1955 Speed with Safety

LOOK AT THE HIGHWAY ACCIDENT FIGURES after any weekend or holiday, and you might come to the conclusion that cars are mighty dangerous.  Not so, says Betty Skelton, 28-year-old auto-speed-record holder for women and only woman test driver in the automobile industry.  It's not cars that make life hazardous, Betty explains, but careless drivers.  Trouble is, she says, many of the people behind the wheel never really learned how to drive.  Betty currently is lecturing to youth groups all over the nation on safe driving habits.  She believes that every high school should have a thorough training program, instilling in the youngsters correct driving habits which will stick with them for life.

When Betty talks, young drivers-to-be prick up their ears.  They figure that anyone with so much experience behind the wheel must know the score.  She's the only woman licensed as a race driver by the American Automobile Association.  Last June, driving an experimental Dodge Firearrow at the Chrysler Proving Grounds, Chelsea, Mich., she streaked around the course to be officially clocked at 143.44 miles per hour, setting a world's speed record for women.

Dodge hired Betty as a test driver, not only because of her driving skill and technical experience, but also to learn what women may or may not like about any new model undergoing tests.  Betty arrives bright an dearly at the test site from her Detroit home, checks with engineers and mechanics on details of the car she is to test, makes a run, reports on performance, waits for changes and adjustments, then repeats the entire process. From the feminine point of view she makes suggestions on such matters as using the brake pedal while wearing high heels, possibility of snagging stockings, and ease of opening the trunk.

Photographs by Joe Clark and Jurgen Jacobsen for the American Magazine.

Article in American Magazine, May 1955 issue

1941 Compulsory Female Training - Mrs. Roosevelt's Plan

Uniforms for Defense Workers
Utility apron, working nurse, air-raid warden, dress uniform for air-raid warden, canteen dress, working nurse.

From TIME magazine, June 23, 1941

National Affairs

Mrs. Roosevelt's Plan

If boys are drafted, why not girls?  Mrs. Roosevelt sees no good reason why not.  Since the beginning of the depression she has often discussed with the President a cherished plan: drafting U.S. girls for a year of compulsory service.  Last week, like other citizens of the District of Columbia, Mrs. Roosevelt registered for voluntary civilian defense, and brought up again her plan for compulsory female training.

Compulsory as Mrs. Roosevelt's plan would be, it would not be drastic.  The draft would be only an extension of the girls' compulsory education.  Drafted girls between the ages of 18 and 24 would be placed on the same footing as men, given the same subsistence, same wages.  They would learn switchboard operation, nurses' aid, hospital work, buying and preparation of food, automobile driving, map reading, sewing, budgeting, as well as such mechanical skills as they wanted to learn.  Most girls would put in their year at home, would leave home only if they wanted some kind of training which they could not get at home (and if their parents were willing to let them go away).

When the draft bill was being planned last year, Mrs. Roosevelt kept telephoning the President from her Val Kill cottage to urge that her draft-women program be included.  If you are going to mobilize and train a nation, she argued, why leave out half the nation?  But the President knew, and said, that no Congressman would touch a bill containing compulsory training for girls.

Two months ago Mrs. Roosevelt brought up her plan in the Ladies' Home Journal.  It did not evoke overwhelming enthusiasm. In fact, most comment suggested that it scared the daylights out of U.S. men.  Last week, after registering as a defense volunteer, Mrs. Roosevelt went to Manhattan, there, at Mayor LaGuardia's request, examined prospective uniforms for volunteers, confessed "to a little confusion in thinking about uniforms before being entirely certain what work is to be done in them."  In short, although no one in the Government, from the President down, supported her in it, she was still set on getting U.S. women into the draft.