VAN BUREN SISTERS
Ground-breaking girl power from women riding for the right to vote
In 1916, Augusta and Adeline Van Buren bravely transgressed social norms by riding a pair of Indian Powerplus V-twins across America. Their aim was to fight for women’s rights, but this gruelling road trip proved more of a struggle than they could ever have expected...
This month sees the Suffragists Centennial Motorcycle Ride, a cross-country women’s motorcycle tour (plus associated events) which starts on July 31 and runs through to August 20. The Ride is an Ama-sanctioned, crosscountry motorcycle riding celebration that leaves Portland, Oregon and flows east towards Arlington, Virginia. It celebrates the centenary of the signing of the 19th amendment – women’s right to vote (it was actually 1920 when they were given the right to vote but due to the restrictions imposed by Covid last year, the celebrations were held over until this year).
Organised by Alisa Clickenger and Women’s Motorcycle Tours, it’s likely to be the biggest women-only motorcycle tour ever and ‘celebrates the principles of unity, community, and freedom of the road, and is dedicated to all women who have fought for equality in the voting booth, in business, and in life.’
In 2016, however they produced the 2016 Sisters’ Centennial Motorcycle Ride, celebrating the achievements of the Van Buren sisters who were very much supporters of female suffrage. In 1916, Augusta (22) and Adeline Van Buren (24), were the first women to ride solo motorcycles in a monumental trip from the East to the West Coast of America.
They weren’t the first women to cross the States with a motorcycle, as Avis and her mother Effie Hotchkiss had already done so on a Harley-davidson Model 11-F with a Model 11-L sidecar in 1915. But the Van Burens opted to ride two new Indian Powerplus side-valve models.
The suffragist Van Buren sisters had a special reason to take this trip. In 1914, the atrocities of World War I broke loose in full force, resulting in endless bloodshed and suffering. The United States at first was not involved. President Woodrow Wilson initially believed that the USA should remain neutral, as in his view it was the best position to broker peace between the fighting nations. However, not everyone agreed with him, and a Preparedness Movement started as America readied itself to participate in the conflict. Augusta and Adeline wanted to demonstrate that women were also suitable for military service in the American army. Both were fanatic motorcycle riders and thought that if women could replace the male biker ordnances, more soldiers would be available for the fighting. However, their agenda was bigger. American women did not have voting rights at the time. The main reason they were denied this was that women historically did not participate in wars, therefore, according to the logic of the time, they should not have the right to determine what happened in politics. Augusta and Adeline believed that the gruelling coast-to-coast journey would clear up all prejudices, after which women could enlist in the US military as ordnances and thus, finally, get women the right to vote. The sisters grew up in a high-society, privileged household – Augusta ‘Gussie’ and Adeline ‘Addie’ were distant relatives of Martin Van Buren, the eighth President of the United States of America. Originally of Dutch descent, he was elected to office in 1836. Their background, nevertheless, didn’t stop them from taking boxing lessons, learning to fly aeroplanes and riding motorcycles.
The July 6, 1916, issue of American journal Motor Cycle Illustrated, ran a news story on the girls’ departure from Sheepshead Bay on July 4, describing the Van Buren sisters as ‘refined in appearance and they expect to show the brothers and fathers of other girls that ladies can ride and still not lose their most valuable asset, their femininity.”
In the same story, Adeline explained: “From childhood we have always been interested in athletics. My father trained us in all different sports. When I was only seven we had a punching bag and boxing gloves and were taught to box and wrestle with our brother.
“Later we participated in short distance speed running. My sister is an exceptionally clever ice skater. Each year we had a different fad, taking up canoeing and horse riding in turn. Naturally, we finally turned to motorcycling. It has supplanted all other sports and now reigns supreme.”
Indian was willing to sponsor the sisters with its new 1916 Powerplus V-twin. The reliable side-valve bike was up to the job as it was designed and thoroughly tested in ‘mixed terrain’ and capable of 65mph. In August 1915, long-distance rider Erwin ‘Cannon-ball’ Baker proved this by riding a pre-production Powerplus prototype from Vancouver in Canada along the US West Coast to Tijuana in Mexico, in a so called Three Flags Run.
The Powerplus was the first side-valve V-twin to enter production at Indian’s Springfield factory. Its engine defined Indian V-twins; it was a trendsetter, powerful and reliable, and it wasn’t long before Indian’s biggest competitors, Excelsior/henderson and Harley-davidson, also switched to side-valve engines. All four valves of the Powerplus were operated from a single camshaft carrying two cam lobes.
Compared to the Indian F-head engine, the crankpin was enhanced in diameter, the conrods running on roller bearings. Bore and stroke was 3 in x 3 in, giving a displacement of 60.88ci (997.6cc). Later on, a 72ci (1180cc) version was also produced. The Powerplus was Indian’s top model from 1916 to 1921, until its position was usurped by the iconic 1922 Chief. The Powerplus name at that point changed to Standard and the model remained in production through the 1924 model season.
