While
researching an article for my other other blog Digging the Dust on
dangerous hair accessories for automobiling females, I came across this Wikipedia entry for Dorothy Levitt,
described as the “fastest woman on earth”.
And
here is yet another ground-breaking woman of whom I knew nothing
previously and despite quite a few links on that Wikipedia page it
seems she has not yet warranted a full biography.
A
couple of years ago, the documentary Penelope Keith and the Fast Lady was made by BBC4 but it doesn’t seem to have had world-wide
distribution as I certainly would have watched if I had ever known
about it.
Dorothy
seems to have made her name mostly with automobiles, but hidden away
among reports about her is the fact that she set the world’s first
water speed record. Various American newspapers reported on her
enthusiastically, as in this article from the Los Angeles Herald of
January 6 1907 in which she lays down the gauntlet to American women
to challenge her. (To read the full enlarged text, follow this Chronicling America link.)
And this other one from The Minneapolis Journal of 25 November, 1906, that features her water speed record as well. (Again, read the enlarged text in full at Chronicling America.)
Also note the bizarre torpedo-like invention down in the right hand corner to make women swim faster!
Rather than repeat what many other bloggers have already written about
Dorothy Levitt, here are several links that will tell you more:
Rootschat
(her genealogy)
A
reprint of Dorothy’s book The Woman and the Car
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