ABSTRACT
Between 1958 and 1959, the number of parachute enthusiasts in the U.S. doubled from 1,500 to 3,000. Greater media attention and the founding of parachute clubs in about seventy cities were responsible for the increase. Once people learned that falling out of an airplane at 10,500 feet per minute, descending at the rate of 125 m.p.h., and trusting one's life to an oversized umbrella stashed in a backpack was safe, they became less fearful. The Sport Parachuting Center in Orange, Massachusetts served as the focal point of the emerging sport. A 30-year-old, French-born American, Jacques Andre Istel, who ran the Center, proselytized every chance he got. In his words:
The parachutist has a sense of purpose, a sense of conquest impossible for most people to achieve in other ways. There are too many restrictions in modern life. A young man can’t do anything without breaking some law. In parachuting he has complete freedom, including freedom of the choice to save his own life. If he fouls up, he is dead.
