Georgia Broadwick, known as “Tiny” because she was born very small and became only 1.40 meters tall, was the first woman to jump with a parachute from a plane: born in Granville County, North Carolina on 8 April 1893, she became a mother very young, at just 13 years old, and abandoned by her husband, Tiny was struck by the performance of some parachutists, and decided to join them. In her career she performed around 1100 jumps, and had to retire at the age of 29 due to an ankle problem. She also collaborated with the American Air Force: it was she who showed pilots, shortly after the start of the First World War, how to jump with a parachute, thus making a fundamental contribution to the evolution of world aeronautics.
Married at 12 years old and introduced to skydiving
Georgia Broadwick, born Georgia Ross, was born on 8 April 1893 in the USA, in Oxford, North Carolina: daughter of George and Emma Ross, she was the youngest of seven children, and weighed less than 1.5 kg at birth. Precisely for this reason, and for the small stature she maintained even later – she was about 1.40 meters tall – her nickname was in fact “Tiny”, or “little”.
At just twelve years old, Tiny was sent away, and at 13 she became the mother of a little girl, Vera. However, her husband abandoned her very soon, and Tiny, courageous and stubborn, went to work in a cotton factory. When he was 15, he attended a performance by the World Famous Aeronauts, a company of parachutists led by Charles Broadwick, stage name of John Murray, who designed the first parachute in history, and brought the art of skydiving throughout the United States. At the time, the parachute was not used by the Air Force or for military purposes, but only for performances which were generally performed by jumping from a hot air balloon.
The connection with Charles Broadwick and success
Tiny was enchanted: she decided to leave her daughter in the care of her parents and joined the company. Shortly thereafter, Broadwick adopted Tiny to facilitate interstate and foreign travel: she is also referred to in some documents as his wife, which is why the true nature of their relationship remained uncertain. In fact, Charles Broadwick was a widower: his first wife, who was part of the company, had died after jumping from a hot air balloon. Tiny’s success was immediate: her short stature and weight earned her the nameDoll Girl” and, when in 1908 he performed his first solo jump with a life jacket that opened to become a parachute, the public went into raptures.
Tiny Broadwick’s jump from a plane, the first by a woman
In 1913, Charles and Tiny were contacted by Glenn E. Martin, a Los Angeles aviator who organized aerobatics to finance his small airplane factory. Martin thought that Tiny Broadwick’s jump would bring a lot of visibility: the girl accepted the challenge, and on 21 June 1913 she jumped from a plane piloted by Martin himself. No woman before her had ever accomplished such a feat.
Georgia used a designed silk parachute ad hoc for the occasion by Charles Broadwick, and performed the jump starting from a sort of swing attached to the fuselage of the plane. The parachute opened as Tiny jumped, and the girl landed softly in Griffith Park, among the ecstatic crowds.
Collaboration with the Air Force
Georgia Broadwick became very famous, and the name reached the military officials of the American government: in the meantime, the First World War had begun, and it often happened that soldiers died in plane crashes because they could not abandon the vehicle while it was falling. The American army asked Tiny for a demonstration, in order to be able to adopt the launch technique in the military sector as well: Tiny agreed, and four launches were planned in an area near San Diego, California.
During the first three, everything went smoothly: but on the fourth launch, the rope that connected the parachute to the plane and which, thanks to the weight of Tiny’s body, allowed the parachute itself to open, remained entangled. Tiny didn’t panic, and manually cut the cord: the parachute opened, and Tiny landed in free fall.
Without having planned it, the young Georgia Broadwick had discovered a way to operate the parachute manually, thus providing a further guarantee of success for jumps from airplanes.
Retirement from skydiving
Tiny, after remarrying and divorcing, and breaking off relations with her mentor Charles Broadwick, married again and, for four years, did not skydive. She also divorced her third husband again and, in 1922, at age 29, she finally stopped jumping due to a problem with her ankles: it is estimated that she made around 1,100 jumps and, although she was not a pilot, she became a member of the Early Birds of Aviation, an association whose membership was limited to those who had flown a glider, hot air balloon or airplane before 17 December 1916.
Georgia Tiny Broadwick died in 1978, aged 85.
