“Pretty women drivers.”
The Daily Mirror — an excellent LA Times weblog that posts Los Angeles newspaper articles from the distant past — has a great post from June 10, 1909 about Alice H. Ramsey — the first woman to drive an automobile across the United States of America. She drove the Maxwell Model 30 DA from New York, New York to San Francisco, California in a two months time.
“Iowa was the worst experience on the trip as far as weather and lack of roads. We broke a rear axle there and one afternoon made only 13 miles,” she said. “The cross-country trip already had been made by men. I’m not pioneer enough to have attempted it if it hadn’t been done,” she said.
From LA Times Travel Feature:
The closest to a euphoric moment came not in San Francisco at the culmination of the trip when Ramsey was presented roses, but as she entered California south of Lake Tahoe, heading down the Sierra slopes to Placerville.
“Majestic sugar pines, Douglas firs and redwoods lined our road on both sides. What a land! What mountains! What blue skies and clear, sparkling water! Our hearts leapt within us. None of us had ever seen the like — and we loved it.
On June 9, 2009 a Emily Anderson will commemorate and attempt to re-create the historic adventure.
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