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It performed so poorly that she considered it an insult to her intelligence, feeling she herself could build a better one. She did designed and build a model dirigible, which flew successfully. For a few years she put aside her work on aircraft, but Santos-Dumont's successes inspired her to resume.

Several leading figures of the time, including Andrew Carnegie, expressed interest in Miss Todd's inventions. But although several contemporary newspapers carried accounts of the machines being exhibited, none mentions whether or not they were ever test flown.

Other women during the early part of the twentieth century were involving themselves with flying lighter-than-air craft. Geneve Shaffer of San Francisco was piloting free balloons in 1909 and 1910. During one of her ascensions her made the first aerial photographs of Oakland and San Francisco.

In the fall of 1909 Geneve was co-pilot in the balloon "The Pride of San Francisco" flown by the famous balloonist Ivy Baldwin. Their balloon engaged in a race across San Francisco Bay during that year's Portola Festival with another balloon, "The Pride of Oakland," piloted by a Capt.