Introduction
Women play a crucial role in the history of transportation. As the needs of our everyday life and work are not changing that quickly, there is little wonder why the gender-specific nature of transport has been traditionally observed and preserved.
However, closer examination reveals that women were actually active participants and reflected their pursuits and emotional life in vehicles.
In this entry, we will share some details on how women were using different types of vehicles during various periods to determine whether their interest in new technological innovations was as superficial as assumed.
Mary Anderson:
In 1903, Mary Anderson was granted a patent for an “automobile window cleaning device.”
She created it to solve a problem that some early automobiles had – with no way to clear away snow or rain from the windshield during inclement weather.
Drivers often had to stop their vehicles and get out to manually wipe down their windshields if they couldn’t see through them well enough to drive safely.
The first wipers were controlled from inside the cars by levers or hand cranks, but by 1917 Cadillac offered an electric wiper.
Louise Smith:
Louise Smith is considered one of the first women race car drivers. She began racing in 1946 at age 34 and won 38 races during her career.
Louise Smith became the first woman to win a NASCAR race in 1949. Five years later, she retired from racing at the age of 43 as a highly decorated NASCAR driver. Her fearless driving style earned her the nickname “The First Lady of Racing.”
Claire L. Felter
Claire L. Felter was an electrical engineer who worked at the General Motors Research Laboratory from 1929 to 1962.
She was responsible for research into automotive electrical accessories, including windshield wipers and defrosters, locking door mechanisms, antennae and automatic headlights.
In addition to a comprehensive chronograph, she also developed the world’s first electric clock to be sold as standard equipment on automobiles.
Charlotte Bridgwood:
Charlotte Bridgwood was an English artist who designed several car mascots (aka “hood ornaments”) for luxury car manufacturers in England during the 1920s and ’30s.
In 1920, she patented a mascot depicting a woman holding a lighted torch. That same year, her sculpture was mounted on a Rolls-Royce Phantom I owned by the Prince of Wales.
Later, she would design and patent other hood ornaments for Rolls-Royce and Daimler cars.
Bessie Coleman:
Bessie Coleman wasn’t just America’s first female pilot — she was also the first African American woman to earn an international pilot’s license.
She was rejected at American flight schools because of her gender and race. Though she never gave up on her dream of becoming a pilot, she went to France for training.
After earning her license in 1921, she returned to the United States. She began performing as an aviator at air shows around the country. In 1920, she bought a plane and built her own airplane hangar.
She became known as “Queen Bess” and “Brave Bessie,” and helped pave the way for other minority pilots, like the Tuskegee Airmen.
Claudette Colvin:
Claudette Colvin became the focus of a movement for civil rights in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955. She was just 15 years then when she insisted she will not relinquish her seat to a white passenger on the city bus system.
Her arrest preceded Rosa Parks’ by nine months, but the NAACP didn’t want to use Colvin as the face of their movement because she was pregnant out of wedlock.
Still, she became a key witness in Browder v. Gayle, which ended segregated busing in Alabama.
Patti Rizzo:
Patti Rizzo started her career as a flight attendant. In 1976, she joined the all-female aerobatic team The Flying Stars. As their lead pilot, she performed around the country and set several distance and altitude records.
In 1979, Rizzo became the first woman to be hired as a pilot by a major airline — Delta. During her 30-year career, she logged more than 18,000 hours flying commercial routes to places like Europe and Asia.
She also served as vice president of flight operations and Delta’s chief pilot at Los Angeles
International Airport.
Now retired, Rizzo has been inducted into the Women in Aviation International Pioneer Hall of Fame and the International Forest of Friendship in Atchison, Kansas — a memorial to aviation pioneers.
Alice Huyler Ramsey:
In 1910, Alice Huyler Ramsey made history by becoming the first woman to drive across the country. She drove a Maxwell 30-horsepower touring car with two friends and a dog as one of their passengers.
It took them 59 days to complete the trip, which came out to an average speed of about 12 miles per hour.
Ramsey was born in 1886 in Hackensack, New Jersey. She married in 1909 and had a baby the following year. Her husband bought her a Maxwell car for her birthday, and she decided to prove that women could drive by crossing the country.
The trip started on June 9, 1909, in Manhattan and ended on August 7 in San Francisco. They covered 3,800 miles, which is an impressive feat even today, given that our roadways are far better maintained than they were over 100 years ago.
Alice Inez Young:
While working at GM in the 1940s, Alice Inez Young became the first female engineer hired by any major automaker. She initially worked as an office secretary before being promoted to engineering assistant — despite having no engineering training.
Her talent in technical writing would eventually lead her to become an editor for the company’s service manuals.
Margaret Wilcox:
In 1893, Margaret Wilcox patented a car heater that used hot air from under the engine to warm up a vehicle’s interior cabin. It wasn’t until 1939 that electric heaters were used on automobiles.
Conclusion:
The history of women in transportation is more extensive than most people may realize. But because so many different modes of transportation developed at other times across different cultures, this history is also more complex than most people realize.
These brave women helped shape the future and make it a little more equal for everyone. They are pioneers whose work still contributes to the world today.
Hopefully, the information provided here has been informative and has shed some light on the subject. The following list of references is a good starting point for anyone interested in learning more about what women did in the history transportation.