Though she was slightly post-Edwardian, let's here it for Bessie Coleman, the world's first black woman pilot. Bessie was from Waxahachie, Texas, "just down the road" from my hometown.
BESSIE COLEMAN (1896-1926) received her license to fly in 1921 but she had to go to France to get it since no aviation academy in America then admitted blacks. This woman was a true heroine. "If we (blacks)are ever going to make our mark," she said in an interview, "we've got to get above these cotton fields." She certainly soared over the poverty and prejudice of her youth, enjoying fame as "Brave Bessie" in national air shows and newsreels of the 1920s. Sadly she died in a crash at the age of 30.