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Chapter I

Not all women who were in aviation in those early days were pilots. It was considered radical for a woman to involve herself in any way with aviation, whether flying as a passenger in an airplane, ascending in a balloon, offering support to aviator sons, husbands or brothers, or even raising funds for aeronautics. A woman's statement of intention to do any of these things was often met with exclamations of "You can't be serious!" from her friends, both male and female.

Occasionally, if a woman were socially prominent, she might even make an attempt to conceal her identity before making a flight. Such was the case at Philadelphia in October 1909, when a leading socialite, Miss Violet Ridgeway, satisfied her long cherished ambition to take a balloon flight. She arrived at the launch site very early in the morning, heavily veiled. When someone asked her name, she replied "Miss Anna Brown." Apparently she feared that her parents or some well-meaning friends, anxious about her safety or her reputation, might try to interfere at the last minute. Not all of her family disapproved, however, for Violet's sister had sought permission to go along, but there was no more room in the basket.

However, a year earlier out in Canton, Ohio, several women had not only made ascensions with the famous balloonist A. Leo Stevens, but had even written articles for contemporary magazines