First Woman to Hold a Pilot’s License
Elise Deroche, an actress better known by her stage name Raymonde De Laroche, was a French pilot widely considered to be the first “lady aviator” in the world when she made her maiden flight in 1909. And the Wills’s Cigarettes cards included an illustration dedicated just to her.
De Laroche was a press sensation in France and had an adventurous attitude that pushed her to become a test pilot for various experimental aircraft. Unfortunately, it was one of these experimental planes that she was co-piloting in 1919 when she crashed and died at the age of 36.
