Today’s #WomensHistoryMonth post celebrates a name that you likely know: Maya Angelou. While most people remember her as a poet and novelist, she was also a streetcar conductor in San Francisco during World War II.

Maya Angelou took a semester off from George Washington High School in the fall of 1943, and spent that break working. She knew that streetcar companies were hiring women; and she later wrote that, “The thought of sailing up and down the hills of San Francisco in a dark-blue uniform, with a money changer at my belt, caught my fancy.”

You will sometimes see people say she was the first Black person to be hired by Muni; however that was actually Audley Cole, who joined Muni in 1941. It’s possible she was the first Black woman who worked as a streetcar conductor in San Francisco. Unfortunately the decade’s employment records for both Muni and Market Street Railway were discarded long ago, so we can’t say that for sure.

We do know that she was one of the first; and she went on to write fondly about her experience in many of her writings, including ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’. #history #trolley #streetcar #transit

Did you know that we have nine PCCs in our collection? Today’s #MuseumMonday is about Pittsburgh Railways Co. 1711.

Upon delivery 1711 was one of the “newest” PCC cars, built for service in Pittsburgh in 1949. It was also one of the 1700-series cars equipped with special running gear for service on Pittsburgh Railways’ long Charleroi and Washington interurban lines.

We chose to preserve this car because it operated on the line which became our museum’s home, and also because it was the last car to carry regular passengers from Washington to Pittsburgh early on the morning of August 30, 1953. (But since this car continued to run in Pittsburgh until 1988, we didn’t acquire it from Port Authority Transit until 1990.) #trolley #streetcar #pittsburgh #history

Join us for Studio 76 - a disco party for the ages - on May 15 at 8 PM! Featuring @dj.cake, tastings and samples from local vendors, and even a disco trolley, you won`t want to miss this! Tickets on sale now at patrolley.org for $76.