Linda Skeers - Women Who Dared: 52 Stories of Fearless Daredevils, Adventurers, and Rebels

Copyright 2017 by Linda Skeers

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18581919(?) Germany

In the 1800s, circuses were a popular form of entertainment around the world. In 1858, two acrobats had a baby girl and named her Anna Olga Albertina Brown. Its not surprising that she joined the family business. From a young age she was an accomplished trapeze artist, tightrope walker, and gymnast.

Anna performed under the stage name Miss La La. She was tinyunder five feet tall. Although she looked like a child, she had the strength of a grown mana very STRONG man. And thats what set her apart from the other trapeze artists.

Being biracial also gave her an air of mystery, which publicists capitalized on when they released stories about her background before her appearances. Rumors were rampant before performances. The more outlandish the story, the more tickets were sold.

Annas act was astonishing and unique. Shed start out by hanging a hook with a dangling leather strap over a trapeze bar. Shed then bite down on the strap and hang there by her teethand spin!

That was just the warm-up. Shed also hang by her knees from a trapeze bar while holding a leather strap connected to another trapeze bar in her teeth. But then, a child, a woman, and a man would hang on that trapeze bar!

By that point the audience would be amazed by her poise and strength. But there was more to come. Much more.

Anna would be lifted to the top of the circus tent, and with just one leg swung over a trapeze bar, this dainty acrobat in a ruffled skirt would hold three grown men aloftone on each arm and one hanging onto a strap she held in her teeth.

Her big finale was a booming successliterally. She would lift a cannon attached to a leather strap into the air with her teeth, and then it would be FIRED! Shed be flung back from the blaststill clenching the cannonearning her the nickname Iron Jaw.

When she was twenty-one, Anna was immortalized in a painting by the famous French impressionist artist Edgar Degas. Hed seen her perform several times in Montmarte, Paris, and wanted to capture her beauty, strength, and grace on canvas. The painting depicts her suspended from a rope attached to the roof of the circus tenta rope shes holding in her teeth. The oil painting, Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando , hangs in the National Gallery in London. One art critic proclaimed it to be one of the artists finest works. It certainly portrays one of the finest, strongest, and bravest women the circus has ever known!

18381921 United States

In 1901, in the small town of Bay City, Michigan, Civil War widow Annie Taylor was thinking about retiring. For years, shed been giving dance and etiquette lessons to children. But as she got older, the students stopped coming. She had no savings and wasnt interested in getting an ordinary jobshe wanted fame and fortune!

She just didnt know how to get it.

One evening, she was reading a newspaper article about all the tourists flocking to see Niagara Falls. She decided to show them something far more exciting than waterfalls, something never seen beforethe first person to go over the falls in a barrel!

An ordinary pickle barrel wouldnt do, so Annie designed one herself. It was made of white oak and reinforced with iron bands. A blacksmiths anvil was set in the bottom to keep the barrel upright. She would grip metal handles and be secured with leather straps.

Annie was ready to take the plunge but wanted to make sure people were there to watch. For weeks, newspapers and posters advertised the fearless Mrs. Taylor and her daring, death-defying stunt.

On October 24, 1901, on her sixty-third birthday, Annie rode to the falls in a carriage. Thousands had come out to witness the spectacle. She strapped herself in and crammed pillows around her. The barrel was sealed and fastened with screws.

People gasped as the barrel tumbled and tossed its way closer to the edge. The roaring of the Falls drowned out the excited and terrified roaring of the crowd as Annie went over and down!

At first, nothing could be seen in the swirling water. Then, Annies barrel bobbed to the surface!

It floated to the shore, and workmen frantically sawed off the top of the barrel.

Annie slowly crawled out. She was bruised and battered, but ALIVE! The first thing she said was, I prayed every second I was in the barrel except for a few seconds after the fall when I was unconscious.

Annie may not have made the fortune shed hoped for, but she loved sharing her story.

She set up a souvenir stand near Niagara Falls and sold postcards and booklets about her life. The queen of the falls will go down in history as one fearlessand perhaps a bit recklessdaredevil.

1892(?)1926 United States

Bessie Coleman was born in a tiny cabin in Texas, but even as a child she had big dreams. She picked cotton and helped wash and iron clothes, but she also attended school and excelled at math. When Bessie was eleven years old, something happened that caught her attentionand changed her life. The Wright Brothers flew their first plane! She read everything she could find about airplanes, dreaming about the day she would soar through the sky.