Janet Harmon Bragg was a registered nurse inspired to fly by the exploits of Bessie Coleman, the first licensed black pilot in the United States. She earned her pilot's license in 1932 at the Aeronautical University, Inc., in Chicago, Illinois, and because she was one of the few black pilots still employed during the Depression, Bragg paid for most of the airplanes used by the Challenger Air Pilots Association during the 1930s. During World War II she was rebuffed by both the Women's Airforce Service Pilots and a license examiner in Alabama from contributing to the war effort as a pilot; the government also refused her services as a nurse. After the war, Bragg married and ran two nursing homes until she retired in Tucson, Arizona.