A Newark woman's plea: a place "reserved for women" at Weequahic Park

Lake and Boat Landing, Weequahic Park, Newark, N.J.

A Newark woman's plea: a place "reserved for women" at Weequahic Park

Location: Weequahic Park, Elizabeth and Meeker Avenue, Newark, New Jersey, USA

Opened/Closed: plea was published on July 29, 1917

Once in a while, I happen to find a womyn's space that was never "lost" as such because it (apparently) never came into three-dimensional existence. But for a time, the womyn's space did exist in the hearts and minds of women who fervently wished for such a space to come into being.

One of these women was very eloquent writer named Olive, who desired nothing more than just "a small part" of Weequahic Park reserved for women.

From the Newark Sunday Call, July 29, 1917:

Oh, for a Manless Lodge in Some Park Wilderness

Here is a copy of a plea sent by a Newark woman to the Essex County Park Commission and gallantly considered by it at a recent meeting.

---

Would it be possible for you to have a part, a small part, of your park at Weequahic lake reserved for women? The signs say that no dogs are allowed at large in the parks: perhaps some signs could read, "No men allowed on these walks," those surrounding the park that you assign to women. Surely if dogs are excluded altogether, degenerates might be barred from certain portions of a public park.

Broad and Market Streets, Newark, New Jersey (1912)

There are women who like to be alone, who love the trees and the winds and the scents of the earth; who have no view which is not obstructed with red tin roofs or yards never free from lines of drying clothes; who need, for the peace of their souls and nerves, one quiet hour in the air; who need to flee the victrola belt where everyone has raised a piano to be a pianola which plays "America, I Have a Boy for You" and "The Wor-r-ld Will be Jea-lous of Me-ee," interspersed with eight hours of "classical exercises," "executed" under one hundred eighty pounds of pressure. 

It would not inconvenience many men if you allotted us a small part of the park. We are restricted from a few walks in New Jersey, freely given to men--the franchise for example. But just because the law classes us with degenerates and imbeciles do we have to have our confreres-in-law forcing their attentions upon us the minute we dare to be so unconventional as to sit under a tree in a public park at 3 o'clock on a bright afternoon, alone? I know that your commission will see that we are not further annoyed. 

Here is a wonderful day. But would I dare to go to Weequahic Park with only my knitting for protection?  Even I, who am considered bold and daring and rash, would not risk it.

View of Lake Weequahic Park,
Newark, N.J. (1909)

The memory of such insolence as I endured last Monday is still with me, and I sit on a screened porch and listen to my neighbor's "musics" and the swish of the winter's coal being shot into their collars--while the park is quiet and green and desirable.

Please! There aren't many of us who know we need outdoors. Those willow trees near Elizabeth avenue have a nice, quiet open spot.         

OLIVE

This was the editor's fairly sympathetic (if somewhat patronizing) response:

What is a woman to do who wants to be alone now and then, somewhere outdoors, and in a big city, and the men won't let her alone? The question has a jocular tang to it, but it is taken very seriously by some Newark women, and mere man himself can not but feel there is logic to "Olive's" plea to the park commission.

The parks belong to the people. Are women people? If not, will they become people when they get the vote, and may they then call for and obtain the enactment of laws setting aside spots in parks for the use and enjoyment of their sex exclusively? Man answers, "No, certainly not, it would be contrary to the spirit of American democracy;" and woman makes reply that some men are altogther too democratic and man-made laws do not properly keep them in bounds. The park commission is said to be informally contemplating play places for little girls, apart and distinct from those for little boys. If it can do this logically, why may it not properly provide a recreation space for the big girls? It is an absorbing subject the further you go into it.

The park commission side-stepped the crux of the question and informed "Olive" that its policeman would try and afford her protection. But the commissioners and "Olive" and all of us know that her protection would exist only so long as the policeman stood guard over her. Some form of genus homo would appear and the ancient annoyances which the daughters of Eve have had to endure since ever the gates of the Garden of Eden swung open on their hinges would be resumed.

What's to do about it anyway?

