Friday, March 28, 2014

First Photograph of a Manned Balloon in Flight? (1859)


A Thaddeus Lowe balloon named United States aloft at the corner of 6th Avenue and 59th Street, New York City, 1859. The balloon looks as though it is rising out of a temporary stadium with wooden bleachers. The address seems to put the event in Central Park or adjacent to it. The man that is visible in the balloon's basket might be Thaddeus Lowe himself. This is the earliest photograph that I have come across that undisputedly shows a balloon in flight. Animated stereoview.

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6 comments:

  1. AnonymousJune 26, 2017 at 2:00 PM

    In Military Ballooning during the Early Civil War author and researcher F. Stansbury Haydon writes that Lowe attempted to launch the balloon City of New York in NYC in 1859, but was not successful. The project was moved to Philadelphia and the balloon renamed The Great Western.

    Haydon's research indicates that the war balloon United States was constructed along with the other war balloons in 1861.

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  2. AnonymousJune 26, 2017 at 2:14 PM

    The Mount Lowe Preservation website shows this photograph, describing it as "Thaddeus Lowe’s balloon 'United States' aloft in New York", no date indicated.

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  3. PodsnapDecember 3, 2017 at 7:22 AM

    This is clearly not at 6th Avenue and 59th St, where Lowe would build a balloon amphitheatre in 1865. If you study the light and shadows, you see we must be looking east-northeast to the high ground in the East 40s. This is present-day Bryant Park, site of the destroyed Crystal Palace, which Lowe secured for his operations in 1859.

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  4. chubachusDecember 6, 2017 at 8:47 PM

    Do you have any sources or photos to back up any of this? Also, mryan404 above cites an author that wrote Lowe's balloon wasn't successful in 1859 but the pictured balloon clearly was.

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  5. janeweirSeptember 10, 2021 at 8:56 AM

    I believe this is in fact 6th Ave and Central Park South (59th St) and the photo is from about 1865. The wooden hoardings surround Lowe's aerodrome. The 1859 balloon launched in Reservoir Square (now Bryant Park) looked different and was labeled City of New York.

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  6. janeweirSeptember 10, 2021 at 9:03 AM

    A newspaper illustration of the INTERIOR of the balloon "aeronautic amphitheatre" in Central Park is here. On the other side of the wooden barricades we have the viewing stands. (Scroll down.) http://www.thaddeuslowe.name/CWballooningafterwar.htm

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