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Eat My Dust: Early Women Motorists
Eat My Dust presents women's contributions to early automotive historyI've always known that many cars built in the early 1900's required that the driver have some upper body strength, a trait not generally associated with women. There was no power steering, and the starter usually required a hand crank to generate a spark. Still, auto manufacturers that used the slogan "So simple even a women can drive it" (or some similar statement) seem a bit too condescending, even decades before the women's suffrage movement began. So, when I started to read "Eat My Dust: Early Women Motorists," I was hopeful that a new light might be shown on women's contributions to early automotive history. The first page of the introduction offered just such enlightenment. Apparently in 1888 in Mannheim, Germany, Bertha Benz became the first person to drive an automobile on a social journey. Her 60-mile trip to visit her mother provided the right stimulus encouraging investment dollars in the production of the Benz automobile. The story of Frau Benz along with many others show how early women motorists "claimed a degree of worldliness as technological actors, challenging notions of female technological ineptitude and automotive naivete," according to author Georgine Clarsen. "Together these small-scale stories of particular women in specific places tell a much larger story of how automobiles were incorporated into twentieth-century women's aspirations for major social change--for independence, mobility, meaningful work, and pleasurable lives." One early example was Hilda Ward, who was determined to maintain her motoring independence and gained the necessary mechanical knowledge. In fact, she wrote a book titled "The Girl and the Motor" describing her educational journey to maintain her own car. Then there were those women who proved their prowess in mechanical innovation. For example, a group of middle-class British women manufactured a car called the Galloway. It was dubbed by one contemporary commentator as "a car made by ladies for others of their sex." Women also helped educate other women about the pleasures of motoring. In 1904, for example, Mrs. A. Sherman Hitchcock wrote about the "fascination" and "vast pleasure" of driving and not merely being a passenger. Ideally, for me, more stories about the women behind the wheel make for more interesting reading. But, for anyone wanting to fully understand early automotive history, this book is a necessary read. Peruse Eat My Dust: Early Women Motorists at Amazon.com. Back to: Book Review – reviews of current and other auto-related books
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