
Balloon Riots
Stuff You Missed in History Class
00:00
Why Some Ascents Turned Violent in London
Tracy and Holly summarize the 1838 Cremorne Gardens incident where misinflation and fires led spectators to stone and tear the balloon.
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Transcript
Transcript
Episode notes
Ballooning became a huge fad starting in the late 18th century, and there was a surprising amount of rioting associated with it. Fervor, excitement, and intoxication in some instances, meant that balloon events were prone to get out of control.
Research:
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- Branson, Susan. “Scientific Americans.” Cornell University Press, 2022. Cornell University Press, 2022.
- Coxwell, Henry Tracey. “My Life and Balloon Experiences.” W.H. Allen. 1889. https://archive.org/details/mylifeandballoo02coxwgoog/
- Daily National Intelligencer. “The Balloon, and Conflagration of Vauxhall.” 9/14/1819. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83026172/1819-09-14/ed-1/?sp=2&q=vauxhall&r=0.48,-0.027,0.621,0.225,0
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- “Hot-Air Balloon: Jean-François Janinet (1752–1814).” https://www.getty.edu/publications/artists-things/things/hot-air-balloon/#fnref8
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- Glaisher, James. “Travels in the Air.” R. Bentley. 1871. https://archive.org/details/ldpd_7245144_000
- Holman, Brett. “The Melbourne balloon riot of 1858.” Airminded. 3/23/2017. https://airminded.org/2017/03/23/the-melbourne-balloon-riot-of-1858/
- Jackson, Joseph. “Vauxhall Garden.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Vol. LVII. No. 4. 1933.
- Keen, Paul. “The ‘Balloonomania’: Science and Spectacle in 1780s England.” Eighteenth-Century Studies , Summer, 2006, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Summer, 2006). https://www.jstor.org/stable/30053707
- Magazine Monitor. “Victorian Strangeness: The great balloon riot of 1864.” BBC. 8/9/2014. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28674654
- Robbins, John. “Up in the Air: Balloonomania and Scientific Performance.” Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 48, No. 4, Special Issue: Performance. Summer 2015. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24690309
- Robson, David. “The Victorians who flew as high as jumbo jets.” BBC. 4/20/2016. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160419-the-victorians-who-flew-as-high-as-jets
- Smith, Zoe. “Disaster at 37,000 feet.” University of Cambridge. https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/balloon-disaster
- Soth, Amelia. “Hot Air Balloon Launch Riot!” JSTOR Daily. 2/3/2022. https://daily.jstor.org/hot-air-balloon-launch-riot/
- Sparrow, Jeff. “Wrath and awe: a short history of balloons and their power to fire up mob fury.” The Guardian. 2/14/2023. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/15/wrath-and-awe-a-short-history-of-balloons-and-their-power-to-fire-up-mob-fury
- Sydney Morning Herald. “The Balloon Riot in the Domain: Death of Thomas Downs.” 12/19/1856. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/12990254
- Sydney Morning Herald. “The Sydney Balloon.” Trove. 12/16/1856. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/12990120
- The Rhode-Island American. “Riotous Proceedigns.” 9/14/1819. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83025442/1819-09-14/ed-1/?sp=3&q=vauxhall&r=-0.14,1.265,0.686,0.248,0
- Tucker, Jennifer. “Voyages of Discovery on Oceans of Air: Scientific Observation and the Image of Science in an Age of ‘Balloonacy.’” Osiris, 1996, Vol. 11, Science in the Field (1996). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/301930
- Wroth, Warwick. “Cremorne and the Later London Gardens.” London. Elliot Stock. 1907.
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