How long must civilization struggle onward and upward before "Olive" and her kind may gaze upon a happy earth dotted with little "Houses of Refuge," in the open, where none but feminine voices may be heard mingling with the other and tuneful sounds of nature, where the wicked shall cease from troubling and the women be at rest? It will be aeons hence, we are afraid, and we say it with a pensive regret. Anything that woman wants should, if good for her, be granted. And would not the "Retreat for  Man-Wear/Woman" be good for her, and, maybe for the rest of us too? If she wishes to flee from man, man should put nothing in her way to prevent. But the law, democracy, the sociological fitness of things are grave problems to get around or over. Can any thoughtful reader suggest a way? How inspiring to contemplate: a place under the willows along Elizabeth avenue with women, women only, in ones and twos and threes, sitting, strolling, knitting and gossiping, with the rest of the world gazing from afar off upon this new spectacle of the untrammeling  of womanhood. Certainly no innovation that is within the power of President Franklin Murphy and his associates to devise and create would attract so vast and so curious public attention.--Ed.

This was not the only effort from this era to establish space within an American public park for women. Also see this initiative to provide a similar safe space in Kansas City's Budd Park in 1916.

Garage for Women Only (London 1966)

Poster for Automobile Show at
New York Colisseum (1966)

Garage for Women Only

Location: London, England

Opened/Closed: Around 1966

Almost 50 years separate the Garage for Women Only (London 1929) from this garage in Golders Green, which was located in London's Borough of Barnet. Two whole generations.

Notice that a women-only garage is still treated as a lark, however. It's as if the earlier garages for women only had never existed. Typical of the cultural amnesia we often see with womyn's spaces.



Golders Green Road (1960)



Also pick up how different this place is in overall feel--not only from the London 1929 garage, but from the Paris 1926 and Boston 1921 garages. Instead of Sisters Doing It For Themselves, it's more like a variation of the Feminine Mystique. No evidence of women's leadership or initiative in starting this garage, no evidence that women are going to be trained or employed as mechanics. No creative rethinking on how an automobile repair business might better serve women customers from a woman's point of view.

On the contrary, the only defined role for women in this venture is the role of passive consumer of automobile repair services. And in that role they are treated in a thoroughly patronizing manner. The (male?) mechanics are to be trained in "the feminine psychology" because women supposedly have a "different attitude than men about motor problems." Really? If your car stalls out, just how would the sex of the driver enter into the required repairs? Whatever happened to the basics: efficient, effective, affordable, and courteous service? Instead, it looks like women were meant to get a pat on their bouffant hairdo, and a smarmy, "Don't worry your pretty little head about that nasty knocking noise, dolly. We'll take care of it." Barf.

Generally speaking, by 1966, the first wave of the women's movement had long run out of steam and the second wave was just starting to stir. But that's pretty obvious, isn't it?

From the Miami News, March 14, 1966:

Women-Only Garage

LONDON (WNS) -- An automobile garage for women customers only has opened in the fashionable suburb of Golders Green. The management explains that women have a different attitude than men about motor problems and the care of cars.

Mechanics have been specially trained to understand and be sympathetic to the feminine psychology.

Garage for Women Only (Boston 1921)

Pauline Leiner (1921)

Garage for Women Only

Location: Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Opened/Closed: c. 1921

More than most, this is a pretty thorough description of a very early effort to open a women-only garage--very likely the first such venture in the United States. Instead of vague if intriguing generalities--as we had with the women-only garages in London (1929) and Paris (1926)--we actually have a real woman with a real name: Pauline Leiner. Not only that, but real, verifiable information on her life from other sources.

All the quotations below are pulled from an article in the Boston Daily Globe, August 21, 1921.

Let's permit the (unidentified) journalist  to introduce us to Miss Pauline Leiner as she was introduced to the newspaper readers of Boston. First off, note that we're collectively reassured that she really is "feminine"--in case you were overly burdened by such concerns--and that she's "not the type of person" you would confuse with a male mechanic:

GARAGE FOR WOMEN ONLY AND WITH ONLY WOMEN MACHINISTS

There the Woman Who Wants to Tinker Her Own Car Can Get as Dirty as She Likes, With No Male to Offer Advise

"Why shouldn't a woman make a success of managing a garage?" This was the challenge offered a few days ago to a representative of the Sunday Globe by Miss Pauline Leiner, who is presently to occupy this rather unusual business niche.

