'Women Drivers'

June 1880: A runaway occurred three miles west of Lawrenceville in which three persons were pretty badly bruised.  They were L Gosnell, Miss Callie Ackman and Mrs. H S Ruddy.  Th horse took a hurried walk, and in some mysterious manner the buggy fell to pieces.   Mrs. R jumped out and received bruises and a badly sprained wrist.  Miss Ackman was thrown out and badly bruised on one side.  The driver was skinned up.  The untamed steed was found lying on his back in a deep ditch a few minutes after the cloud of dust had drifted from the calamitous field.

Dear women readers:  Did you ever stop to think that if your female ancestors  wanted to go someplace either they had to harness their own horse and buggy or if they lived in town, go to the livery stable and “rent” one for their trip. 'Women drivers' took on a whole new meaning.  Women would drive 7 or 8 miles to market with vegetables or loads of hay in a wagon and they would take their babies out for a ride whenever they could get hold of a horse and buggy. Probably a great many of them could handle a horse much better than their husbands, but still men didn’t believe they could drive. 

This is a condescended version of an article about women drivers found in the Rural Republican: June 1880

An old livery man was asked about women drivers:

“Can women drive, and do you let them handle your best horses?” were the questions put to a good-natured old livery keeper.  “Drive” answered the letter out of equines, “I should think they could, but as for letting them our best horses that is another manner.  We have horses in our stables that men could drive. We keep what we call safe horses for ladies’ use, the kind that will go anywhere if you just guide them. Old family nags sensible enough to trot along and mind their own business and not fret if they are pulled two ways at once.”

“Do you object to women driving?”  “No indeed. We have from 12 to 15 ladies a week come to us for horses, and we give them good ones too, but somehow women fret horses when they drive them, so we don't care to give them high spirited animals.  Now look at that sorrel,” pointing to one from whom the harness had just been removed. “I let that horse this morning to a bit of a woman with wrists no bigger than my 2 fingers. I didn't want to let it go because it's such an ugly puller. I told her it had a mouth like iron, but she said she wanted to take an old aunt that was visiting  to see the town and she drove off quietly enough, but half an hour later I saw her coming down Main Street, like a streak of lightning, everybody running to get out of the way and the old aunt hanging on for dear life.  She just had the lines wound around those little wrists and braced her feet on the dashboard and when she came to a corner she just whisked around it on one wheel.  The rig came in all right, but that horse won't get its breath for a week.”

"Do twomen drivers often meet with accidents or have smashups?" “No. It is curious, but a woman will take a team through hairbreadth escapes and bring it back alright. We have any amount of trouble with men to take our best rigs, get on a spree, and break things all to pieces. A woman is either more cautious or she will call upon every man in sight to help her out of a scrape.  They are more apt to lose their heads in a crowd or collision but there is most always some special provision at hand to help them.  You notice the most dangerous runaways happen when some man has the reins.”

Further talk developed the fact that women had a settled dislike to learning the proper names for harness. If compelled to divest a horse of its trappings they would undo every buckle in the service which the intelligent beast would submit to, as if charmed by being steadily talked to during the process in the witching tones of a woman's voice.

All of this may be a libel on the sex but it is certainly true that when an old family horse with a 10-minute gait comes seesawing down the street with a comically restless air of running away, a woman's head looks out from under the buggy top, a woman's hand guides this steed in its eccentric orbit, and the woman's voice shouts in a distinct tone “whoa”, at the same time that the reins are jerked and the whip applied, while pedestrians send to the sidewalk in terror.  However liable a woman is to run over a cow or streetcar, she will always stop or turn out for a baby. This is one of the instincts of her maternal heart. And so ended the interview with the old livery man.