La Belle Alphonsine by E. Florés

Front page illustration from a French newspaper in September 1884, drawn by E. Florés and called La Belle Alphonsine, showing a fictional dirigible with the balloon formed by a woman’s skirt.

Human flight has always captivated people. There’s something primal about the human need to fly, and the history of ballooning is full of public flights that attracted vast crowds who were interested in witnessing history. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the human quest for flight was continuously on the public’s mind, and the above illustration is a testament to this. It’s from the front page of a French newspaper called La Halle aux Charges from 14 September 1884. This newspaper was well-known for it’s political caricatures and social commentary, and their choice to put a fictional balloon on their front cover is the perfect representation of what a successful flight means for all those involved.

There’s a lot to unpack in this illustration. The main feature is the winged woman, presumably named La Belle Alphonsine, whose skirt has been inflated into a balloon. Her position and pose is reminiscent of a traditional figurehead on the front of a sailing ship. Her skirt is inflated by an air bellow operated by a pilot behind her. Hanging under the inflated skirt is a gondola with three well-to-do men standing in it, with two French flags flanking them. All the individuals pictured are wearing typical leisure clothes for well-to-do people at the time, which suggests they all occupy the upper class.

There’s two elements here that immediately caught my attention. The first was the two French flags. This is symbolic of the national pride felt when an early balloon made a successful flight. It’s not enough to suggest that a person has made a successful flight; it’s just as important that this person be French, which would no doubt stroke the ego of the French public at the same time. Speaking of the French public, this brings me to the second element. The people in the illustration all seem to be from the upper class, based on how they’re dressed. This suggests that the artist believed flight to be the domain of the rich, which was most likely the case at the time. In the heyday of ballooning, paying for a balloon flight would’ve been expensive, which would’ve restricted the act of flight to those with enough money and free time to do it. This is true of any hot new technology, and the same dynamic currently exists with the nascent commercial space flight industry.

On the surface, this is just a fun, light-hearted illustration of a fictional dirigible design from a French newspaper in 1884. Upon reflection, however, it makes some important statements on human flight and how society was, and in many ways, is, structured.

Read more about other ideas for flying machines here.