ABSTRACT
The image of ‘Rosie the Riveter’ is buried deep in American history as that of the heroic female worker meeting the nation’s needs in time of peril. In the long-distance bus industry in the USA women played a substantial part in keeping the buses moving. This chapter suggests new ways of considering a male-dominated business. In April 1922 Helen Schultz, a 24-year-old single woman, founded Iowa’s first intercity bus line. Inspired by the early motor-vehicle operations which she had seen while working in northern Minnesota and in California she decided to establish her own bus company in her home locale of northern Iowa. In 1978, 43-year-old Mrs Christiane Park joined Empire Trailways, Rochester, New York, as vice-president of finance. Empire Trailways was part of the nationwide association of independent bus companies which had coordinated their colour schemes and schedules in the 1930s to compete more effectively with the dominant bus corporation, Greyhound.
