Aaron A. Sargent 1883 Designs for Aerial Ship

Aaron Augustus Sargent (1827-1887) was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. After working in the printer's trade in Philadelphia, PA, he moved to Washington, DC and became Secretary to a Member of Congress. He later owned a paper in Nevada City, CA and studied law there, subsequently serving as District Attorney and as Representative to the Thirty-seventh Congress. He served as a United States Senator from 1873-1879. In January 1878 he introduced to the Senate a bill that was to be adopted in 1920 as the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, granting suffrage to women. Sargent returned to California in 1880. He was appointed Minister to Germany (1882-1884) and thereafter practiced law in San Francisco, CA.