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Frau von Papp – give us your best title!
One of our readers found this picture in the journal 'De Prins', which was issued in 1907. The caption tells us that it was taken in Berlin and that the lady behind the wheel is Frau von Papp. After the death of her husband, a Hungarian lawyer, she found herself in difficult circumstances. To turn the tide, she decided to attend a chauffeurs' school. She passed her exam and was so in demand that she could earn enough to provide for her six children.
What a success story! Can you come up with a good title for this feature? Please comment below and send in your most creative sentence.
This picture was sent in by one of our readers. If you have also come across an interesting (mystery) photo which you would like to share with some other ladies and gentleman with a passion for PreWarCars. Please send it to office@prewarcar.com.
Published:
Friday June 4th, 2021
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Comments
Richard McDonough
07 June 2021, 05:49
"Good Lord! Next they'll be giving them the vote!"
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David Grimstead
04 June 2021, 15:51
“None but the fair deserve the fare,” a title which appeared, as did this photo, in several late 1907 London reports. Even some of those got her name wrong, adding an “e”. An Irish wag suggested “Frau von Pip-pip”.
Frau von Papp became a chauffeur earlier in 1907, employed by the Kaiserhof Hotel to drive private passengers in a Bedag Company “electro droschke”. She had to satisfy the police authorities of her competence to get that job and then complete more stringent tests to obtain a taxi-meter cab driver’s license, No. 3962, which she was awarded on the 31st October 1907. She wore the standard Berlin taxi-driver’s blue uniform and cap.
It was considered a joke apparently, to be described as a “feminine Automedon” (!?) but she made more than £6-worth of Marks on her first 10-hour (Sunday) night and the owners wanted to take on more high-earning lady cab drivers as a result, although they all soon changed their minds.
The fashion for Berlin’s (or indeed, Paris’s) lady taxi-drivers only lasted until January 1908 when Frau von Papp “retired”, as did her only colleague Frau Meta Ostzecha, who decided she was “unable to undergo the exertions, which the life of a cab-chauffeur entailed.” Being often subject to what the cab owners called “annoyances”, it seems they had to carry a costly minder. Another twenty women who applied were refused licenses by the police “on the ground that they were not sufficiently dexterous to handle a cab in the street without danger.”
Hence, Frau von Papp would be the first and the last woman Berlin cab driver for some time, making it not quite a success story.
Read more
Frau von Papp became a chauffeur earlier in 1907, employed by the Kaiserhof Hotel to drive private passengers in a Bedag Company “electro droschke”. She had to satisfy the police authorities of her competence to get that job and then complete more stringent tests to obtain a taxi-meter cab driver’s license, No. 3962, which she was awarded on the 31st October 1907. She wore the standard Berlin taxi-driver’s blue uniform and cap.
It was considered a joke apparently, to be described as a “feminine Automedon” (!?) but she made more than £6-worth of Marks on her first 10-hour (Sunday) night and the owners wanted to take on more high-earning lady cab drivers as a result, although they all soon changed their minds.
The fashion for Berlin’s (or indeed, Paris’s) lady taxi-drivers only lasted until January 1908 when Frau von Papp “retired”, as did her only colleague Frau Meta Ostzecha, who decided she was “unable to undergo the exertions, which the life of a cab-chauffeur entailed.” Being often subject to what the cab owners called “annoyances”, it seems they had to carry a costly minder. Another twenty women who applied were refused licenses by the police “on the ground that they were not sufficiently dexterous to handle a cab in the street without danger.”
Hence, Frau von Papp would be the first and the last woman Berlin cab driver for some time, making it not quite a success story.
Robert Barrie Walton
04 June 2021, 10:50
I really get P'd of with Nit Pickers for not picking enough P's. Are my eye deceiving me? , I see 2 P's in the title.
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Michael Schlenger
04 June 2021, 11:57
They have corrected the name after I pointed out that the name was spelled incorrectly (Pap instead of Papp). It just facilitates further research, if one is careful with names - that's all.
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Michael Schlenger
04 June 2021, 01:10
Instead of providing a title, I would rather do this remarkable woman justice by spelling her name correctly: Elisabeth von Papp (not Pap). Obviously, she drove an Adler for the "Kandelhardt AG" - a large taxi company in Berlin, back then. See also: https://twitter.com/kreuzberged/status/941688791168901121
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