Existing comment:
Human Airmail Flown from College Park to New York!
On October 16, 1918, daredevil film star Douglas Fairbanks came to College Park and stamped himself as air mail. With airmail costing 16 cents an ounce, it cost Fairbanks $414.72 to send himself at New York. At 11:45am, he and pilot Dana DeHart took off in a Curtiss Jenny toward New York as a publicity stunt to boost support for the Liberty Loans.
Financier and presidential advisor Bernard Baruch pledged a 1 million dollar Liberty Loan subscription if Fairbanks could find someone to match it. Fairbanks' flight grabbed headlines as he dropped Liberty Loan leaflets over major cities. After a four-hour journey, and still wearing his grimy flight suit, he raced to the offices of bankers Harvey Fisk and Sons, who prompted matched Baruch's subscription. |