The History of Balloons

By: Rob Colbourne Click author's name for more of his/her articles

In the European regions in times of old you might have been entertained by a jester or troubadour who had taken the entrails of a recently butchered animal and inflate it for amusement. This is not the oldest known balloon, though; some balloon history can be dated as far back as the Aztecs in Mexico. The intestines, bladders and stomachs of various animals are quite stretchy and can easily be manipulated; they would of course get a thorough washing first.

The Aztecs would use the bowls of cats to make inflated animals as offerings to their gods. After a careful cleaning, the bowls were turned inside out and the sewn with a special thread made of vegetables that would form an almost airtight seal. After they were sewn together, the bowls would be twisted and then have air blown into them after each of the twists.

There was a contagious disease that spread through the cat population and exterminated most of them. The bowels of the cat corpses were used to make the offering balloons, but became very short in supply. When there were no more cat bowels to make the balloon shapes to appease the gods, the Aztecs turned to human sacrifice. The bowels used were then human.

The making of one balloon animal shape took several days. There were only two models at the time; one was a donkey-shape and the other was a dog. Once made, these bowel-balloon animals were carried with great pomp and circumstance to the top of an Aztec pyramid where they were ceremoniously burned in praise of their God, the sun.

With the advent of the material rubber, Mexican could begin manufacturing the balloons that are intended for modeling. One of the most famous balloon sculptors out of Mexico was Seno r Carlos; he was the first person to perform the act of balloon sculpting at the famous Lido de Paris.

Rubber balloons were first made by a Professor in 1824 named Michael Faraday. He needed to use them in order to do experiments with hydrogen where he taught at the Royal Institution in London. Caoutchouc is an elastic material that is obtained from the latex sap of Ficus (and other) trees. This latex sap can then be vulcanized and finished into numerous products. The caoutchouc is quite elastic and is what made Faraday’s experimentations succeed. He made bags of it and then forced air and hydrogen into the bags.

When expanded by the hydrogen, the material became quite transparent and light enough to take to the air. These first balloons were made by cutting the sheets of rubber into rounds and then laying them together and pressing their edges. The rubber was quite tacky and would easily stick together to form a strong airtight seal; the inside surfaces were powdered as to not stick together.

A pioneer rubber manufacturer actually introduced the first toy balloons. Thomas Hancock made the do-it-yourself balloon kit which consisted of a bottle full of rubber solution with a condensing syringe. The vulcanized toy balloons were unaffected by temperature changes and were manufactured in 1847 by J. G. Ingram of London; these balloons were the prototype of the balloons you and I recognize today.

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