Womeninfire.org provides a brief history of women in fire figthing.
Women have been firefighters for longer than most people realize: in fact, for almost 200 years. The first woman firefighter we know of was Molly Williams, who was a slave in New York City and became a member of Oceanus Engine Company #11 in about 1815.
One woman whose name is sometimes mentioned as an early female firefighter is the San Francisco heiress, Lillie Hitchcock Coit. She became an honorary member of Knickerbocker Engine Company #5 as a teenager in 1859, after helping them drag the engine to a fire on Telegraph Hill.
No doubt many of the names of women firefighters in the 19th and early 20th centuries have simply been lost to the historical record, but we do see glimpses of individual women firefighters in New Jersey and Connecticut during those years. Girton Ladies’ College in Great Britain had an all-women’s fire brigade from 1878 until 1932. Between 1910 and 1920, women’s volunteer fire companies functioned in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Los Angeles, California.
In the late 1920’s, Emma Vernell became a member of Westside Hose Company #1 at the age of 50, after her firefighter husband died in the line of duty. She was the first woman officially recognized as a firefighter by the State of New Jersey. A decade later, also in New Jersey, a woman named Augusta Chasans became a volunteer firefighter.
During World War II, many women across the country entered the volunteer fire service to take the place of men who had been called into the military. Two military fire departments in Illinois were staffed entirely by women for part of the war.
All-women fire companies developed in King County, California, and Woodbine, Texas, in the 1960’s. By the 1970’s, it was becoming slightly more common for women to join the ranks of regular volunteer fire departments and work side-by-side with their male peers, and the institution of the all-women company began to fade away.
Women in Fire and EMS Specialist
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