Alice's Drive: Republishing Veil, Duster and Tire Iron by Alice Ramsey

by Gregory W. Franzwa

Amusing Historical account of the first woman to drive from coast to coast before there were paved roads, sign posts or maps

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Memoir

258 pages

First published January 1, 1961

Reviews

[Cheryl]

A woman driving a car across the U.S. In 1909, when there were no roads to speak of in most places--an extraordinary achievement and a glimpse into a lost time. I enjoyed the autobiographical narrative, which was lively and spunky, though it was definitely a *slim* volume in its original publication. She didn't provide a great mass of anecdotes from what was quite a long sequence of weeks on the road, but the very fact that it was accomplished when few Americans drove cars at all provided enough interest to make this a worthwhile read. So for style and substance and interest of the editor's remarks, the book would have merited only 3 stars, but as a historical document about an achievement that is little known, it merited a bonus star because I learned a great deal about life in the aughts from her account. Having driven much of Alice's route at 70 mph on the Interstate in the relative comfort of a family sedan with a/c, radio, and every manner of traveler's roadside assistance, I salute her for making the trek. This book is an obvious companion to the very fun PBS program Horatio's Drive (American Experience), about the first driver Ever to cross the country.

[Pam]

A micro-history of a cross country drive before the time of paved roads, interstate highways, dunkin and convenience stores. Light, quirky, and unpolished. As a fan of both roadtrips and history, I found it to be a quick and enjoyable read. Nicely illustrated with photos of the trip.

[Lorraine]

Little known history...Alice Ramsey was the first woman to drive across the United States in 1909. This is a republication of her earlier published account which really brings to light how primitive early driving was. A driver had to know quite a bit about mechanics and often encountered terrible driving conditions...mud, sand, etc... This book includes updated information on the route she drove so the modern driver can approximate her drive. The photos are great as well.

[Sharon]

Very interesting acc) first hand by the driver herself, Alice Ramsey, and 2) A researcher and author who traced her drive 100 years later. Alice's story, of being the first female driver to cross the US from New York to San Francisco in 1909 was filled with interesting tidbits of information, adventures with the 3 female passengers, the many mishaps, the people she met, the mechanics she had to do herself to repair the Maxwell and flat tires. Quite a trip.

[Mary]

I've driven across the country, San Francisco to New York City, on the Lincoln Highway - and these women were significantly braver than I would be!

[Jeffrey]

I first learned about Alice Ramsey several years ago while researching the history of America's interstate highway system. In the first decade of the 20th century automobiles were in their infancy, and many people thought they were machinery that only a man should operate. At a time when women didn't even have the right to vote, Alice Ramsey was a fiercely independent woman who did not believe that the automobile was a man's machine. Challenged by a salesman for the Maxwell automobile company, she set out to prove just that by becoming the first woman to drive across the United States in a car, from New York to San Francisco, from Hell Gate to the Golden Gate.

The highway system was non-existent. Roads, even, as we know them today, were scattered and haphazard. Most towns were centered around a railroad, and any roads that existed stretched out from the railroad depot and petered out a few miles later. Towns and cities were not connected by highways and roadways; they were connected by railroads. The big cities, like New York and Chicago and San Francisco, were built around roadbeds that could handle both horse and vehicular traffic.

East of the Mississippi things went well for Alice and her crew. They ran into few problems, the biggest being finding their way along paths that were little more than dirt trails. They followed the Blue Book, which was a road map of sorts when there weren't any roads. This was like hiking trail guides are today, providing distances between two landmarks. Sometimes, as happened to Alice, a landmark changed. One old farmer, unhappy with the coming automobile age and that his house happened to be a landmark in the Blue Book, painted his house a different color so as to confuse motorists.

The book, printed by Castle Press in 1961, is a self-published and autobiographic account of Ramsey's journey across America. The copy I received through my library is one of a limited printing, an autographed first edition that probably should not have been let out of the library's stacks. It is written as a travelogue, and in the beginning the story intrigued me as Ramsey dives into the details about the difficulties of travel, how the car works, some of the people who helped guide her on her journey. However, as the book progresses it becomes less a meditation on the journey and its significance as much as a pure travelogue, lost in the minutiae of daily life but without significant details or context to give the journey meaning.

"We made an early start after this breakfast...In spite of the time of departure we consumed additional time getting on the wrong road and having to retrace our tracks. We had been told it was an advantage to let some of the air out of our tires when traveling in heavy sand, but doing so tore out one of the tire valve stems and gave us more trouble." (92)

While the significance of her journey is not explicit in her record of the trip, history provides its own meaning. At a time when the automobile was a relatively new invention for America, Ramsey paved the way for the automobile to become a part of American society, more perhaps than any other country on Earth. In 1960, AAA named her Woman Motorist of the Century, saying she "helped mightily to convince the skeptics that automobiles were here to stay--rugged and dependable enough to command any man's resepect, gentle enough for the daintiest lady."

Not that Ramsey was a dainty lady, but she did help shape the course of America.