2-701-806 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Lenormand's parachute, 1783, (1932). French chemist, physicist and inventor Louis-Sébastien Lenormand (1757-1837) is considered as the first man to make a witnessed descent with a parachute. On 26 December 1783, he jumped from the tower of the Montpellier observatory in France, in front of a crowd that included Joseph Montgolfier. Lenormand's intended use for the parachute was to help entrapped occupants of a burning building to escape unharmed. From "Die Eroberung Der Luft", (The Conquest of the Air), cigarette card album produced by the Garbáty cigarette factory, 1932. Eugene and Moritz Garbáty, who were Jewish, were driven out of business by the Nazis in the late 1930s, and forced to sell their factory which lay empty for over 70 years. [Garbaty Cigarettenfabrik, Berlin-Pankow, 1932]