Death of Mary Myers (born Mary Breed Hawley), “Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut,” in Atlanta, Georgia on August 1, 1932, her 83rd birthday.
On August 1, 1932, Mary Myers—born Mary Breed Hawley and celebrated as Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut—died in Atlanta, Georgia on her 83rd birthday. Her death closed a remarkable career that had stretched from the earliest era of balloon spectacle to the threshold of modern aviation.
By the time of her death, Myers had long retired from active flight but remained a figure of fascination in local histories and aviation circles. Her hundreds of flights between 1880 and 1891, record-setting altitude ascents, and collaboration with her husband Carl Edgar Myers at their Frankfort, New York "balloon farm" had made her a pioneer in both passenger-carrying balloons and scientific aeronautics.
She contributed to the development of high-altitude weather balloons for the U.S. Weather Bureau and military balloon equipment for the U.S. Army Signal Corps, work that helped institutionalize ballooning as a tool for data collection and reconnaissance rather than mere entertainment. These achievements gave her a legacy that outlasted the era of exhibition flights and influenced later approaches to atmospheric science and military observation.
Her 1932 passing on the same date as her birth carries symbolic weight in aviation history narratives, framing her life as a closed arc from the dawn of lighter‑than‑air experimentation to the interwar period when heavier‑than‑air aircraft had begun to dominate. Subsequent historians and museums cite August 1, 1932 as the endpoint of a career that expanded public imagination about women’s technical and navigational capacities and helped clear conceptual space for twentieth‑century women aviators.