Miss Leiner is not the type of person you would associate with jumpers and cotton waste and grease cups or the ideosyncrasies of manifolds or carburetors. She's small and poised, with soft black hair, with more than a suggestion of something sensitively feminine about her. In the hazel eyes there is a hint of amusement and in the slow drawl the merest hint of pride at being the first woman in the country, so far as anyone knows, to assume the managership of such an, one might almost say, unromantic place as a garage.

But behind the drawl and the slight amusement in the eyes there is evidently a determination to lay firm young hands on this unexpected business and to make a go of it. As she says, "Why shouldn't a woman make a success of it?"

So how did Pauline Leiner get to the point where she had the knowledge, the background, and the confidence to venture into auto mechanics? Today we readily recall how the second World War opened up opportunities for American women in traditional male blue-collar occupations. We sometimes forget that the first World War had a similar impact. In particular, Leiner's service in the Motor Corps introduced her to the world of "skilled mechanics." Also take note of the all-women farm where Leiner apparently drove a tractor:

Miss Leiner is not a Boston girl, but in 1916 she came here from New York with friends and became drawn into all sorts of war-time activities. It was early in the days when the possibility that women might have to take the places of men in industrial work to be released for service was just beginning  to make itself felt.

Female drivers of the Motor Corps,
East Newton Street Armory, Boston

The motor corps was organized and in order to be eligible for service in such an organization it was imperative that recruits be skilled mechanics as well as trained chauffeurs. Miss Leiner thereupon took the
Y. M. C. A. automobile school and graduated.

But the influenza cut short her activities along this line and after convalescence, when the work of the motor corps was diminishing somewhat, she knew that she must do work which would keep her out doors.

The Westwood Land Unit was being built up and Miss Leiner seized her chance at its advantages, with the result that she learned what it was to work 12 hours a day on a farm where a crowd of young women did all the work normally done by men absent on different business.

Motor Corps of America (1919)

Miss Leiner has only recently finished a what you might call post-war engagement driving a tractor as well as having charge of a farm at Charles River Village.

Of course "the influenza" is a reference to the "Spanish Flu" pandemic of 1918, which killed between 20 and 40 million people worldwide.  

Apparently Leiner was to manage the new business with the backing of a (presumably male) Brookline garage proprietor. It seems he had become aware of the fact that over the war years, many women had assumed responsibility for automobile maintenance and repair. And while they were reluctant to turn all that back over to the men, they didn't especially want to "go into a regular ordinary garage run by men, put on overalls and go to work in full view by cynical eyes."

Plus, what we would identify as old-fashioned misogyny entered into it. The "sight of a woman tinkering with an automobile" brought out the "fair old devil" in their male co-workers, which was--in a colossal understatement-- a "little short of maddening for the woman." (I guess that's how we allude to sexual harrassment in 1921.) The solution? A garage for women only and with all-women mechanics, since "a stray male helper or two, obscure in position, would surely spoil the whole effect." It is reported that the all-women garage would be opened "within a month or two."

Pauline Leiner herself explains it best, and how, in terms of women, she was eager to "give 'em a place":

"The day is about gone, don't you think, for people to think any sort of work women may elect to do is queer? I drive an automobile and I'm only one of thousands of women.

"Time and time again I've had to stand around, waste time, become almost apoplectic from exasperation trying to get some simple adjustment made when, if I could lay my hand on a couple of tools and get the space to work in, I could have had the whole thing done in no time without bothering anyone, with no wear or tear on my own disposition.

"There are, I'm confident, any number of women who just wish they had some place where they could look out for their own cars. We're going to give 'em that place.

"For the woman who'd just as soon pitch in and get her hands greasy, if she has to, in order to get her car fixed speedily, or who like the 'feel' of tuning up the connections and all that--why, this--what you might call--Adamless Eden, where there won't be any gimlet-eyed males staring supercilliously and exclaiming, 'That ain't th' way you do it, ma'am."

Of course there is the mandatory lame joke--something about jacks decorated with pink ribbons--so it's no surprise that the reporter found Leiner "extremely reticent about any decorative factors." But we do find out the following regarding the garage facility as she envisioned it:

There is a large room with a fireplace, which will be utilized as a lounge and waiting room, which is to be decorated somehow, but I don't believe it will be with pink ribbons or anything sticky.

