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This is the Memory Palace. I'm Nate DeMeo.

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The call to adventure came in the form of a

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rumbling engine. Alice

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Ramsey was riding a horse along Country Road.

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It was a new hobby for a new life. Just

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a few short years before, she was a 16-year-old

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girl living in her parents' modest home when

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a man took interest in her. He

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was a prominent one there in Hackensack, New Jersey.

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A well-to-do banker

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and owner of a brick factory, a future

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congressman, which her parents couldn't know at the time

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but surely seemed like the kind of thing that was ahead for

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a man like him. He was

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the perfect suitor, except

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that he was in his mid-40s, too

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old for their teenage daughter. And so

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Alice went off to Vassar College and

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threw herself into her studies and

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loved them. And

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then her parents pulled her out of college when she was old enough

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to marry the middle-aged banker guy.

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So at 21 years old, married to a man

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more than twice her age and now the

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mother of a young son, the newly-minted

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Mrs. Ramsey began taking long

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horseback rides in the countryside. She

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would be away from her husband and child for hours

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at a time.

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She seemed to like it that way.

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One day, she and her horse were trotting along some

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dappled country road when, to her surprise,

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because it was 1908, a car drove by, tearing

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down the dirt road at the unimaginable speed

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of 30 miles an hour. Whether

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this startled Alice, we do not know, but

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we do know about the horse, who

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reared up in fear and had Alice clinging

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for dear life and then bolted, tearing

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off in a wild ride through the woods. And

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when Alice Ramsey returned home, winded

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and disheveled, maybe a little muddy, maybe

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sporting a scratch in her brow where a branch had

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lashed her in the dash through the trees, and

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she told her husband about the car and the frenzied

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gallop and how she'd managed to hold on and finally

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managed to get control of the terrified horse, it

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was all rather exhilarating, truth be told. Mr.

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Ramsey did not find it exhilarating.

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His wife could have been killed. This couldn't

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stand. When he was a man of the

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world, he knew the winds of change were blowing. He

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knew that cars were the future. He

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couldn't risk having Alice being thrown

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during another ride on some increasingly crowded

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road.

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And so he bought her a car. He

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figured it would be safer.

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Lower to the ground, a metal box that

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could protect her from the dangers of the road. If

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she wanted to explore the confines of her new life,

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she could do it in an automobile.

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But she would not be confined. While

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John Ramsey was off managing his banks in his

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brick factory, fantasizing about his future

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congressional run, Alice Ramsey

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was off driving. Pretty

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much all the time. Over the course of

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the next year, her 22nd, she

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logged 6,000 miles behind the wheel. Which

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was so many. There were no highways,

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very few paved roads, and speeds

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that rarely hit that ferocious 30 mile per hour

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mark, like the car that startled a horse and changed

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her life. This meant thousands

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and thousands of hours in her car. And

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she loved it there. You can see her, dark

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curls piled up under a riding cap. A

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dress with puffy sleeves and a puffier skirt

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that provided a built in cushion for those unpaved

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roads. In photographs she

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is usually smiling. Her top teeth

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protrude a bit in a way that would never go uncorrected

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these days for a young woman of means. It

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is a great smile. She poses

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by her car, one of those first ones, the

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spoke tires, the exposed engine, the floodlight

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headlights, the big steering wheel fit

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for a ship at sea. Alice's

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son is not in these pictures. Alice

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was by all accounts content to leave the boy at home

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with a governess. And

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I too am content to leave him out of the rest of the story.

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Whether you want to bring him along with you in the back of your mind

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as you listen is your choice. But

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he wasn't in the back of the car. Neither

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was her husband, who found cars scary.

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Though he admired his wife's expertise behind the wheel.

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And he too, for whatever reason, seemed perfectly

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content to have her out of the house. driving

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around with friends and family, whomever would

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brave the ride. The next year she entered

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a contest. It took a

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hundred mile journey out to Montauk, the

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sandy tip of Long Island. A

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decade and a half later, Gatsby and

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Nick Carraway would be zipping back and forth out that way under

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the watchful eyes of TJ Ecclberg in no

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time, but in 1909 it took her

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two days, driving around the clock.

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It was a remarkable achievement.

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Among those remarking was the sales director of

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an automotive startup called the Maxwell Brisco

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Company, who drove a company car out

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to Hackensack to talk to Alice Ramsey, or

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to talk to John Ramsey about his wife. Alice's

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drive to Montauk had set the sales director's

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wheels turning.

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What if she drove farther? What

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if he gave her a brand new, top of the line 1909

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Maxwell Model DA, four

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cylinders, 30 horsepower, three

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gears, top speed, a mind-blowing 45 miles

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an hour. And what

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if she, a lady, drove

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that car all the way across the country?

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This proposal was audacious bordering

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on the preposterous. Five years

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earlier, a dentist with the adventurer's name of Horatio Nelson

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Jackson, drove from

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San Francisco to New York in 69 days, accompanied

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by a mechanic and a bulldog named Bud. His

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journey made headlines around the world. But despite those headlines,

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and the pomp and accolades

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they engendered, only one other team,

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all male, managed to make it from coast

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to coast in the whole half decade that

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followed. It would be quite a thing to be able to say that

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the first woman to drive across

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America did

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it in a Maxwell Brisco.

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Alice Ramsey kissed her husband goodbye, climbed

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into the car, waved to the press, and

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the crowd that had lined the Manhattan sidewalk despite

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a downpour to see her off. She

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wore a poncho over her dress, as

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did the three women who would accompany her on her journey.

