Bertha Benz

Bertha Benz (born Cäcilie Bertha Ringer in Pforzheim on 3 May 1849, died 5 May 1944) was a German automotive pioneer who acted as business partner, investor and wife of the automobile inventor Carl Benz. Before their marriage in 1872 she put part of her dowry into his struggling iron construction company, and that money helped him move on to the manufacturing venture Benz and Cie, where he built the Patent-Motorwagen. Because German law of the time removed a married woman's power to act as an investor, her financial role ended on paper with the wedding, although she kept supporting the work in practice. On 5 August 1888 she drove a Benz Model III from Mannheim to Pforzheim without telling her husband, covering roughly 100 kilometres with her two sons and becoming the first person to make a long journey in a motor vehicle. The trip served as a public demonstration that the car was practical, brought the company its first widespread attention and its first general sales, and led her to suggest improvements such as brake lining and an extra gear. Her financial and engineering contributions were long overlooked and have been recognised more widely since the twenty-first century.