Grace and Grit

<p>From 1910-1916 women such as Blanche Stuart Scott Della Crewe Effie and Avis</p><p> Hotchkiss Adeline and Augusta Van Buren Rachel Foster Avery and other daring</p><p> adventurers were not deterred from pursuing and achieving their dreams of traveling </p><p>across America and exploring the world around them in spite of daunting physical and </p><p>social road blocks.</p><p>By car plane and motorcycles they did what few others dared and accomplished feats </p><p>worthy of story telling a century later. In a world very different from our paved and </p><p>pampered world today large portions of the planet were still unexplored and even the </p><p>settled places were predominantly rural and undeveloped. Explorers still made headlines </p><p>by going where no person had ever gone before. It was an especially remarkable period </p><p>of history for those women whose stories are told in this book; young women who held the </p><p>dream fortified their courage endured pain lost hope found hope and met their goals. </p><p>Being the first to accomplish an exploratory feat was difficult enough for men who enjoyed </p><p>the support of society at large but for these women the feat was tougher longer harder </p><p>but history making.</p><p>This book is the first to tell the stories of several of these women in the detail and context </p><p>necessary to truly appreciate their deeds. Considering their accomplishments within the </p><p>realities and conditions of an early twentieth-century America-the great frontier period - we </p><p>marvel at the human spirit's irrepressible force to explore create and push back boundaries </p><p>that limit the human experience. Hats off to these women's grace and true grit.</p>