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Alice Ramsey’s 1909 Cross Country Tour

and Chronicles of Other

Fair Chauffeurs

By David O. LyonPhotos courtesy of Gilmore Car Museum and the Paul Osika Collection

A list of heroic automotive accomplishments is not complete without the inclusion of Alice Ramsey and her three companions who drove a 1909 Maxwell from New York City to San Francisco in the summer of 1909. While Alice typically was accompanied by a scout car piloted by men, she never surrendered the steering wheel of the Maxwell to men when the going got tough. Certainly she had help, as did the men in the 1908 Thomas Flyer New York to Paris race, but she was involved in every incident and never asked any man to solve a road hazard or a mechanical problem for her. True, she did not fire the forge and bend the metal, but she removed the axle and then replaced it after the repair was completed by the blacksmith.

Alice Ramsey, a 22-year-old mother, gave birth to a son, John, in 1907 and was the wife of a country lawyer and politician almost twice her age. They lived in Hackensack, New Jersey. After an encounter between the family horse and a Pierce-Arrow which resulted in a runaway with Alice at the reins, her husband purchased a 1908 two-cylinder Maxwell runabout for her to drive, believing that the car was safer than the horse. She enjoyed motoring on country roads in New Jersey, participating in local events for autoists and subsequently

Alice at the wheel of the Maxwell which she never surrendered during her heroic tour (actually none of her three traveling companions knew how to drive).

A Maxwell-Briscoe Company publicity photo of Alice Ramsey and her companions in their 1909 Maxwell prior to the departure from Manhattan on June 9, 1909.

A Plucky Woman and a Maxwell

Alice Ramsey and Friends’ Cross Country Tourbecame president of the Women’s Motoring Club of New York. Alice in the Maxwell and June Cuneo in a 50-hp Rainier, were the only women entered in the Montauk Point Reliability Tour in September, 2008. That tour carried the participants from Lynbrook,

Editor’s note — June 9, 2009 celebrates the 100th Anniversary of Alice Ramsey and friends’ drive from New York to San Francisco. Special thanks to automotive historian David O. Lyon for documenting this remarkable journey.

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Michigan Museum Celebrates Centennial of Alice Ramsey’s JourneyVMCCA Members Are Key to Exhibit’s SuccessSpecial Thanks to David and Jane Lyon and Howard Joyner

No, these photos aren’t color pictures of Alice Ramsey on tour! They are pictures of the Alice Ramsey Centennial Celebration at the Gilmore Car Museum, Hickory Corners, Michigan. David and Jane Lyon came up with the concept to recognize Alice Ramsey’s remarkable journey in 1909, and they contributed significantly to mounting the comprehensive exhibit depicting the first female cross country automobile drive.

The Lyons helped with the setting for a life-sized diorama depicting Alice Ramsey and her three female companions as they were dealing with a broken axle

Long Island over a treacherous 200-mile trip of sandy two-track “roads” dotted with mud slough and chuck holes to the eastern tip of the island and return. Carl Kelsey, the publicity agent for the Maxwell-Briscoe Company was also on the tour and was much impressed with Alice’s skill over these rough roads under trying conditions. She won the bronze medal for the tour with a perfect score and at the banquet that evening he proposed to her the concept of a cross country tour in a Maxwell for the following year. She considered the idea a challenge and thought it would be fun, while the Maxwell-Briscoe Company anticipated considerable publicity from it.

Alice invited Nettie Powell and Maggie Atwood, her husband’s two sisters who were in their 40s and

Hermine Jahns, a 19-year-old friend, a single woman and the youngest and the tallest of the four women. The two sisters were well groomed and dainty, but all three women joined the tour for its excitement and adventure. Participating was not without its societal consequences, however, as social traditionalists often censured such acts by women.

Even on the day of their departure a quote in the New York Times attacked and denounced them for attempting to perform the work of men.

The Maxwell Company supplied a 1909 Model DA touring car built on a 110" wheel base and powered by a four-cylinder engine rated at 30 hp. The car was equipped with carbide gas driving lamps and kerosene lanterns on the dash. The canvas top, side curtains and

on their Maxwell, a vignette based on an original 1909 photo. They also donated the use of period clothes for the exhibit mannequins.

