Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel

At the foot of Niagara Falls lies a museum and a mystery. The barrel museum shows a proud display of the "barrels," --none of which are really conventional barrels-- that crazed stuntmen used in a usually vain attempt to ride for glory over the roaring rapids of Niagara Falls. But what started such madness?

The answer lies in the social conventions and a woman's place in the end of the last century. Annie Taylor was the first to ever attempt this feat-and one of the few to survive it. Was she mad? far from it. In fact, her calculated attempt was a brave way to rectify one of the great injustices of her world and to buy dignity and self-sufficiency in her dotage.

In 1901 Anne Taylor was widowed and at the end of her career as a school teacher. Broke, without a penny in the world and facing an old age bereft of husband or pension, she schemed to get rich or die trying. So that was what took her to the Falls on October 24, 1901. In classic fashion, she claimed to be 46 years old, although she was actually 63. Then into the barrel she jumped, thoughtfully cushioned with 30 pounds per square inch of air pumped in by a bicycle pump, and into the water went barrel and all.

Anne did survive unscathed except for a small cut and she left one final lesson for all who would come after her:" For those who want to follow my example, I have this to say-never do it!" Unfortunately her class would be filled with slow learners and over a dozen would die trying to mimic her example, with far worse reasons than hers.

This gallant lady lived for many years after her feat, alas dying penniless in 1921, after failing to earn a ducat on the speaking circuit. In 1918, famed steel magnate, and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, would take a run at the pension problem and found what was to become Tiaa-Cref to provide pensions to college professors. This company eventually lost first its Carnegie Funds, then its non-profit status, and went public. Their annuities and mutual funds are now available to all.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt would also take the problem in hand, borrowing an idea hatched by the popular Townsend Clubs to use an old age pension as a way of dragging America out of the depths of the Great Depression by furnishing money to the one group guaranteed to spend quickly-the indigent elderly.

Today teachers are renowned for their rich pensions guaranteed by state funds, but never forget that lonely pioneer who made her leap for life at the turn of the last century and lived to tell the tale.

Sources:
http://www.niagarafallslive.com/daredevils_of_niagara_falls.htm

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20020825/spectrum/travel.htm

http://www.nflibrary.ca/ForAdults/LocalHistoryMaterials/StuntersDaredevils/tabid/135/Default.aspx#Taylor