June 9, 2009

100 Years Ago...Alice Ramsey and the first coast to coast road trip


100 years ago today, Alice Ramsey left New York in a specially outfitted, four-cylinder, 30 horsepower automobile and began a grand cross-country adventure. Drafted by the Maxwell-Briscoe automobile company to help promote their brand, Alice was a 22-year-old Vassar grad who knew her way around cars and who had the strength to handle rack-and-pinion steering for 3,800 miles. Her skill and spirit (and a little help from some friends) resulted in a successful journey that landed Ms. Ramsey in the record books as the first woman to make a coast-to-coast road trip. While a few men had already accomplished the feat, Alice also set the best time.

Margery Krevsky wrote a nice story about Alice and her three traveling companions for the Detroit News. To read the article, click here.



Image credit: SUMMER LANDSCAPE
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1 comment:

Biblionomicon said...

Thanks for the interesting article on Alice Ramsey! She really did something extraordinary in her time, when automobiles were anything else but reliable. And this also holds for roads - if there were any :) Because of the 104th anniversary we have also provided an acknowledgement for her cross country roadtrip in our daily 'History of Science, Technology, and Arts' Blog at http://yovisto.blogspot.de/2013/08/road-trippin-with-alice-ramsey.html

Best,
Harald