Howard Joyner loaned his 1909 Maxwell to the museum where it has been displayed for five years and now is the centerpiece of the Alice Ramsey exhibit.

The Lyons were also instrumental in obtaining

grants for funding of the exhibit now on display through October 31, 2009. Special thanks for grants to

AAA Insurance Co. of MichiganKalamazoo Antique Auto Restorers ClubMotor Cities Automobile National Heritage Area and thanks for support from Director Michael Spezia

and staff of Gilmore Car Museum. For exhibit information, contact Gilmore Car

Museum, www.GilmoreCarMuseum.org

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a roll-up celluloid windshield provided protection from the elements. A 20-gallon gas tank replaced the standard tank, a luggage rack was affixed to the back and protective sheet metal was attached beneath the engine. Alice equipped the car with various and sundry camping gear, some spare parts, tires, tubes, a tank of compressed air, extra oil and tools, including tire irons, shovels, an axe, rope, and block-and-tackle. West of Chicago, she added a spare five-gallon tank of gas. She also packed a small camera which Kodak began distributing just before the turn of the century, which explains the availability of the many photos. Before leaving Chicago she added long pieces of canvas that could be laid upon the ground to give the smooth tread tires, typical of the period, some purchase on the unforgiving sandy roads. Although the West was open and quite wild, they were advised not to take weapons and they heeded that advice.

New York City north and then west across the state to Buffalo, June 9 to June 13, 1909

Alice Ramsey and her companions left Manhattan on Wednesday, June 9, 1909 with much fanfare and well wishes by Joan Cuneo and other motoring enthusiasts. They drove along the east side of the Hudson River to Poughkeepsie on what is now Highway 9 and the Albany Post Road. Reportedly the latter survives in its original condition of dirt and stones. After reaching Albany, they proceeded west to Amsterdam following what is now Route 5, presumably a well-established roadway at the time, although Alice devotes little description to this part of the trip. Across the state they passed through Herkimer, Utica and Syracuse, stopping in Auburn to visit the prison there and at that time they summoned a Maxwell mechanic to replace the faulty electrical coil. This area is beautiful country,

although the roads near Herkimer and then across the northern tips of the five Finger Lakes are hilly. West of Auburn, where Routes 5 and 20 run together, the road passes just south of the Montezuma swamp, a very dangerous track of road at the time.

Most of that first leg was driven through miserable conditions with plenty of rain creating treacherous slippery roads that required chains. They drove the final 138-miles the last night and the carbide gas lamps created eerie images, but the roads were dry and they arrived at the Iroquois Hotel in Buffalo, New York at 1:30 a.m., on Sunday, June 13. Alice and her companions spent two days in Buffalo and visited Niagara Falls on Sunday June 14.

Buffalo, New York across Ohio, and Indiana to Chicago, June 15 to 18

The second leg of the journey from Buffalo to Chicago included stops in Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio, then Goshen and South Bend, Indiana, apparently continuing on what is now Route 5, which runs south from Buffalo to Cleveland and

then westward. Alice had her best day for mileage, covering 198 miles between Buffalo and Cleveland. Road maps were nonexistent and tourists relied on the directions in the published Blue Book, which were written in terms of mileages between identifiable buildings, distinctive trees or other natural markers. Outside of Ashtabula, Ohio one line read, “11.6 miles, at yellow house turn rt.” Unable to find the yellow house they asked a woman at the roadside for directions and she confessed that the owner of the yellow house “was agin the automobile” and painted his house green some months ago just to confuse the automobilists seeking the route

Alice repairs a flat tire on the Maxwell near Rochelle, Illinois.

A nasty stretch outside Toledo was deeply rutted and troublesome.

