motorette newspaper advertisement

World War II motorette advertisement

A newspaper ad recruiting women to operate streetcars, 1944.

photograph of a group of uniformed streetcar conductresses

Duluth streetcar conductresses

The Duluth Street Railway hired twenty-one women as streetcar conductors (or "conductresses," as they termed them) in 1918. Some of them posed outside the streetcar barn at Twenty-sixth Avenue West and Superior Street for this photo taken June 21, 1918.

World War II motorettes

Three of the first motorettes report for work at Nicollet Station, Thirty-first Street and Nicollet Avenue, Minneapolis, 1943.

photograph of two female streetcar operators

Female streetcar operators

This photo taken about 1918 is the only known picture of women who ran streetcars in Minneapolis during World War I. The numbers on the hats indicate that the one on the left is a conductor (even number) and that the one on the right is a motorette (odd number). The numbers imply that the women were based at the North Side Station, Twenty-fourth Avenue North and Washington Avenue, Minneapolis.

Motorettes

Before World War II, operating streetcars was considered a man’s job. A 1916 Twin City Rapid Transit (TCRT) report shows sixty-eight female employees out of a workforce of 4,300, and those few were telephone operators and clerical office workers.

Car stopped at Fifth-Sixth Station

Car stopped at Fifth-Sixth Station

Looking down the Incline at a car stopped at the Fifth-Sixth Street station, 1933.

Looking down the Incline from the top

Looking down the Incline from the top

Looking down the Incline from the top, with a car on the east track and Park Point in the distance, 1930s.

A couple posed in front of the top of the Incline station

A couple posed in front of the top of the Incline station

A couple poses in front of the top of the Incline station at Seventh Avenue West and Eighth Street, Duluth, with an Incline car meeting the connecting Highland streetcar, 1926.

Looking up the Incline from Superior Street.

Looking up the Incline from Superior Street.

Looking up the Incline from Superior Street. The Incline is as it appeared in the period 1911–1939.

View of the Incline and Central Hillside

View of the Incline and Central Hillside

View of the Incline and Central Hillside from a grain elevator on Rice's Point, c.1910.
Seventh Avenue West, Duluth

Creator: V. O. Hammon Publishing Company

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