In 1916, just as Americans were beginning to enjoy the new travel freedoms that came with motorized vehicles, a couple of frustrated leaders of the campaign to secure women’s rights to vote, Alice Snitjer Burke and Nell Richardson, secured one of the first gas-driven automobiles in the country. They named the car, a Saxon, Golden Flyer and set off across the country to get support for what would become the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote.
Yes, the original ‘road trip’ was an act of political audacity. Long before women even had the vote, these two women drove into towns across America, on their own, spoke in town squares, slept in boarding houses and not surprisingly, endured ridicule and resistance. They were history’s first "Thelma and Louise." This road trip had a very different ending, of course, as it led to the passage of constitutional clarity on the question of voting rights, at least for white women, with the 19th Amendment. Getting that right guaranteed for all women, whatever race or circumstances, would still take other struggles. And the campaign for full equality for all women didn’t end with the Drive across America for voting rights.
The struggle for a constitutional guarantee of equality has led to another road trip across America: Driving the Vote for Women’s Equality Tour.
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