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drove from New York to San Francisco in a 1910 Overland, although she was a year later than the Ramsey expedition and consequently her name is not as well known and her accomplishment is not as well celebrated. Gwenda Hawkes, among a number of other well known female competitors, raced two, three and four wheel vehicles in the 1930s. “Powder puff” drag events were popular in the Midwest during the decades following World War II, but Shirley Muldowney was the first female to enter drag racing competitions sponsored by the National Hot Rod Association. She began racing in 1965 and was the first driver, not the first female driver, but the first driver, to win three world titles in that sport. Several females have raced in the Indianapolis 500, including Janet Guthrie, Lyn St. James, Sarah Fisher and Dannica Patrick. Dannica won an Indy car race in Japan in 2008, and led the Indianapolis 500 race in 2004. She just missed winning that race for the lack of about three gallons of gasoline.

to Cleveland. Such mischief by those opposed to automobiles was not uncommon at the time and often included misleading directions, road barriers such as railroad ties or water-filled obstacles.

Alice “slithered through the muddy morass” in Iowa for mile upon mile in low gear.

Fast Women… As Early As 1898 Geneva Delphi Mudge, Joan Cuneo, Blanche Stuart Scott, Gertrude Phillips,

Gwenda Hawkes, Janet Guthrie, Lyn St. James, Sarah Fisher and Dannica Patrick

Joan Cuneo, a successful participant in many Glidden Tours, at the wheel of her Rainier.

Women were not involved in early competitive automotive events to the same extent as men, but they were involved and Alice Ramsey was not the only fair chauffeur of the era nor is she the only female to set records in competitive motor sports. Geneva Delphi Mudge, taking the wheel of a horseless carriage in 1898, is considered to be the first female driver in this county. A number of women tourists followed her example, and reports of dust covered automobiles filled with female occupants in touring attire and suit cases clinging to the running boards were not uncommon as early as 1905.

Joan Cuneo was a well known and competitive participant in the 1907 and 1908 Glidden Tours and finished second in a 50-mile race to famed race driver Ralph DePalma in 1909. Blanche Stuart Scott and her companion, Gertrude Phillips, also

In addition to the untrustworthy directions, the roads could best be described as rough between Cleveland and Chicago with a particularly nasty stretch outside of Toledo. But the trip from Cleveland to Chicago was generally uneventful and she recounts little of it, except to note that the roads were “not as favorable as they had expected.” A reasonable estimate is that they followed what is now Highway 20 out of Cleveland to Toledo, Ohio, then followed Highway 2 to Wauseon, Ohio, turning south to what is now Highway 6, and then west to Ligonier, Indiana and finally swinging northward to Goshen, South Bend and La Porte, Indiana. The route west of La Porte meandered about and entered Chicago over roads that are not easily identifiable today.

Alice and her companions spent three days in Chicago and on one day drove 50 miles south to attend the auto races in Crown Pointe, Indiana, a tour that included a minor hit-and-run accident with a speeding Cadillac.

Blanche Scott and her companion, Gertrude Phillips in the 1910 Overland which Ms. Scott drove from New York to San Francisco in 1910, the first year she also flew an airplane.

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Continued on page 41

Chicago, across Illinois to Sioux City, Iowa, June 22 to July 2

After three pleasant days in Chicago, Alice and her companions departed “the city of big shoulders” on June 22, heading toward the “entrance to the real West” and the third leg of the journey. The drive due west followed approximately what is now Route 30 and Interstate 88. Alice changed a tire in Rochelle, Illinois allowing the men in the accompanying pilot car to pump up the tires, “I hated to waste their strength while I broke my back unnecessarily,” she commented. Following what is now Highway 38, through Geneva, Malta and Rochelle onto Route 30, they crossed the Mississippi River on a narrow plank bridge at Clinton, Illinois, north of Moline, bound for Mechanicsville, Iowa. Interestingly, their signatures are still on record in a hotel guest book in Mechanicsville.

And so began one of the most demanding parts of the entire journey. In fact, the driving requirements were so distracting that Alice neglected to check the gas level with her well-marked stick and the car came to a stop with a sputter near Mechanicsville. Fortunately, a nearby farmer had fuel which he was willing to sell to them. Alice did not report how they found gasoline along the way. Gas was usually sold at hardware stores, and apparently she found it readily throughout the journey, but after this incident she strapped a five-gallon gas can to the running board. They reached Cedar Rapids, Iowa on June 24.

Once again they encountered heavy rain which turned the already poor roads into primitive trails bordered by water filled ditches. The drive, along what is now Highway 30, the old Lincoln Highway, was horrific. It was a 14-day crawl during which Alice “slithered through the muddy morass” for mile upon mile in low gear from Marshalltown to Boone to Carrol and then Vail. Running slow and presumably

with the spark retarded, the car over heated and water boiled out of the radiator. Her sisters-in-law found their silver capped toiletries an ideal vessel for bringing water to the radiator and in so doing lost their prissy countenance and demonstrated their adventurous attitude.

The small town of Vail is about three quarters of the way across Iowa. Just to the east of there Alice not only ascended the dreaded and very steep “Danger Hill,” but she was able to pass a rope to the driver of a Mitchell stuck part way the hill and pull him to the crest as well. Readers who own automobiles of this era can appreciate the accomplishment. Conquering a wet dirt roadway up a steep hill in a car with skinny smooth tires is one accomplishment, but to do so pulling another car up such a grade, is a considerable feat. Reportedly, Danger Hill survives, although it is not the dreaded impediment it was then.

The town of Vail was flooded and the floors of many of the buildings were covered by mud. The wooden sidewalks were turned up on edge; buildings sat at odd angles on their foundations; and debris floated through the streets. Alice’s party was warned that the roads south from Vail to Omaha City were impassable. Alice left the car in Vail and did take the train to Omaha to survey her options, but never entertained the notion of loading the Maxwell on a railroad flat bed to escape the terrible road conditions. Instead, her three companions took the train to Sioux City to lighten the load, but Alice and J. D. Murphy, her advance man, left Vail in the Maxwell with the intent of finding higher ground and meeting the three women in Sioux City.

New York CitydepartureJune 9, 1909

San Franciscoarrival

August 7, 1909

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A Plucky Woman and a MaxwellContinued from page 12

However, disaster struck once again. Just three miles west of Vail, the rear axle broke and Alice calmly watched the rear wheel roll into the long grass. The cantankerous local Maxwell dealer was unwilling to provide assistance, however, they were fortunate to have the help of Eugene Gnehem from Interstate Auto Supply in Sioux City, who just happened to be in the area.

With Gnehem’s help, the axle was repaired and they crawled along the watery roads and through the mud holes to Sioux City with J. D. Murphy in the passenger’s seat. She never gave up the wheel, but together they were forced to solve several road hazard problems. When both the front wheel and the back wheel fell into separate holes, they used a shovel as a foundation under the jack to lift the front wheel and then pulled the car sideways with a rope so the tire came to rest on solid ground. Murphy then pushed a long pole under the rear axle and forced the car upward and out of the hole onto the roadway. They continued to slog along reaching Sioux City on July 2, where they remained for three days to have the car repaired while they waited for the rain to stop before crossing the Missouri River. The situation outside of Vail explains in part why era photos often show many automobilists wearing high leather boots.

Sioux City across Nebraska to Cheyenne, Wyoming, July 6 to July 14

The decision to drive northwest to Sioux City on the fourth leg pleased the people there, as the situation afforded an opportunity for them to brag about the northern route compared to the one through Omaha. However, the trek southwest from Sioux City to Wisner, Duncan, Central City, Chapman and then to Grand Island, Nebraska was long and arduous. Just beyond the bridge over the Missouri River at Sioux City, Eugene Gnehem’s car, which was suppose to serve as a pilot vehicle, broke down and was towed back to the city by a team of horses. He pleaded with Alice to return also, but she refused, not wanting to traverse the roads that she had just conquered and insisted on pushing west. The roads were so bad that Alice covered only 64 miles to Wisner that day. On one occasion, a farmer pulled them out of mud holes not once but twice and “adding insult to injury,” he doubled his price the second time.

The deep heavy sand in Nebraska pulled at the steering wheel and made for heavy going.

They eventually reached Grand Island, running on what is now Route 30, the Lincoln Highway, which parallels Interstate 80 through Nebraska. Just west of Grand Island they broke the right rear axle shaft and a mechanic traveled by train more than 400 miles from Denver to install a new axle and also to repair the magneto. After those repairs were completed they continued through Kearney, Overton, Gothenburg, and stopped in North Platte for repairs and once again tightened bolts that were shaken loose by the rough roads. They continued west, but were delayed in Ogalla by a mounted posse searching for an escaped killer, and then on to Chappell, Sidney, Kimball and Bushnell before crossing the boarder into Wyoming and entering Cheyenne. In spite of all of these challenges, Alice remained positive and optimistic. “It was a beautiful ride, with ever expanding views, as one looked across the rolling land to the distant horizon,” she commented. The roads were mere trails across the range, but on July 14 they were able to drive 178 miles and rolled into Cheyenne well tanned and still full of vigor. Once again the car was overhauled before they departed.

Cheyenne, across Wyoming to Salt Lake City Utah, July 16 to July 20

The departure from Cheyenne marks the beginning of the fifth leg of the trip. The area was desolate, and the roads were hard and dry, but not well marked. They followed both the railroad and the telegraph wires and often were assisted by pilot cars driven by Maxwell dealers in Wyoming. If you have ever traveled in this part of the country you would have noted the washouts that crisscross the prairie, and these crevices created a considerable impediment to their progress. These deep ditches were conquered with the sheer power of the Maxwell and the guts of the tourists. In order to climb the steep sides of these

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gullies, Alice gunned the engine moving the car forward several inches and one of her companions would then lodge rocks or blocks of wood behind the rear tires. The succession of small increments forward and successive blocking eventually brought the car up the sides of the deepest ditches.

On July 17, and with the gullies behind them, they crossed the Platte River on the railroad bridge and “began our trip over the Rockies, which is neither so scenic a route nor difficult a climb as I had been led to expect,” she commented. Approaching Utah, they stopped in Opal, Wyoming which was once a thriving cattle town on Highway 30 north of the Interstate. The bed in the local hotel was ridden with bed bugs and Alice and Hermine Jahns spent most of the night sleeping at a table. On the road, they met Ezra Thompson returning home from Buffalo, New York to Salt Lake City driving a Pierce-Arrow that he had purchased at the factory there. They followed him to Salt Lake City arriving the evening of July 20. They stayed for several days and had the Maxwell cleaned, bolts tighten and minor repairs completed.

Salt Lake City across Utah and Nevada to Reno Nevada, July 24 to August 3

The women rolled out of Salt Lake City driving west, beginning the sixth leg of the journey. Once again, disaster struck almost immediately. Near Grantsville, the Maxwell fell into a prairie dog hole breaking the seat for the front spring off of the axle and bringing the car to the ground. Alice made the repair by winding strong wire around the spring and the axle and the car continued toward Orr’s ranch which still survives today. The blacksmith there fired up the forge and bent a wide steel strip around the axle and the spring to replace the wire. However,

even that repair was just a temporary fix. A succession of washouts eventually destroyed the repair and the members of the “Ramsey entourage” removed the axle and they left the crippled car at the roadside. With help from the occupants in the two other cars, the two-cylinder Maxwell runabout and the Pierce, they returned to Salt Lake City for a second repair by a skilled blacksmith there. Alice and Sam Sharman, the Maxwell Company representative in Utah, then returned to the stranded Maxwell with the repaired axle and mounted it on the car.

Meanwhile, Alice’s passengers took the stagecoach from Callao, Utah to Ely, Nevada and Alice and Sam Sharman drove the distance alone. The area from Grantsville to Fish Springs, then Callao and finally to Ibapah and then Ely was an area of shifting sands, loose stones and undergrowth. Even today this area is not well populated and is without main highways. At that time, Alice and Sam were having difficulty finding their location on the map, when they spotted a dozen mounted Indians in the distance who fortunately passed in front of them showing little interest in the Maxwell. Alice later admitted that it was the only time

she was fearful. She met her companions in Ely, and they continued west on the road to Reno which was a succession of steep mountain passes. She followed what is Highway 50 today, and its designation as “a scenic route” provides ample description of its character in 1909. “Each day was a succession of more climbs, more difficulty getting on the right road, sometimes a blow-out, and plenty of rough going,” she commented. Alice admitted later that the choice was a poor one, going south from Salt Lake City instead of north to Ogden, where they could have followed the Union Pacific rails. That area was more densely

The Maxwell tumbles into a washout west of Salt Lake City, near Callao, Utah

The Maxwell’s front end broke when the wheel fell into a prairie dog outside of Grantsville, just west of Salt Lake City.