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husband's two sisters, Nettie and Margaret, both

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married women in their early 40s, and a

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friend of Alice's named Hermine Johns, who

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was nearly 20 though the newspaper said she was 16.

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The three women were along for the ride, for

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company and assistance as necessary,

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and to cheer Alice on as she drove them up

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rain black and Broadway, off to see

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the country in a way that no women had before.

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They would arrive in San Francisco 59 days later to

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great fanfare. And

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Alice, who was behind the wheel the whole time, her

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companions never drove, became

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the first woman to drive across the continental United

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States in an automobile. And

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that is important.

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Sure, for sure. It

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had never been done before, and this was a time

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when there were very few women driving or honestly

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pursuing or being allowed to pursue like

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most things. And I don't doubt

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that this meant a lot to many women who

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followed her journey in the papers. We have

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no way of knowing how many girls and

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women heard about Alice Ramsey and decided

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they too would learn how to drive, or

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how many were inspired to do something else, anything

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else, whatever was their own version

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of driving across the country. Maybe

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they said Alice did

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that. I can do this. Maybe

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they didn't even know. Couldn't have told

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you that reading about Alice's journey

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nudged them in some small way, maybe

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even years later to take one of their own.

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Maybe they went to fly

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or to type or work at cash

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register to take some step

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toward a different life that they

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wouldn't have taken if she hadn't

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taken that drive. This

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was important,

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but it was also marketing. The

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Maxwell Briscoe Company wanted to sell more cars

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to more people and there was a whole type

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of person, slightly more than half the population

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of persons,

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who weren't buying cars yet.

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They sent a reporter ahead by train to greet Alice's

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car at each stop so he could write about her pushing

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the remarkable

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Alice learned that her prissy, patrician-seeming

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sisters-in-law came alive in the

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car, ate it all up. The

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scenery, the dust, getting lost,

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seeing a field of tall grass they had to cross

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and having no idea whether the car could make

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it, but just plunging on anyway.

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They all learned so much. They navigated

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roads that weren't roads with maps

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that were often no use at all. There was a

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guidebook for motorists, a brand new thing at the time,

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and some nights it would be a godsend, pointing

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them to a campground or gas station just

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when they needed one most. But

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then it could also just fail them.

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They went desperately searching for a yellow

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barn at which the book told them they had to turn

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left or they'd go entirely off track. They

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drove around for hours and hours before they

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figured out that the yellow barn had been

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painted green by the guy who owned it, who

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raised horses and didn't like cars, and

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didn't want to help people driving them if he could help it.

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And the guidebook just stopped the Mississippi,

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and then they were off into

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the unknown. Corn fields

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and wheat fields and winding rivers

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and cicada sounds and headlights

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on flickering leaves and the Rockies

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snow-capped, just ahead. Just

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look at them.

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There was another component to the marketing too, beyond

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the Maxwell's flawless performance, not a particle

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of trouble we read. Alice

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was chosen because Alice was the right gal

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for the gig. She was married

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to an upstanding member of the community who approved

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wholeheartedly of her adventures. Her

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companions were two married women in their forties,

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good god-fearing ladies who could be understood

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as responsible chaperones to Alice and her

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young companion, a mere girl of 16,

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a wholesome crew to hang a brand on, nothing

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untoward happening out there in the road in close

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quarters and shared beds.

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When they arrived back in New York after a luxury

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return trip by train, the papers noted

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the apparent joy of Alice's reunion with her husband.

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announcing the birth of her second child the next year.

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Take a goofy pleasure in suggesting that the baby

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girl was the product of that joy.

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I read a journal article by a historian named

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Catherine Parkin about Alice Ramsey's life

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behind the wheel, and Alice was always driving. She

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drove until she was 90,

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she died at 97.

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And in that long life, she took dozens of road

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trips. Europe, Australia,

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North and South America.

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I would say that famous New York to San Francisco

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trip was her first adventure, but it wasn't.

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There was Montauk, there was the horse that

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bolted and started this whole thing.

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Her whole life was adventures.

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Anyway, Dr. Parkin lays out a very

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convincing case that Alice was gay,

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that the paper said that Hermine Johns was 16 instead

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of 20 so that no one would suspect there

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was anything happening between the two of them when there probably

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was.

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And then she spent most of the rest

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of her life on long drives with female companions.

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And after her husband's death, when Alice was 47, it

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seemed to be an open secret that her best friend and

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road trip partner was her partner.

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But we can't know for sure.

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She never said it directly.

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She generally seemed to be really good at controlling the narrative

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of her life.

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Maybe she learned it from the sales manager of the Maxwell

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Briscoe Company.

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For decades, she spoke all the time at auto

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clubs and women's groups and rotaries and moose

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lodges, whatever. And she'd

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tell stories about her life on the road, about

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that famous first trip and

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her most recent adventure. She'd

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get an award, crack some jokes, regale

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audiences in banquet halls while they ate

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the fish or the chicken.

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And in all those stories and in her memoir,

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and in the many interviews she did in her 97 years, she

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leaves out a lot. She never really

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talks about her family life before or after

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her husband died. Or even why

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all those years before her husband let her.

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And it.

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was 1908, so let her is

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the only way to put it. Drive

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that first 6,000 miles around Hackensack. Nevermind

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drive the 3800 across the country.

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When

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no woman had done that before, in

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a time before highways and travel guides,

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street signs and exit numbers, GPS.

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There is so much you can find without a map.

15:00

This show gets research assistance from Eliza McGraw. It

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