Vassar Yesterday

Alice Huyler Ramsey, Class of 1907, was the first woman to drive across the United States. In Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron (1961), her picture-filled memoir, Ramsey tells the story of her 1909 adventure from New York City to San Francisco. Ramsey and her three female companions (none of whom could drive) took 59 days to make the journey, 41 of them spent driving, facing such challenges as mud holes in Nebraska and run-ins with prairie dogs in Utah. (“We had our share of ‘flats,’” reads the caption to this photograph.) Travel accommodations were often austere — Ramsey “occasionally slept with feet on dash, wheel poking me in the abdomen” — but she does mention a omfortable pit stop at her alma mater along the way. In 1981, Ramsey accompanied her daughter, Alice Ramsey Bruns ’31, back to Vassar for her 50th reunion. “There was very little traffic in those times,” she told the VQ during her visit, “and no road signs.” This summer, a young woman named Emily Anderson is retracing Ramsey’s exact journey in a rebuilt 1909 Maxwell DA, in honor of the hundredth anniversary of her epic transcontinental feat. To learn more, visit aliceramsey.org. — S.B.