Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age

by Virginia Scharff

The twentieth-century rise of the automobile collided head on with Victorian prescriptions for the proper role and place of women in society. Gender conventions cast women as too weak, dependent, and flighty to manage the fiery motored beast. Overcoming that stereotype was as difficult for women as gaining access to the vote, the professions, and education, yet their personal feats of driving in both war and peace demolished the gender barriers against their taking the road. After women proved once and for all that they could drive under the worst conditions in World War I, they adapted the automobile to their domestic roles in urban society during the 1920s. Written with flair and verve, this volume displays Scharff's erudition in social, cultural, gender, and technological history.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, American History

231 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1991

About the author

VIRGINIA SCHARFF grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and fell in love with history at an early age. Her picaresque academic career began as a member of the first class of women to spend their undergraduate years at Yale University, before heading west, to grow up with the country. She lived in California, Wyoming, Arizona, Colorado, and Texas, where she studied journalism and history and earned her Ph.D. at the University of Arizona. She now serves as Professor of History and Director of the Center for the Southwest at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and also as Women of the West Chair at the Autry National Center of the American West, in Los Angeles.

Virginia’s academic honors include being named Beinecke Research Fellow in the Lamar Center for Frontiers and Borders at Yale University (2008-9), a Fellow of the Society of American Historians, and Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. She was President of the Western History Association for 2008.

A few years ago, Virginia decided to take the plunge into novel writing. Under the name of VIRGINIA SWIFT, she is author of four mystery suspense novels set in the American West, featuring professor and country singer “Mustang Sally” Alder: Brown-Eyed Girl (2000), Bad Company (2002), Bye, Bye, Love (2004), and Hello, Stranger (2006).

Reviews

[Thomas Thorsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based on this book I would have been the most feminine man in the 1920s

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Virginia Scharff was the first historian to look closely at women and the early days of the automobile. She tells a great story that most of us are not aware of. Cars are generally associated with masculinity so it was interesting to read about exceptions to the rule.

[Essie Bee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ultimate history of early women motorists in the United States.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read, but longer than it needed to be.