Mom of 3 Became First Woman to Touch the Stratosphere

Jeannette Piccard floated three miles above Detroit in the pre-dawn darkness of June 14, 1934, enjoying a rare moment of peace. The 39-year-old mother of three was alone in a balloon basket, drifting silently over Motor City's glowing factories, when a voice called up from the streets below.

"Hello up there!" shouted a man driving beneath her slow-moving craft. They chatted briefly across the darkness, and as she drifted away, Jeannette heard him tell someone, "there's a balloon up there and there's a girl in it all alone!"

He had no idea that this "girl" was actually a trained chemist wearing men's trousers and a hunting knife, preparing for the most ambitious flight of her life. This solo journey was just practice for something far more extraordinary.

Two years earlier, Jeannette's husband Jean lost his job during the Great Depression. The family scraped by until Jean's brother Auguste, a physicist, broke the world altitude record by flying a balloon to 53,150 feet above Earth. Auguste became an instant celebrity, and Jean joined him on a U.S. lecture tour that connected them with promoters planning an American stratospheric flight.

The Chicago World's Fair project fell apart in legal disputes, but through a bizarre contract technicality, Jean and Jeannette ended up owning the equipment. Two unemployed scientists living in a one-room New Jersey apartment suddenly possessed an experimental stratospheric balloon and pressurized gondola.

Jeannette immediately volunteered to pilot it. She'd spent over a year studying lighter-than-air flight, but getting actual training proved nearly impossible. The Army wouldn't accept women, neither would the Navy, and Goodyear repeatedly refused her requests.

A sympathetic Goodyear manager quietly connected her with Ed Hill, a champion balloonist who'd won the prestigious Gordon Bennett Race in 1927. Hill agreed to teach her, and that June night over Detroit was one of her training flights.

Four months later, on October 23, 1934, Jeannette and Jean lifted off from Dearborn, Michigan in the Century of Progress. They climbed to 57,579 feet, nearly 11 miles above Earth, where the sky turns black and the planet's curve becomes visible. Jeannette served as pilot while Jean conducted scientific observations.

Why This Inspires

Jeannette didn't just break a record that day. She became the first woman licensed as a free balloon pilot in the United States and the first woman to reach the stratosphere. Her altitude record for female balloonists stood for nearly three decades.

She later became one of the first women ordained as an Episcopal priest, proving that breaking barriers once makes breaking them again a little easier. From a one-room apartment to the edge of space, Jeannette showed that the only ceiling that matters is the one you refuse to accept.