LADIES DON'T GIVE UP. . . COLORED FLARED SYSTEM S
When Martha Coston was widowed in1847, she was only 21 years old. She
had four children to support, but
she hadn't a clue about how to do
so. She was flipping through her
dead husband's notebooks when she
found plans for a flare system that
ships could use to communicate at
night. Coston requested the system
be tested, but it failed.
Coston was undeterred. She spent
the next 10 years revising and
perfecting her husband's design for
a colored flare system. She consulted
with scientists and military officers,
but she couldn't figure out how to
produce flares that were bright and
long-lasting while remaining easy to
use at the spur of the moment. One
night she took her children to see a
fireworks display, and that's when
she hit upon the idea of applying
some pyrotechnic technology to her
flare system. The flare system finally
worked, and the U.S. Navy bought
the rights. The Coston colored flare
system was used extensively during
the Civil War.
Unfortunately, the flare system
wasn't the best way for Coston to
support her family. According to
military documents, Coston produced
1,200,000 flares for the Navy during
the Civil War, which she provided at
cost. She was owed $120,000, of
which she was only paid $15,000; in
her autobiography, Coston
attributed the Navy's refusal to pay
to the fact that she was a woman
Comments (9)
What about the other thousands of single women?