We are pleased to provide visitors to our web site with access to an even broader range of images and objects from this period. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport can see several display cases filled with the riches of this collection.

Thanks to the generosity of several generations of donors, the National Air and Space Museum maintains one of the world's great collections of objects and images documenting and celebrating the invention and early history of the balloon. Hair and clothing styles, jewelry, snuffboxes, wallpaper, chandeliers, bird cages, fans, clocks, chairs, armoires, hats, and other items, were designed with balloon motifs. The balloon sparked new fashion trends and inspired new fads and products. 'Among all our circle of friends,' one observer noted, 'at all our meals, in the antechambers of our lovely women, as in the academic schools, all one hears is talk of experiments, atmospheric air, inflammable gas, flying cars, journeys in the sky.' Single sheet prints illustrating the great events and personalities in the early history of ballooning were produced and sold across Europe. In an age when men and women could fly, what other wonders might they achieve. Enormous crowds gathered in Paris to watch one balloon after another rise above the city rooftops, carrying the first human beings into the air in the closing months of 1783.The excitement quickly spread to other European cities where the first generation of aeronauts demonstrated the wonder of flight. The invention of the balloon struck the men and women of the late 18th century like a thunderbolt. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page. View Manifest View in Mirador Viewer Usage Conditions May Apply Usage Conditions Apply There are restrictions for re-using this media. IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and image viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Usage Conditions May Apply Usage Conditions Apply There are restrictions for re-using this media.

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