Women in Cars

 Wow. Has it really been almost two years since I posted here? Let's fix that, shall we?

Women in Cars

When you live with three women—my wife, my eldest daughter, and my mother-in-law—you learn early on whether or not you like women. As it happens, I do. My first novel, The Princess Key, features two young women and their adventures.

I get the Hemmings Motor News newsletter every day, and today one of their featured articles was this very nice piece:

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/behind-the-wheel-of-history-the-classics-that-gave-trailblazing-women-the-open-road/?utm_content=latest_stories&uemlid=eb50d436a4cc16b83947a0beeccdfba333e7e576a20f09f955059e2340f3d91e&utm_campaign=eDaily_Friday&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=eDaily%20Newsletter%20-%20All%20Weekly%20Digest

It brought to mind a favorite old book that I’ve been rediscovering:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36273

This is one of a series of books by Laura Dent Crane about The Automobile Girls, a group of intrepid young women who travel about and have adventures. This one was written in 1910, and they all date from that time period. If you know anything about early cars, they were difficult for anyone to operate. This book and its accompanying series, all written at a 6th-grade reading level, showed a generation of young readers two things:

1) That cars are cool.

2) That women can do anything.

Laura Dent Crane’s books were not political tracts. They were adventure stories for young readers that sat on shelves alongside The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and others of their ilk. They’re exciting and inspirational, which is why they remain favorites of mine.

I first read this book after I went with my parents to a restaurant. I don’t remember the name of the place, but like a lot of restaurants, they had shelves full of old books in the dining room. I pulled this one down and quickly got hooked on the story.

After we’d finished our meal, I asked the waitress if I could borrow it. She left and came back with the owner, who very graciously gave it to me. I still have it somewhere.

I got my new copy from Amazon to read on my Kindle, but you can get it for free at www.gutenberg.org along with many other forgotten classics.