Women in Transportation History: Alice Ramsey, Transcontinental Motorist

On August 7, 1909: Alice Huyler Ramsey and her three passengers became the first women to complete a coast-to-coast automobile trip when they arrived in San Francisco 59 days after leaving New York City. Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife, and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey, made the 3,800-mile (6,115.5-kilometer) trek in a green Maxwell DA touring car. She was accompanied by her sisters-in-law Nettie Powell and Margaret Atwood as well as her friend Hermine Jahns, none of whom knew how to drive. Their cross-country journey took place as a publicity stunt for the automaker Maxwell-Briscoe Company.

While Ramsey and her passengers relied heavily on maps from the American Automobile Association (AAA) during their trip, they also followed telephone poles along the way as another means of navigation from one community to the next. Their transcontinental trek was made even more challenging because only 152 miles (244 kilometers) of the roads they traveled on were paved.