(CNN) -- In 1909, Alice Ramsey blazed a path across America's landscape and society. Millions of women have followed in her tracks, few more precisely than Emily Anderson exactly 100 years later.





Anderson was the lead driver in a re-enactment last summer of Ramsey's journey, when she became the first woman to drive an automobile from coast to coast. Both women drove a 1909 Maxwell DA from New York to San Francisco, California, but they traversed two very different Americas.





"It really was a tremendous effort by so many people to get us across the country," Anderson, an event planner from Seattle, Washington, said. "It showed me the heart of America was open to us in a big way that I don't think would normally be so open had we been in a modern-day vehicle."





Antique car enthusiast Richard Anderson recruited his 34-year-old daughter to drive the 1909 Maxwell DA he and two friends built from parts they scavenged from around the globe, and hand-fabricated when necessary.





"It all came down to a lot of books and manuals and guessing and putting a puzzle back together again with no instructions," Emily Anderson said.





They got the car built and running in time to launch the drive on June 9 at 1930 Broadway, the address where Ramsey's journey began. Several of Ramsey's descendants were on hand, including two who rode along for a few miles.





Anderson's Maxwell soon suffered the first of many breakdowns.





"That was a bit defeating, especially since it was our first day and we were pretty jazzed and motivated to get moving and get on the road," she said.





Temporary repairs carried the car and crew about 1,800 miles to western Nebraska, where a master mechanic worked for more than five hours to fix the problem in a more permanent way.





"It was amazing to me that people would just stop their lives and do whatever they could to keep us moving," Anderson said.





By Anderson's side was Christie Catania, her close friend and co-pilot.





Catania described the co-pilot's job as "navigation, waving, talking to people in the back seat; I was also the blinker, the mirrors, comic relief ..."





Librarian-storyteller Sally Barnett rode in the back seat most of the way.





"I love old cars, and I had read about Alice Ramsey years ago. She's one of my heroine-mentors," said Barnett, 67, of Huntsville, Alabama. "... My part was to dress up as Alice and tell her story."





The Maxwell's fourth seat was reserved for sponsors, dignitaries and special guests along the way, Anderson said.





When she wasn't in the rear of the Maxwell, Barnett was riding in the back seat of other antique cars that fell into formation along the way, forming what enthusiast Leta Nichols of Orangevale, California, called "a 3,000-mile parade."





High-speed collisions with flying insects were a hallmark of the trip.





"You don't realize how valuable a windshield is until you ride in a car without a windshield, Barnett quipped.





"We were really acting as human windshields and bug-catchers," Anderson recalled. "A couple times a day we had a teeth-cleaning."





But at least the 2009 group had well-mapped, paved roads to travel on, part of the reason they were able to cross the country in 30 days, half the time it took Ramsey, who followed the general path of what would become the Lincoln Highway.





"We traveled at a faster rate simply because we could," Anderson said. "Alice only had 152 miles of paved roadway in 1909, and those roads were primarily within the cities. ... Otherwise it was all wagon trails, and that's some difficult terrain to cross."





The social terrain was equally difficult.





Ramsey "fit a category of woman in the early-20th century, late-19th century who was interested in quietly demonstrating that women were as capable as
What were they driving/ Which vehicle was used for the journey? What was recreated? Where did the journey start? What did Emily Anderson do? What did Anderson's Maxwell suffer?
1909 Maxwell DA 1909 Maxwell DA a re-enactment last summer of Ramsey's journey, New York the lead driver in a re-enactment last summer of Ramsey's journey, first of many breakdowns.
question: What were they driving/, answer: 1909 Maxwell DA | question: Which vehicle was used for the journey?, answer: 1909 Maxwell DA | question: What was recreated?, answer: a re-enactment last summer of Ramsey's journey, | question: Where did the journey start?, answer: New York | question: What did Emily Anderson do?, answer: the lead driver in a re-enactment last summer of Ramsey's journey, | question: What did Anderson's Maxwell suffer?, answer: first of many breakdowns.