Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
One of the more memorable motorcyclists during the 1910s -- an era that has been characterized as the Golden Age of American Motorcycling -- was a woman named Della L. Crewe. She was born in Wisconsin in 1884 and eventually made her way to Texas. By 1910, she was living in Waco and working there... Continue Reading →
Kathleen “Kate” Moore devoted most of her long life serving at the Connecticut-based Black Rock Harbor Light during an era in which lighthouse duties in the United States were generally handled by men only. Her father Stephen Moore became the keeper at the lighthouse, located on Fayerweather Island (just south of Bridgeport), in 1817. Kate,... Continue Reading →
Mary Anderson (1866-1953) was an entrepreneur who worked at various times during her long life as a rancher, real estate developer, and viticulturist (someone who grows grapes). In addition, the Alabama native made a major contribution to transportation by inventing the first practical windshield wiper. Anderson was inspired to create her version of this device... Continue Reading →
Anita King (1884-1963) was a silent-film star who achieved an additional measure of fame for establishing a transportation record. In 1915, King – at the time a Famous Players Film Company actress whose first film had been the Cecil B. De Mille western “The Virginian” – became the first woman to make a transcontinental solo... Continue Reading →
Ellen Church (1904-1965) was the first female flight attendant. The Iowa-born Church was a registered nurse and she also had a pilot’s license. While Boeing Air Transport (predecessor to United Airlines) would not give her a job as a pilot, it did hire her to serve as a flight attendant for the company’s planes. Church... Continue Reading →
During the late 19th century, Katherine T. “Kittie” Knox was a transportation pioneer who bravely confronted the era’s gender and racial barriers. Knox, who was born in 1874 to a white mother and African-American father, earned a living as a seamstress but found her passion in bicycling. Knox became a member of the Riverside Cycling... Continue Reading →
Olive Dennis (1885-1957) was an innovative and influential civil engineer in the U.S. railroad industry at a time when technical opportunities for women in that transportation sector were few and far between. Dennis, who was born in the Pennsylvania community of Thurlow and moved to Baltimore with her family when she was six, became only... Continue Reading →
By the late 1870s, more women than ever before were taking part in the then-popular pedestrian races in the United States. Several of the women participating in the sport achieved widespread fame and impressive records, but it was Amy Howard of Brooklyn, New York, who stood out as the era’s foremost and undisputed female walking... Continue Reading →
In 1922, Helen Mary Schultz of Iowa launched the first woman-owned bus line. Her enterprise, Red Ball Transportation Company, came into existence at a time when bus services were steadily growing as a means of mobility in the United States. Schultz, while working in various temporary jobs in California and Minnesota, closely observed motorized bus... Continue Reading →
Martha J. Coston made an important contribution to transportation by perfecting and bringing to market a system of maritime signal flares. The Baltimore native was married to Benjamin Franklin Coston, an aspiring inventor who experimented with color-coded night signals as an effective means for ships to communicate with each other and with people on shore.... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 