Article ID: CBB840602919

Born to drive: Elderly women’s recollections of early automotive experiences (December 2019)

unapi

It is estimated that in the years leading up to the Second World War, less than one quarter of USA women held driver’s licenses. Due to the absence of data on women’s automotive participation prior to 1963, what is known about the female motorist of this era is limited. While feminist historians have painstakingly recovered the woman driver through traditional research methods, there remains an absence of first-hand accounts of women’s automobile experience. This paper calls upon the narratives of 21 elderly women to provide new insight into women’s automotive history. These rich oral histories not only fill in the gaps about what is known about women and cars, but examined through the lens of Portelli’s “living voices”, reveal how automotive experiences affected women’s lives in the past, and how the meaning of those experiences has been remembered and reconstructed over time.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB840602919/

Similar Citations

Book Katherine J. Parkin; (2017)
Women at the Wheel: A Century of Buying, Driving, and Fixing Cars (/isis/citation/CBB324810072/)

Book Roger Gilles; (2018)
Women on the Move: The Forgotten Era of Women's Bicycle Racing (/isis/citation/CBB063884412/)

Chapter Margaret Walsh; (2015)
Gender and American Mobility: Cars, Women and the Issue of Equality (/isis/citation/CBB740317380/)

Article Alexia Sofia Papazafeiropoulou; (2020)
Eve at the Steering Wheel: Female Representations in Greek Motoring Magazines from the 1950s to the 1980s (/isis/citation/CBB490540013/)

Book Clarsen, Georgine; (2008)
Eat My Dust: Early Women Motorists (/isis/citation/CBB001031337/)

Book Smith, Sidonie; (2001)
Moving Lines: Twentieth-Century Women's Travel Writing (/isis/citation/CBB000101800/)

Thesis Wilson, F.J.H.; (2012)
The Origins and Professional Development of Chiropractic in Britain (/isis/citation/CBB001567412/)

Article Mote, C. D.; (Winter 2020)
Ruth Davis, Tech Pioneer (/isis/citation/CBB315440638/)

Chapter Stephan, Karl David; (1999)
Technologizing the home: Mary Pennington and the rise of domestic food refrigeration (/isis/citation/CBB151020543/)

Chapter Dufner, D.; Otterson, L.; (1999)
Integrating technology into the mission of a women's center: creating a women's community with technology (/isis/citation/CBB791696771/)

Article Fenster, Julie M.; (2020)
Josephine Cochrane, Inventor of the Dishwasher (/isis/citation/CBB150167539/)

Chapter Thomas, Sue; (2002)
Correspondence (/isis/citation/CBB001180310/)

Article Wolverton, Mark; (Winter 2020)
Female Computers, Unsung Heroes of World War II (/isis/citation/CBB478109652/)

Article Mohun, Arwen P.; (1997)
Laundrymen construct their world (/isis/citation/CBB001180917/)

Article Kornweibel, Theodore, Jr.; (Fall/Winter 2009)
“Not at all proper for women” (/isis/citation/CBB535534261/)

Authors & Contributors
Stimmel, Carol L.
Otterson, L.
Parkin, Katherine J.
Shetterly, Margot Lee
Fenster, Julie M.
Alexia Sofia Papazafeiropoulou
Concepts
Women and technology
Women
Automobiles
Women and Work
Conference proceedings
Technology and gender
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
Modern
21st century
20th century, late
20th century, early
Places
United States
Great Britain
Greece
New York (U.S.)
Institutions
Pratt & Whitney Company
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment