Helen J. Owen, American WWI Ambulance Mechanic -- Women Drivers and Mechanics in WWI.

There are several sites to buy these photographs on the Internet, but I got them from the Library of Congress. My question is this -- who was Helen J. Owen? Where did she come from, and what was her life like after World War I? Where did she learn how to turn a wrench? Perhaps one can find out about her in files at the National Archives. Why her?

Photograph shows Helen J. Owen, an automobile expert for the Y.W.C.A. who drove ambulances in France during World War I, working on a car with a New York license plate dated 1917. (Source: Flickr Commons project, 2016)

Photograph shows women driver volunteers standing in front of automobiles during World War I, in England. (LC)

Photograph shows women seated at a long bench inspecting or assembling automotive engine components at a Lincoln Motor Co. plant in Detroit, Michigan, during World War I. (LC). Note the scowl on the male supervisor's face!

 Photograph shows Helen J. Owen, an automobile expert for the Y.W.C.A. who drove ambulances in France during World War I, with an automobile with a New York license plate dated 1918. (Source: Flickr Commons project, 2016)

World War I provided many opportunities for women, not only to drive ambulances and taxis, but also to demonstrate their abilities to organize, manage, and assist combat troops in France and at home. By then the suffrage movement was well underway, and to prove themselves, women participated in numerous acts of civil service for their country. During the war, women drove alongside men, and, for the time being, equality was the norm rather than the exception. Women had to “replace” men in almost all aspects of life, including servicing vehicles and taking on the role of a skilled mechanic. 

By necessity, they were forced to learn to repair vehicles, including military trucks. In a 1918 article titled, “Women Motor Mechanics for War-time Work,” a photograph of a woman working on a truck engine bore the caption, “Not Exactly a Woman’s Job, Perhaps, But These Patriotic Sisters Stop at Nothing When They Have Once Entered the Work.”³⁴To guide them in their repair activities, in 1918 a popular handbook was made available for women, The Care and Management of the Modern Motor-Car. Virginia Scharf concluded that “Although its tone was jocular and patronizing, it praised 400 female graduates of a YMCA school for mechanics who were as apt as men in ‘mastering the mechanical and technical details of a car’ and warned professional chauffeurs (all men) to expect an invasion of women drivers.”³⁵