Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
Mary Millicent Miller (1846-1894) was a maritime transportation pioneer who started out life in Louisville, Kentucky, as the daughter of a steamboat engineer. She set upon a career path similar to her father’s after she married a riverboat operator named George Miller. Using a steamboat called the Saline, the couple regularly transported passengers and freight... Continue Reading →
Sarah Clark Kidder (c. 1839-1933) was the first woman in the world to run a railroad. Her husband John Flint Kidder, whom she married in 1870, became president of the California-based Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad (NCNGRR) in 1884. After he died in 1901, Sarah – who now found herself in control of three-fourths of... Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
Transportation History 