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Paris Nouveau no. 2337 – Les Femmes Chauffeur

Source:
www.delcampe.net Item no.:13679704). Click here to view source.

Les Femmes Cocher / 115

Les Femmes Chauffeur / 4

Picture (left): Mme. Decourcelle, the horse-cab driver / chauffeur, driving a taxi in the Bois de Boulogne.

The first woman to apply for a London taxi license was Sheila O'Neill, in 1908. The Public Carriage Office frostily rejected her application ("Licenses to act as hackney carriage [cab] drivers are not granted to females.")

O'Neill, a former nurse who had served in South Africa during the Boer War, drove a hire car for a group of businessmen instead. Her hood ornament was a small metal policeman who faced the windshield with his hand raised, pointlessly commanding her to stop.

The first woman to drive a taxi in the U.S. may have been Natalie White, whose 1910 debut as a New York "chauffeuse" was widely reported.