11. Around the World in Three Hundred and "Eighty Days"

Harriet Fisher entourage arriving at the Vendome, Paris France

         In 1909, seven years after the death of her husband, Harriet White Fisher - owner of the Fisher & Norris Eagle Anvil Works on Fair St., Trenton - piled her Italian maid, her butler/cook, a dog named Honk-Honk and her chauffeur (and nephew) Harold Fisher Brooks into her four-passenger Locomobile and set off to travel around the world. More than a year later, she returned triumphantly to 125 East Hanover St. in Trenton - the first woman (and entourage) in history to have successfully traveled around the world. Harriet documented some highlights of the trip a year later in her book A Woman’s World Tour in a Motor.

     More than 100 years later, a new exhibit at Ellarslie, the Trenton City Museum, shares even more information about the trip - from the chauffeur's perspective. Harold Brooks left his personal collection of photographs, diaries, artifacts and other ephemera about this trip to his grandchildren. One of them, retired Reynolds MS teacher Rebecca Urban has curated this exhibit Trenton Entourage Motors ‘Round the World in 1909 which opens this coming Saturday, June 22. Ms. Urban will also be presenting a slide show featuring her grandfather's photographs and taped reminisences at 2 pm on Sunday, June 30. (Click the exhibit title for more information.) 

Fisher Norris display, Machinery Hall Bldg.

     Her exploits may have captured the imagination of the world - but it was Harriet's business acumen and manufacturing leadership that earned her the respect of Victorian businessmen and political leaders. Wu Ting Fang, the Chinese diplomat who served as Chinese ambassador to the US, Minister of Foreign Affairs and, briefly, as Premier during the early years of the Republic of China, reportedly called her the most wonderful woman in America.

     Harriet was born into a wealthy Crawford County, PA, family in1869. She attended a classical seminary for young women and took finishing courses (in “music and lacework”) abroad. For some time she lived in Flushing, NY, where she served as vice president and treasurer of the Flushing hospital where she also built an infants’ ward. Then, in London in1898, she married Clark Fisher, owner and sole proprietor of the Fisher-Norris Anvil Works of Trenton. [Cptn. Clark Fisher also served for 13 years as Chief Engineer for the US Navy, including time during the Civil War with George Dewey.] Harriet was 29, Clark was 61; she moved from NY to his home at 125 E. Hanover Street in Trenton.

      A year later Clark was felled with a serious illness. Harriet immediately stepped in to handle the business. Clark recovered, but in 1903 the Fisher’s were involved in a train derailment near Menlo Park (Middlesex County) that almost crippled Harriet and left Clark with injuries that lead to his death. Twenty five years later, after being named to American Magazine’s “Hall of Fame,” she reflected on the many challenges of being a woman boss a man’s world.