Via Ozy we get the interesting story of Bertha Benz, the world's first female automobile pioneer ...
The story begins with this ...
It was still dark when Bertha sneaked out of the house with her two sons. She had to be very quiet to avoid waking her husband. If he had any idea what she was up to, he’d put a stop to it immediately. So the furtive trio silently pushed the world’s first automotive vehicle out of her husband’s workshop and down the road — before juicing it up and taking off.
Just 11 years earlier, in 1877, it seemed this day would never come, especially after a bailiff had come to their family home and taken everything. All the machines were seized and sold at an auction to cover claims made by a business partner. Carl Benz was left with a piece of land, his bare hands and his wife’s support, without which he might never have recovered … or invented the motorcar.
Bertha never gave up on her husband, and biographer Barbara Leisner is convinced that Bertha’s moral and financial support were essential to cars hitting the road. “Without her backing him up, Carl would have not been able to work on his inventions unsuccessfully for such a long time and come up with a working automotive [vehicle later],” Leisner says. Yet he’s the one who’s remembered as a genius, while his wife has become a historical footnote.You can read the rest of the story on Ozy here.
- Mark
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