The building will have telephones everywhere. Miss Leiner is a woman. She knows that women always want to telephone someone, no matter where they are.

There will be lockers where patrons may keep working jumpers and such paraphernalia as they require for the hours when they retire from the world and become immersed in the interiors of greasy engines.

I asked her if she anticipated any difficulty in finding girls or women fitted, mechanically, to take the positions held in garages by men. "Not at all. There are too many women, just like me, who became skilled mechanicians during the war and who, I believe, would welcome a chance to enter a work about which there is a fascination, you know."

I haven't found a lot about Pauline Leiner apart from this article, but this is what I do know. She was born on April 27, 1895. The supposed "drawl" in her voice? That may have been from her father, who was born in Louisiana (her mother was born in New York). In 1920, at the age of 25, Leiner was living in a boardinghouse in Needham, Massachusetts and working as a gardener. She was single, never married, and would remain single her entire life. I'm not sure how long she stayed in the auto mechanics field, but at some point she returned to agriculture. When she retired, she was a manager of a dairy farm on Millbrook Road in Litchfield, Connecticut. She died on July 14, 1997 at the age of 102.

Garage for Women Only (Paris 1926)

Woman and Car (1926)

Garage for Women Only

Location: Paris, France

Opened/Closed: 1926

Note that this Parisian woman-only garage predates its London counterpart by a good three years. Although to be perfectly fair, this article only states that this garage is "being constructed," so it was obviously not yet complete and ready for business.

From the Rochester Evening Herald, July 17, 1926:



Garage for Women Only Is Proposed In Paris

By International News Service

PARIS, July 19--A garage for women only is being constructed in one of the most aristocratic quarters in Paris. The growing number of women who drive their own cars has brought about the necessity of such a building.

The ladies say they prefer to park their cars where there are no men. The mechanicians [sic], cleaners, etc. will be of the fair sex, but very likely wearing men's clothing.

Of course the comforts will include manicures, and a very modern hair-dressing parlor where Madame may "make over" her beauty when she returns from the promenade.

The London garage projects an almost earnest quaintness by comparison with its "solemn" dedication ceremony and Victorian amenities (i.e. ladies' writing room). By contrast, the Parisian garage comes across as aggressively chic and modern, and oozing all the glamor trappings of the New Woman (i.e. manicures, hair-dressing parlor). In some ways, it's almost TOO over the top. The Parisian garage seems less like a sisterly business endeavor than an erotically charged encounter between a high maintenance femme customer base and a score of overall-clad butch "mechanicians" (the London garage accounts totally play down this aspect of its operations).

If we pick up this vibe, we're not necessarily imagining it. By the 1920s, Paris already boasted a well-developed lesbian subculture. In addition, these were the years when Le Monocle, one of the oldest lesbian nightclubs, opened for business. And Le Monocle was defintely a butch-femme kind of place. So it certainly appears that this garage may have been one of the many lesbian-oriented "specialized same-sex establishments" that opened in Paris during those years.

And how many newspaper readers in Rochester, New York picked up on all this over their morning coffee?

Garage for Women Only (London 1929)

Chevrolet ad (1928)

Garage for Women Only

Location: London, England

Opened/Closed: c. 1929

I have found four articles referring to this garage. These were in the Hartford Courant (pay per view), Milwaukee Sentinel, Baltimore Sun (pay per view), and the Spartanburg Herald (North Carolina). This is the version from the Herald.

GARAGE FOR WOMEN ONLY

A garage for the sole use of women autoists has just been opened by women in London. A club devoted to feminine needs is a feature. Here fair motorists have writing rooms and dressing and change rooms with bathrooms adjoining. Women auto enthusiasts recently dedicated the place with solemn ceremony.

A couple of things stand out for me as really remarkable about this garage. Note how this garage was opened not just FOR women but BY women, and how it predates the second wave of the women's movement by a good two generations or so. Also notice the fabulous devotion to customer service. Not only is the woman auto enthusiast likely to get high quality mechanical work on her vehicle along with respectful personal treatment (something women STILL say is lacking at many garages), but you still get all the traditional Victorian amenities like a ladies' writing room! Just in case you're moved to scribble down a sonnet or two while waiting for that crankshaft to get fixed. Can't beat it! Wish I could take in my Nissan for a much overdue oil change...