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populated and provided better communications than the more direct southern road to Ely and then west to Reno.

Reno to San Francisco, California, August 4 to August 7

The Ramsey contingent left Reno on August 4, for the seventh and final leg, driving south toward Carson City and then west to spend the night in a campground on the southern shore of Lake Tahoe. The tour over the Sierra Nevada Mountains was beautiful, but demanding, and once again the Maxwell suffered from overheating until Alice raised the sides of the hood. The roads in California were the best they had driven since leaving Chicago and the Maxwell attracted a sizable escort of enthusiastic automobilists during the last 150 miles from Sacramento to Oakland and then across the bay by ferry to San Francisco, arriving in San Francisco on August 7.

“Women can handle an automobile just as well as men,” she commented. “You should have seen us get the machine out of an irrigation ditch in Wyoming. We just took out the block-and-tackle and hooked it to a stump and pulled the machine out.” She was cordial in accepting the outpouring of enthusiasm, well wishes and honking horns as she regaled the excited crowd with stories of the tour.

Alice Ramsey and her companions drove 3,800 miles in 60 calendar days although their running time was only 42 days, as the other 18 days are attributable to sightseeing, and delays due to poor weather and mechanical difficulties. She averaged 90.5 miles each day of touring, and a calculated 7.54 mph, assuming a 12-hour day for driving. Historians estimate that she used eleven tires.

The ladies were wined and dined by enthusiasts and manufacturers alike and much was made of the trip, and certainly she deserves our admiration and credit for the accomplishment. “No mountains or grades too steep for the Maxwell, no gumbo

too thick nor sand too deep. The car for a lady to drive. Simply perfect; perfectly simple” wrote the Maxwell Company at the end of the journey. However large the accomplishment at a time when few women drove automobiles or worked outside the home for that matter, her accomplishment was not an oddity. It was the result of a natural progression of accomplishments and participation by women in various excursions which rivaled those of men. These successful women were called “plucky” by members of the press, but often did not receive the credit they deserved at the time, even though their role was essential to the success of the mission. Sacajawea on the Lewis and Clark excursion is one example of such oversight.

Blanche Stuart repeated Alice’s feat in an Overland the following year, and subsequently, Alice drove

another Overland across the country in 1919 and after that continued to drive cross country tours on an annual basis. In 1961 she wrote Veil, Duster and Tire Iron, her book describing her touring adventures of 1909, although she never revealed the fate of the famed Maxwell. She received a new Maxwell for her effort and reportedly the original car was sent to Maxwell dealers for display. One can image that as the financial promise of the Maxwell Company declined, someone, perhaps a bankrupt company agent, dispatched Alice’s Maxwell to a local junkyard. Probably, it was just “that old car” by then, although it had served Alice and her companions very well. Interestingly, one writer at the time commented about the appearance of the car when Alice and her companions arrived in San Francisco, comparing it indirectly to the cars men had driven in such events: “dusty, but clean, not caked with mud, not battered and scarred” and “the engine ran as sweetly and more smoothly than the day it left the factory.”

Alice H. Ramsey died September 10, 1983 at the age of 96.

Alice Huyler Ramsey, circa 1970, with the book Veil, Duster and Tire Iron that she authored in 1961 about her journey of 1909.

Writer David O. Lyon is an automotive historian, psychologist, retired university professor, student of human nature, and antique car enthusiast. He is the author of The Kalamazoo Automobilist, 1881-1991, a 523-page book on the history of automobile manufacture in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He says, “Enjoying antique cars lets you have your life and drive through it too.” Contact him at david.lyon@wmich.edu