GLR July-August 2022

ESSAY The Fastest Woman of Her Day M ARTIN D UBERMAN

N INETEEN TWENTY-SIX proved a banner year for Joe Carstairs—yes, she called herself Joe, not Jo—marking her try as a champion speedboat racer and winning the Duke of York trophy, then the most prestigious in speed racing. She was the only woman in a field of nine in the star-studded event, and the excitement had led tens of thousands of fans (one estimate put the figure at a million) to crowd the banks of the Thames. In short order, one contestant after another fell by the wayside, knocked out of the competition by ignition failure, an engine blowing up, collision with a buoy or another boat—or being thrown overboard by the powerful swell of the water.* By the final heat, only two of the

edge that “floating wreckage at speed can cut a hole through the bottom of the boat like a razor cutting canvas.” She confirmed to the reporter that she’d been “thrown overboard at speed” in one race, leaving her with three broken ribs, though she omit ted the fact that she’d refused rescue until her severely injured mechanic had been hoisted to safety. Joe further acknowledged that running into “a head sea could be nasty ... you get a jar ab solutely right through you ... like a terrific electric shock.” Still, she quickly added: “It’s a marvelous sport. At the end of a race you’re filthy, covered with oil, soaked with water most likely, and nearly deaf with the noise, but there’s nothing in the world so satisfying.” If the danger didn’t dissuade her,

neither did the expense. Her Ameri can grandfather, Jabez A. Bostwick, was one of nine men who in 1873 comprised the Executive Committee of Standard Oil, was the sixth largest shareholder, and had sweeping power over the affairs of several Standard Oil companies that collectively made up the monopoly. The powerful group of nine not only drafted gen eral policies but controlled all deci sions involving the diverse types of oil and refineries, the buying of crude, the purchase of chemicals and lumber, relations with railroads and other shipping entities, and price quotations. Jabez Bostwick’s daughter Eve lyn was Joe’s mother, but a wholly disengaged one. Something of a jaded, volatile troublemaker, Evelyn married four times. Her first hus band, Albert Carstairs, is barely men

nine boats remained in contention: Herr Krueger, the German entry, and Joe Carstairs, steering her seventeen foot hydroplane, dramatically painted black, with a white stripe running its length. Approaching the finish line, both finalists ran into trouble. The connecting rod on Krueger’s boat broke, disabling it, while a tangled rope in the gears threatened to stop Carstairs’ boat cold—until she some how managed to cut it loose with a knife, and raced to victory. That same year of 1926, after winning a number of other major races, Carstairs was awarded the Médaille d’honneur, given annually for the “most merito rious motor-boat performance throughout the year.” For the next half-dozen years, Carstairs continued to compete, and with remarkable success. But the

Joe Carstairs at Whale Cay in 1947.

sport was both dangerous and expensive. Having driven an am bulance in France during World War I, Joe scoffed at the dan ger, insisting to one reporter that the so-called “threats” involved were better seen as “discomforts”—though she did acknowl _________________________ * This description of Joe Carstairs’ racing career relies heavily on a batch of some two dozen contemporary newspaper clippings given to me by Julie S. Sewell, a close friend of Carstairs. She gave me as well an album of extraordinary photographs, several of which adorn these pages. I’m indebted as well to Alex Stoll, who introduced me to Julie Sewell, who provided her own recollections of Carstairs. Martin Duberman’s recent books include Andrea Dworkin: The Fem inist as Revolutionary and Has the Gay Movement Failed?

tioned in the surviving documents and seems to have played little role in Evelyn’s life and next to none in his daughter’s. Evelyn’s fourth marriage, on the other hand, was to Serge Voronoff, a surgeon briefly famous in the 1920s for transplant ing monkey testicles into male humans as a purported treatment for “rejuvenation.” Joe (rightly) considered him a charlatan, and the two were rarely in each other’s company. Meanwhile, Eve lyn Bostwick became increasingly drawn to alcohol and drugs. As an adult, Joe was quoted as saying that she’d “never been frightened of anybody except my mother.” † There was no rid dle to their mutual dislike. Joe herself provided the key: “I was _________________________ † The quotation is from Kate Summerscale’s The Queen of Whale Cay , Viking, 1998, to which I am indebted for many details.

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