Reeves Hotel

48 Shepherds Bush Green today

Reeves Hotel

Location: 48 Shepherds Bush Green, London, England

Opened: Incorporated June 1987

Closed: Dissolved February 1998

Here's the write-up from the Glasgow Herald, July 28, 1989:

Carol conquers the hassle of hotels and the single girl, by opening her own

Fifteen months ago Carol Reeves launched London's first women-only hotel (L42 with breakfast) and already more than a thousand women have passed through the doors, establishing a steady clientele which includes several Glasgow businesswomen.

Situated in West London, with easy access of Heathrow airport, Reeves emphasizes security, good lighting, and an all-female environment. It is, in fact, illegal to ban men under the Sex Discrimination Act, but it would be a very determined one who would insist on accommodation here.

Carol Reeves (1989)

Carol launched the hotel because so many women like herself who travelled alone on business shared "a common disatisfaction with the service we received in hotels. You go to have a drink in the bar and you feel uncomforable because you are on your own. You are regarded with some suspicion, as a possible prostitute, especially in the big hotels, or you get hassle from men and in restaurants, or you are given the worst seats.

"These all sound like minor irritations but, put together, they build up into a general disatisfaction with the service women receive in hotels."

Reeves has only eight rooms, but there is an abundance of fresh flowers in all public rooms and bedrooms. More important, though, women are welcomed and they can relax in a secure, congenial environment.

All bedrooms have en-suite facilities along with extras such as body lotion, tampons and nail varnish, something which guests appreciate.

Further information from Reeves Hotel, 48 Shepherds Bush Green, London W 12 (01-740 1158). 

Not surprisingly, Reeves Hotel is cited at least once as a feminist meeting space. In March 1990, Feminists Against Censorship held a "discussion day" at Reeves Hotel, which is described as a "women's hotel in London."

It was also regarded as a safe place for lesbians, as it was listed at The Insider's London as "UK’s only women only hotel." Also at her2her, a German lesbian travel site.

Other than the basic legal incorporation information here, that's all I know.

Hotel Newell Cafe

48 Shepherds Bush Green today

Reeves Hotel

Location: 48 Shepherds Bush Green, London, England

Opened: Incorporated June 1987

Closed: Dissolved February 1998

Here's the write-up from the Glasgow Herald, July 28, 1989:

Carol conquers the hassle of hotels and the single girl, by opening her own

Fifteen months ago Carol Reeves launched London's first women-only hotel (L42 with breakfast) and already more than a thousand women have passed through the doors, establishing a steady clientele which includes several Glasgow businesswomen.

Situated in West London, with easy access of Heathrow airport, Reeves emphasizes security, good lighting, and an all-female environment. It is, in fact, illegal to ban men under the Sex Discrimination Act, but it would be a very determined one who would insist on accommodation here.

Carol Reeves (1989)

Carol launched the hotel because so many women like herself who travelled alone on business shared "a common disatisfaction with the service we received in hotels. You go to have a drink in the bar and you feel uncomforable because you are on your own. You are regarded with some suspicion, as a possible prostitute, especially in the big hotels, or you get hassle from men and in restaurants, or you are given the worst seats.

"These all sound like minor irritations but, put together, they build up into a general disatisfaction with the service women receive in hotels."

Reeves has only eight rooms, but there is an abundance of fresh flowers in all public rooms and bedrooms. More important, though, women are welcomed and they can relax in a secure, congenial environment.

All bedrooms have en-suite facilities along with extras such as body lotion, tampons and nail varnish, something which guests appreciate.

Further information from Reeves Hotel, 48 Shepherds Bush Green, London W 12 (01-740 1158). 

Not surprisingly, Reeves Hotel is cited at least once as a feminist meeting space. In March 1990, Feminists Against Censorship held a "discussion day" at Reeves Hotel, which is described as a "women's hotel in London."

It was also regarded as a safe place for lesbians, as it was listed at The Insider's London as "UK’s only women only hotel." Also at her2her, a German lesbian travel site.

Other than the basic legal incorporation information here, that's all I know.