Women At The Wheel

Denise McCluggage, trailblazing race car driver and journalist who smashed stereotypes about women as professional drivers. She was sportswriter for NY Herald Tribune and other publications and was key in popularizing auto racing as spectator sport.

She told her editors at the San Francisco Chronicle that she could cover races better if she were a participant, since females were not allowed in the pit! She won at the Connecticut Thompson Raceway and Florida Sebring 12-hour race. In the 60’s she raced all over the world winning Monte Carlo Rally in 64.

She started a publication that became AutoWeek magazine and wrote for it until her death in 2015. Denise McCluggage is the only journalist to have been inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.

Denise McCluggage, 2016, Encaustic, paint,acrylic letters on sheet metal with model of 1961 Ferrari, 12.25” x 12.5” x 5"

During WWII, African American women were finally employed in war-related industries in jobs previously closed to them. In the painting, workers are reconditioning spark plugs in a Buick plant making airplane engines in 1942. 5 million women entered the workforce between 1940-1945.

African American Auto Plant War Workers, 2015, Encaustic, wood, paint on sheet metal with steel shelf holding 1942 Champion Spark Plugs, 12.5"x14"

Florence Lawrence was America’s first movie star and inventor of the mechanical turn signal and brake light. She made her first film in 1906 and starred in over 300 more. She was crazy about automobiles and did all of her own mechanical work on them. By 1914 she invented a turn signaling arm and the first electric windshield wiper. She did not get patents for any of her inventions and died in poverty.

Florence Lawrence, 2015, Encaustic, paint, tondo panel on sheet metal with vintage stop brake light, 14” x 13.5” x 3”

Comes a time when everyone’s got to stand up and say that’s enough!” As UAW member, she worked for social justice, labor and civil rights. Her proudest achievement was being on the Michigan Task Force Against Sexual Harassment which resulted in the amendment of Michigan’s Elliott-Larson Civil Rights Act to include sexual harassment as illegal behavior.
Dottie Jones, Comes A Time, 2017, Encaustic, oil paint, brass tube, marble state seal of Michigan, 1966 UAW Member pin on sheet metal, 15”x 14” x 3 ¼”

This story is of an immigrant who became the first woman automotive designer. In 1940, Helene escaped Paris as the Germans marched in. She ended up in Casablanca in North Africa, but could not leave without an exit visa. There, she and her 7 year old daughter, Ina, spent two months in a displaced persons camp. Somehow the two of them made it to America.

Helene Rother, 2014, Encaustic, oil paint, wood on sheet metal panel with scale model of 1952 Nash, 16” x 12”x 7”

From the Great 1937 Sitdown Strike in Flint, came the “Joan of Arc of Labor.” At 23 she organized the Women’s Brigade, which provided food and stood with the Flint strikers. In 1945 union-busting wave of violence she was beaten with a lead pipe in her bed. She never wavered in her fight for labor, human rights and she is one of the foremothers of the Women’s Liberation Movement. People often think that courage is acting without fear. As I look at Genora's life, I see her courageously taking action, in spite of fear because for her, anything less would be capitulation.

Genora Dollinger, 2015, Encaustic, paint with steel pipe on sheet metal, 12.5” x 18” x 3.5”

Kay Petre was the first of 13 paintings for Women At The Wheel. I started with this gutsy race car driver who put wood blocks on the peddles so she could reach them. Like the other remarkable women in this series, she was fearless, determined and damn sure not to be relegated to riding shotgun in the history of the automobile.

She was the1 930’s star at the famous Brooklands Race Track in England. She hit speeds of up to 134.75 mph and won several races. The driving exploits of this 4’-10” woman caused a media sensation! In 1937, a race car lost control at high speed and clipped her from behind . She was pinned under the car and suffered near-fatal injuries. She didn’t let this stop her however, as she raced across Europe in events like the Alpine Rally and the Monte Carlo Rally. She had a second career as a motoring journalist and later worked for Austin as part of their design team.

Kay Petre, 2014, Encaustic, paint, marine varnish on sheet metal, 14” x 12” x 2”

Joan Newton Cuneo, was the first US female race car driver on cross country dirt roads and tracks in the earliest era of American motorsports. These cars had “no power steering and minimal suspension and brakes.” Between 1905 and 1915 she was a celebrity in a sport dominated by male drivers. “The media went wild. A tiny woman behind the wheel of a powerful car seemed absurd—but the fact that she could absolutely demolish the top talents of the day? Joan Cuneo was a force to be reckoned with.”

She set several national speed records until 1909, when AAA, the sponsor for auto racing, barred women from competing with men.

Joan Newton Cuneo continued to race in all women events and advocate for women drivers and for improving nationwide roads.

Joan Newton Cuneo, 2014, Encaustic, paint on sheet metal with scale-model 1904 Ford Model T, 12” x 12” x 1.5”

Nellie Goins is a love story about husband and children-everything else followed! Nellie married Otis at 16 and they had four children. Otis had a passion for cars and they bought a 68 Barracuda, but Otis could not drive it because he had diabetes. Knowing that he was heartbroken, she offered to drive the car. Nellie Goins is the first African-American woman drag car racer. In 1971, she made racing history when she used nitro-injected fuel! Hence her name “Nitro Nellie!”

Nitro Nellie Goins, 2015, Encaustic, paint on sheet metal with 1968 Barracuda fender plate, 12” x 12” x 1.5”

This Alabama girl was on a trolley in a 1902 NYC sleet storm. She watched the driver open the windshield double panes in order to see. She grabbed her notebook and sketched what was to become hand-operated windshield wipers. She got a patent and when tried to sell her invention, she was told that it was not of any commercial value.

Mary Anderson, 2014, Encaustic, paint, marker, windshield wipers on sheet metal, 12” x 15” x 1.75”

It is little known that the automobile played an important role for women’s right to vote. Women did automobile tours near and far to hand out pamphlets, host gatherings with speeches and songs. With their motor cars draped with slogans, the automobile became a mobile platform to draw attention to Suffrage.

In 1916, Nell Richardson and Alice Burke drove 10,700 miles round trip in their Saxon, from New York to California, sponsored by the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Their NY to San Francisco trip made headlines for Suffrage.

Suffragists: Nell Richardson & Alice Burke, 2016, Encaustic, paint on sheet metal with Saxon Motor Car ID Tag and women’s Victorian boots, 18” x 18” x 4.5”

The daughter of Polish immigrants became a chemist and went on to invent something that saves thousand of lives! In 1960’s, Kwolek was in the male dominated industrial chemistry field. She led a team trying to replace steel used in radial tires. Her team gave up, but she went on to convert solid polymer in to liquid, that when spun, created a stiff fiber called Kevlar. She signed the patent over to Dupont and spent the next 20 years in charge of polymer research.

Stephanie Kwolek, 2015, Encaustic, paint, wood on sheet metal, 18” x 12” x 3”

“Ladies have been turning wrenches since the dawn of automotive history." WW1 caused large scale automobile production. Women worked as ambulance and truck drivers, opened auto repair shops and taxi companies. They had driving schools and automobile clubs. Many women drove ambulances on the front lines and had to know how to repair/maintain them. When it came to automobiles, women wrote novels, advice manuals and newspaper articles.

WW1 Women Auto Mechanics, 2015, Encaustic, paint on sheet metal with authentic Model T tools, 14” x 12.5” x 3,”