Like yesterday, let’s have another look back. As for this day in 1909 something remarkable happened: Alice Ramsey and three girlfriends became the first women to complete a transcontinental motoring trip, driving their green Maxwell from coast to coast in the US. If you follow us for longer you may even remember the memorial trip some years ago. Anyhow: 22-year old Alice left Hell Gate in central New York on June 9, 1909, to arrive in San Francisco, California, 59 days later on August 7.
That really was a brave road trip. Of the 3,800 miles covered just 152 reputedly consisted of paved roads back at the time. Alice had to change 11 tires and at one point she even was surrounded by a group of native Americans, bows and arrows drawn. In her biography she wrote that the four of them had mainly navigated by using telephone poles. Up until 1975 the late Alice made the trip over 30 more times and was frequently quoted: “Good driving has nothing to do with sex. It’s all above the collar.” Good girl.
(Picture courtesy Bain News Service, through US Library of Congress)