POTW: Emma Bullet, Paris correspondent

Emma Bullet, seated at her desk in this week's Photo of the Week, was the Brooklyn Eagle's Paris correspondent. Looks glamorous, no?

Emma Bullet was born in Belfort, France in 1842 and moved to New York with her mother in 1849. She stayed with a family in Brooklyn for a few months until she and her mother again relocated, this time to Cincinnati, Ohio. Bullet attended school in Cincinnnati, eventually becoming a French teacher at the Ohio Female College. A few years later, she moved to France planning to be a teacher, but served as a nurse in the ensuing Franco-Prussian War instead. After returning to Ohio, Bullet taught French for 8 more years. Finally, she returned to Paris with her sister, landing a writing position at the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette in 1879. In 1882, she started as the Paris correspondent for the Brooklyn Eagle.

Emma Bullet clearly deserves more discussion than this short post, however, here is a taste of her dispatches from Paris: "Fairs in Paris," July 22, 1887.

The French are an amusement loving people, and the amusements are the more palatable to their jovial propensities when they are out of doors. I understand that the institution of fairs peculiar to France does not exist in America. Something of the kind, however, I am told, exists at Coney Island during the Summer, but it is not carried on on such a grand scale. ...

The rich and the poor, dressed in broad cloth and blouse, Virot hats and servants' white capes, Worth dresses and homespun make up hetergeneous masses that are very curious to see as they elbow each other along the packed avenues edged with brilliant and tasty booths that vie with each other in attractions to tempt all these passersby to stop and buy. ...

I shall attempt a description of some of the great attractions of these fairs. First and foremost come the numerous flying Dutchmen... It has two stories of wooden horses, fantastically bespangled carriages drawn by lions, panthers and other carved animals that never would consent to be harnessed in life. This gorgeous machine turns by steam and steam also grinds out the tunes of two immense organs... From this circular trip on land you can jump into elegant boats to have a foretaste of what seasickness would be if you were on the real ocean... The imitation is so true that you now and then get whiffs of the indelible smell which always pervades boats of any kind. With this experience you are ready for the balloon ascension. On an immense wheel five or six balloons are attached, which are made to revolve slowly by the turning of the wheel. The sensation of rising and descending is faithfully obtained--so faithfully that I should positively refuse an invitation to a real ascension."

The sketchy black lines to the sides and above Bullet on this photographic print marked where the photo was cropped for publication alongside her obituary (on the front page!) in 1914, which concluded: "The passing away of Miss Bullet will come as a shock to her legion of friends in Brooklyn. During the past three decades her interesting letters and her own charming and optimistic personality have been much sought both by The Eagle readers when at home and also when abroad." ("Miss Emma Bullet Dies in Paris Home," January 31, 1914, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, page 1). 

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