cut off the static line and deployed her chute manually, thus becoming the first person to jump free-fall. This demonstrated that pilots could escape aircraft by using what was later called a ripcord.[9]

By the time of her retirement from jumping in 1922, she was said to have made over 1,100 jumps. Although she was not a pilot, she was one of the few female members of the Early Birds of Aviation.

Tiny appeared on You Bet Your Life episode 55-07 on November 10, 1955,[10], on To Tell the Truth on March 30, 1964 and on Mysteries at the Museum season 11, episode 33.

She died in 1978 and was buried in Sunset Gardens in Henderson, North Carolina.

Legacy

In February 2006, Vance County, North Carolina, commissioners decided to name a portion of the Henderson Outer Loop highway after her. Additionally, Broadwick Street in Rancho Dominguez, California, is named for her.

References

  1. ↑ Roberson, Elizabeth. Tiny Broadwick: The First Lady of Parachuting. Gretna: Pelican Publishing Company Inc, 2001. p 13
  2. ↑ Call, Helen. "Woman - A San Diegan- Was First To Test Parachute For Government." North Island Demonstration, October 29, 1971: D-1, continued on D-4.
  3. ↑ Tiny Broadwick (Mrs. Georgia Brown) Interview by Kenneth Leish. Transcribed Oral History Interview. May 1960. Made available by Smithsonian National Air and Space Library and Archives Division
  4. ↑ Elizabeth Whitley Roberson, Tiny Broadwick: The First Lady of Parachuting (Pelican Publishing, 2001) p48; Thomas C. Parramore, First to Fly: North Carolina & the Beginnings of Aviation (University of North Carolina Press, 2003) p181
  5. ↑ Gray, Carroll. "Cicero Flying Field". LincolnBeachey.com. Retrieved May 13, 2017.
  6. ↑ "Steps From Plane In Air; Woman Leaps From Martin Craft With Aerial Life Preserver". Warsaw Daily Union. Warsaw, IN. January 10, 1914. p. 5. Retrieved November 17, 2011.
  7. ↑ Harnisch, Larry (July 28, 2007). "Rewriting history". The Daily Mirror. Los Angeles: Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 17, 2011.
  8. ↑ Welch, Rosanne (1998). Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space. p. 27.
  9. ↑ "Georgia "Tiny" Broadwick's Parachute". National Air and Space Museum. 2015-03-12. Retrieved 2017-06-21.
  10. ↑ Available on Groucho Marx: You Bet Your Life: The Best Episodes - Disc 2.

Further reading

  • "Here and There". The Gettysburg Times. Gettysburg, PA. October 11, 1963. p. 18. Retrieved November 17, 2011.
  • "That Daring Young Girl In Parachute Now 80". The Blade. Toledo, OH. June 18, 1973. p. 14. Retrieved November 17, 2011.
  • "Too late for a moonwalk". Deseret News. Salt Lake City, UT. August 3, 1974. p. 2A. Retrieved November 17, 2011.
  • Roberson, Elizabeth Whitley (May 31, 2001). Tiny Broadwick: The First Lady of Parachuting. Pelican Publishing. ISBN 1-56554-780-2.
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