Woman Driver Re-enacts 1909 Cross-Country Journey in 100-Year-Old Car

Somehow we missed this late last week, but Emily Anderson of Seattle arrived in San Francisco on Thursday after completing a cross-country trip from New York in a reconstructed 1909 Maxwell D.A. A similar trip was taken by first-wave feminist Alice Ramsay a hundred years ago, making her the first woman ever to drive across the country. The re-enactment required Anderson and her car buff father to assemble a Maxwell using antique parts found on eBay and elsewhere, as only one intact 1909 Maxwell still existed and the owner was not willing to sell.

As the New York Times Wheels blog reports, "transmission problems that began in Kimball, Neb., required her to drive the rest of the trip with no first gear," and the transmission failed them once again on Carson Pass near Lake Tahoe, where a tow truck had to help them over the summit. But Anderson and her co-pilot Christie Catania completed the trip on schedule, pulling into Chrissy Field exactly one month after leaving Manhattan. Though we cannot imagine wanting to get slapped in the face by a thousand insects in a windshield-free automobile, we think Alice Ramsay would be proud.