PDA

View Full Version : First woman to receive drivers license Massachusetts?


Kooldudette
Mar 24, 2011, 04:58 AM
Who was the first woman to receive a driver's license in Massachusetts?

RickJ
Mar 24, 2011, 07:18 AM
Some might say that the answer is Anne Rainsford French Bush.

... but it may also be urban legend...

FIRST - Woman Licensed to Drive in America - First of its Kind on Waymarking.com (http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMEJ5_FIRST_Woman_Licensed_to_Drive_in_America)

matthewfamtree
Feb 12, 2012, 10:56 PM
Anne Rainsford French Bush did receive a driver's license in 1900 but was issued in Washington D.C. so I wonder what year Massachusetts first issued a license to a woman and was it to my grandmother Alva M. Chisholm?

BobSnipes
Dec 1, 2012, 06:43 AM
I found this website in an effort to confirm what I had heard from my aunt, now deceased: "Her mother was so radical and had the first driver's license from Massachusetts issued to a female." She was referring to my grandmother Alice Carpenter's mother, Esther Cowan Carpenter. I believe I also remember hearing that Alice carried a gun! The two of them live in a boarding house together at the time of the 1900 census, having moved there in 1895. I will continue my attempt to verify this.

BobSnipes
Dec 1, 2012, 06:45 AM
I found this website in an effort to confirm what I had heard from my aunt, now deceased: "Her mother was so radical and had the first driver's license from Massachusetts issued to a female." She was referring to my grandmother Alice Carpenter's mother, Esther Cowan Carpenter. I believe I also remember hearing that Alice carried a gun! The two of them live in a boarding house together at the time of the 1900 census, having moved there in 1895. I will continue my attempt to verify this. Actually, it was Esther, the mother who allegedly was armed!