# Were Women Always Allowed to Drive (in the U.S.)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 20, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-women-always-allowed-to-drive-in-the-u-s/647824 "2013-01-20T19:02:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-women-always-allowed-to-drive-in-the-u-s/647824/21 "2013-01-23T01:47:17Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > You may also note that a large variety of activities became “liberation” issues for the young women of the 1920s, smoking and driving among them. For THESE things, of course, the companies making automobiles and cigarettes were well aware that they would only make half as much money if half the population couldn’t use their products without facing disapproval. One of the early exercises in PR by [Edward Bernays](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays) was to make it OK for women to smoke in public, on behalf of the American Tobacco Company… However, I don’t think it was ever actually _de jure_ illegal for women to smoke in the US in the sense that they could be prosecuted for it as a criminal offense. The issue was that it was _socially_ frowned upon as unladylike. ---
**Author:** ![steviep24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f9b8f/32.png) [@steviep24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steviep24)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-women-always-allowed-to-drive-in-the-u-s/647824/22 "2013-01-23T01:55:28Z")
> [@Sevencl](#): > > Seriously? Those old hand cranked things? What’d they do for gas? I mean, surely there weren’t gas stations and truck stops every few miles like now? And if you broke down in the wilderness between states you didn’t exactly have a cell phone to call AAA. [AAA](http://westerncentralny.aaa.com/news-room/quick-facts) was founded in 1900. Contacting them when you needed help was another story. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-women-always-allowed-to-drive-in-the-u-s/647824/23 "2013-01-23T05:08:31Z")
Clay McShane’s excellent book on early automobility, _Down the Asphalt Path,_ devotes a chapter to the “Gender Wars” of the period. Though he quotes intemperate statements from legislators and judges, no state appears to have seriously considered only licensing men or forbidding women to drive. [Here are the relevant pages,](http://books.google.com/books?id=hoFKI-yodUQC&pg=PA158) thanks to Google Books. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-women-always-allowed-to-drive-in-the-u-s/647824/24 "2013-01-23T05:18:10Z")
> [@steviep24](#): > > [AAA](http://westerncentralny.aaa.com/news-room/quick-facts) was founded in 1900. Contacting them when you needed help was another story. and don’t forget that one of the first big pushes for good roads was from the League of American Wheelmen, in the 1890s. They were bicyclists. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-women-always-allowed-to-drive-in-the-u-s/647824/25 "2013-01-24T01:54:23Z")
Gah! I don’t remember details now, but I once researched federal spending on infrastructure. I vaguely remember that the first federal money spent on roads was through a mail delivery act. The money was used to pave rural roads to allow regular mail delivery, I assume to rural post offices. I think it was about 1920. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-women-always-allowed-to-drive-in-the-u-s/647824/26 "2013-01-24T04:16:47Z")
^In 1912, but only 450 miles were improved under that statute. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-women-always-allowed-to-drive-in-the-u-s/647824.md?page=1)