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Susan Hale (1833-1910) edited the six numbers of the Balloon Post, a news sheet in 1871 about airmail via balloon to raise funds for the relief of French war refugees from the Franco-Prussian War. The first sheet of the first post read, "[t]he conductor of the Balloon Post alights breathless from her car in the middle of her public, to beg their kindest judgment of the budget she is about to distribute among them. She asks everybody to remember that from the very nature of her conveyance her freight must be light; nothing heavy can be expected which arrives in a balloon. ... She has chosen her cargo from the lightest and finest, in some cases, perhaps, from the flimsiest materials, but she has selected them with the greatest care, from sources undoubtedly to be relied upon for wisdom and brilliancy, strength, and delicacy combined." Our exhibition on the history of ballooning, "Into the Ether: Published Works on Ballooning and Atmospheric Studies, 1783–1910" is now on display in the Aviation Museum and Library. http://bit.ly/IntoTheEther This image was posted on August 03, 2018.

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