Cet article est la traduction en anglais d'articles publiés en français le 2 mars 2009 et le 23 août 2009.
I wrote a post about the sign dedicated to Elisa Deroche which was put up at 61, rue de la Verrerie (in the 4th district).
She was born there on August 22nd, 1886. It is very difficult to obtain information about her. Since then, by chance, when visiting the "Musée du Tau" in Rheims, I found a display about her.
Elisa Deroche was an actress whose stage name was Raymonde de Laroche. In March 1910 at Mourmelon (in the Marne, East of Paris), she was the first lady in the world to pass her pilote's licence. It is true that aviation had appeared in the preceding decade, men were not thousand of years ahead.
In 1914, she wanted to join the Air Force but she was refused.
The display of the museum in Rheims shows a nice portrait of her :
We can also see a model of the aircraft she piloted in Rheims in 1909 :
There is also a postcard showing "Mme Deroche" behind the wheel of an aircraft in 1909 :
This information completes what we can know about this lady who showed that the prejudices against women were without fondation.
The decision of putting up this sign was taken by the District Council of the 4th arrondissement on September 19th, 2006 and it was applied three years later in February 2009 but few people were informed about that which I criticized.
This post is the translation into English of two posts published on March 2nd, 2009 and August,23rd, 2009.
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