Way Back When: Nostalgia for Governess Carts

By Betsy J. Green

An editorial in the local paper in March 1918 was inspired by the sight of something called a “governess cart” on a side street in Santa Barbara. This vehicle had been popular in Santa Barbara in the good old days (prior to 1900) and was almost nonexistent in 1918. The writer in the paper commented that “it was such a relic of yesteryear, the fat little bathtub of a vehicle, the rotund, stocky pony, the proud little girl driving all by herself.”

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