A group of 33 conductorettes posing in front of the 16th Avenue streetcar at Prior Street barns in 1944. They were at first issued skirts as part of their uniform, but this image shows the transition to pants. Skirts were difficult to manage when climbing the trolley to reset the poles! Photo courtesy of the Coast Mountain Bus Company Archives. Click for a larger version.

Today, I’m pleased to present the story of the conductorettes, a group of 180 women who were the only women operating transit vehicles between 1943 and 1975.

And I’m especially pleased to tell you that this article includes an audio podcast containing interview excerpts from three former conductorettes.

Again, Lisa Codd, the curator at the Burnaby Village Museum, helped me put this article together, based on the research of Lynda Maeve Orr, the Museum’s Assistant Programmer. It’s a continued collaboration to explore transit history and Burnaby’s archival holdings!

Podcast with three former conductorettes: Pearl Wattum, Vilma Westerholm, Edra McLeod

http://buzzer.translink.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/conductorettes-podcast.mp3

The article continues below, but here you can hear the podcast containing interview excerpts from three former conductorettes: Pearl Wattum, Vilma Westerholm, and Edra McLeod.

To listen to the podcast, press play on the player above, or download the mp3 here. You can also subscribe to our podcast via RSS.

The taped interviews with the conductorettes were conducted by the Vancouver Historical Society in 1981 as part of an oral history project, and can be found at the Special Collections at the University of British Columbia. The recordings are used with the kind permission of the Vancouver Historical Society.

The story of the conductorettes: the Second World War pulls women into transit work

An ad for the B.C. Electric Guide positions. Image courtesy of the B.C. Hydro Corporate Library. Click for a larger version.

In 1943, the B.C. Electric Railway hired women to work on transit, to help address the labour shortage during the Second World War.

Besides labour shortages, the B.C. Electric Railway was dealing with an increase in demand for its services. With gas rationing taking place during the war, public transportation was more popular than ever, and the company was pressed to stretch existing resources to the limit.

(For example, the B.C. Electric Employees Magazine reported that the average number of passengers per day increased from 150,000 in January 1938 to over 270,000 by March 1943!)

The women hired during this time were called “conductorettes.” They worked on the streetcars, and only on the Vancouver routes—you wouldn’t find them on the interurbans.

The company also hired women to work as “Electric Guides,” selling pre-sold tickets at busy streetcar stops in Vancouver.

As you may remember from social studies class, this was not a particularly unusual situation: women were hired into non-traditional work during the war years because of the labour shortage, which opened the door for women to work.

Other Canadian and American cities also hired women to work on their streetcar systems as conductors.

Who the company was looking for

The company’s Vancouver Sun advertisement in June 1944 called for the following:

Women aged 25 to 35 to work as streetcar “Conductorettes.” Applicants will be considered on the basis of good appearance and general intelligence.

The B.C. Electric Railway, however, preferred to hire married women between the ages of 25 and 35 – so said the company’s transportation manager, when interviewed by the Vancouver Daily Province in August 1943.

Furthermore, the BC Electric Employees Magazine emphasized that the women couldn’t be married to just anyone — it was preferable to hire wives of men who serving overseas.

The magazine stressed the women would be held to the same requirements as men: their health, vision, sight, and IQ must be up to standard.

Winnifred [...]