Stitch Era Universal TXT (SEU-Lettering) is the most modern and innovative embroidery lettering software of the market. 30 Professionally Digitized Fonts Description: “It might be done,” she reportedly said, “but my horse would have to be blindfolded, and that would spoil the thrill.Embroidery Lettering Software - Incl.
In no time Helen became a popular action star, advertised as “The Most Daring Actress in Pictures.” The ads for her series promised, “Astounding Ingenious Exploits…Thrills and Audacious Daring.” One fan magazine earnestly wrote: “So many and so varied have been the stunts performed by this girl with the nerves of steel that the budding scenario writers whose ambition it is to write her plays have gone to extreme lengths in their hunt for new material.” One stunt, they claimed, would have her jump her horse from the top of a small cliff onto a train moving just below. Titles like Danger Ahead!, At the Risk of Her Life, The Perilous Swing (all 1915) and One Chance in a Hundred (1916) hinted at the thrills in store. In a mere couple of years she would star in 69 episodes, often revolving around trains and the sort of heart-stopping stunts that could be performed with them. When Holmes left Kalem to start her own production company, Rose–now christened “Helen Gibson”–became the replacement star. During the course of a leap where a moving object is concerned, the spatial relationship between take-off point and landing point changes…Helen Gibson had this sensitivity to spatial relationships between objects in motion, but it is certainly not a gift shared by all stuntmen.” Of this stunt, historian Arthur Wise wrote: “What such stunts require is an inbuilt awareness of the speed of the moving object. Holmes did perform some of her own stunts, but Rose was called upon for some of the most dangerous ones, such as leaping from a station roof onto a moving train. And, to make it all the more thrilling and awe-inspiring, it is a girl that is taking the frightful chance! Gibson’s stuntwork featured in Moving Picture World, February 1917.Ī popular series, each 12-minute Hazards episode revolved around the quick-thinking Helen’s exploits, which usually called upon her to jump from a horse onto a moving train, swing from a bridge on a rope, or similar daring feats. There, right before your eyes, is being enacted a scene that you would not attempt for all the money in the world. Writer Creighton Hamilton wrote about the trend in Picture-Play Magazine:Ĭomplacently you are leaning back in your favorite theater seat, when suddenly you give a gasp and hold onto the arms of your chair.
Producers found that not only did audiences like seeing women in action films, but their stunts seemed even more risky.
In 1915, Rose was working for Kalem when she started doubling for star Helen Holmes in the adventure serial The Hazards of Helen–obviously cashing in on the success of Pathé Frères’ The Perils of Pauline. “Of course I’m not saying that–just that your idea of a ‘typical’ meek, seen-and-not-heard early 20th century woman is a little off the mark.” And here’s where I could’ve added: “Have you heard, for instance, of stuntwoman Helen Gibson?”
“Are you trying to say women weren’t repressed? Because they were.” *Drops mic they carry around for just such occasions*
“What!” folks reply, shocked to the cores over such unwelcome and offensive information. Like ride horses, or play sports, or get jobs, or even own stores or patent inventions. But *she puts forth meekly* that doesn’t mean it was abnormal for women to, you know, do things.
Of course women had a rougher time back in the day–of course they had less freedom and fewer options outside of marriage, as is patently obvious to anyone who takes a look at history. Why they weren’t just stuck in closets and taken out once in awhile to make sure they didn’t loosen those corsets is beyond me.īased on my various attempts to comment on corset-related or otherwise women-in-olden-days-related threads on social media (said attempts being obviously authoritative and scientific), any sort of mild pushback on this black-and-white view is…surprisingly unwelcome. That while not being squeezed into rib-cracking Victorian corsets (even when it wasn’t even the Victorian era, apparently) and dressed in twenty layers of clothing, they were basically confined to fainting couches or forced to stitch samplers. There seems to be a common stereotype, fondly believed by too many people to count, that women in “the olden days” weren’t allowed to do…much of anything, really.