The Powerplus the Van Buren sisters used featured lighting and Indian’s ‘Cradle Spring Frame’ – a pivoting rear swingarm sprung by leaf springs which was an extra that the standard Powerplus did not have. The Cradle Spring Frame was new for the 1913 model year. Other preparations included reinforced luggage carriers and large leg shields with rather small slots to aid engine cooling. Behind the shield, a crash bar was added and minor reinforcement to the frame and cycle parts were also carried out.
Several newspapers were willing to publish their travel reports, and Firestone sponsored them with tyres. After they first made a series of long trips in their home state of New York, they left the Sheepshead Bay racetrack in Brooklyn on American Independence Day, July 4, 1916. It was just three days after 14 British divisions had taken part in the start of the Battle of the Somme in Northern France – the day on which no less than 57,000 soldiers lost their lives.
The sisters decided to (loosely) follow the Lincoln Highway. It was the first transcontinental road which had opened in 1913 and ran from New York city’s Manhattan to the southern shore of the Golden Gate in San Francisco. The term ‘road’ was a bit of a stretch, as most of it consisted of cattle passes, wagon trails and dirt roads. The further
west, the less hospitable road and living conditions became. No maps existed of the area west of the Mississippi river to guide the sisters; they had to navigate themselves, find petrol, food and water supplies, and were left defending themselves against robbers and the inhospitable terrain in the desolate, western parts of the country.
Adeline penned a column for Motor Cycle Illustrated for its July 20 issue in which she said: “Last season (1915) we covered over 8000 miles in daily trips around New York. It was only 3800 miles to the Pacific Coast, so we decided to still make those daily trips, with one variation; instead of starting each day from New York city, we would make the start from a different place, namely the resting point of the night preceding.
“With a good motorcycle, no special overhauling or preparation is necessary for those daily trips around the city. Then why worry about 35 successive trips which will bring one to the coast?”
Initially it wasn’t the difficult riding conditions that hindered the sisters’ journey the most, nor did their motorcycles let them down. Instead, it was their clothing that turned out to be the talking point of the trip. The fact that they wore men’s clothing was considered scandalous. The sisters wore leather trousers, leather jackets, leather aviator caps and goggles and leather boots. The fact that they wore trousers was seen as a disgrace by society at the time. That they rode motorcycles and were unaccompanied by men was also far from acceptable. As a result, the ladies were arrested countless times in the small towns and villages west of Chicago in central Illinois. The situation was finally solved after they settled a legal agreement with the State of Illinois, in which it was stated that they needed to wear these clothes in order to complete their trip.
Aside from their riding gear, the girls purchased waterproof canvas bags to strap each side of their luggage carriers at the rear of the three-speed Indians. Adeline said in her journal: “We soon changed that arrangement, transferring one bag to the handlebars over the top of the forks. This does not interfere with the steering in any way and gives much steadier riding.”
A little over a month after they had departed from New York, the sisters reached the Rocky Mountains. They decided to take a detour (via Denver) and ride to the summit of Pikes Peak, the highest summit of the southern front range of the Rockies. Though it is at times claimed they were the first women to reach the summit, this is not true. Julia Archibald Holmes climbed to the top in 1858, and since the early 1900s a small train track had been built because, even then, Pikes Peak was already a popular tourist destination. Before European immigrants conquered Pikes Peak, it was already familiar territory to the native Americans. The Van Buren sisters, however, were indeed the first women to have climbed the 14,115ft Pikes Peak by motorcycle, doing so on August 5, 1916.
After the climb, they decided to proceed westwards again. The Powerplus machines had a hard time crossing the Rocky Mountains. Torrential rain turned the desolate trails into soft, thick mud in which the heavy Indians stood no chance and at one point became completely stuck. The sisters had
‘THE VAN BUREN SISTERS WERE THE FIRST WOMEN TO HAVE CLIMBED THE 14,115ft PIKES PEAK BY MOTORCYCLE’
no choice but to leave their bikes behind and find help by foot. Eventually they reached the mining town of Gilman in Colorado and caused something of a stir when they showed up out of the blue, rain-soaked and exhausted. The miners did not hesitate to help and gave the sisters refuge. The next day, they accompanied them back to their bikes and freed up the Indians from the tacky mud so they could continue their trip.
The journey continued through the Rockies and the hot, desert-like areas of the American West, where they faced very rough terrain and a desperate shortage of drinking water. Still, the sisters held their own, despite many crashes and constantly fighting exhaustion. After a trip of 3800 miles, they finally reached San Francisco and the West Coast on September 2, 1916.
The media had followed the journey and reported on the difficulties the sisters had experienced along the way. But the recognition and appreciation that Augusta and Adeline had earned by successfully completing this monstrous tour did not resonate. This was in contrast to the appreciation and free publicity that Indian’s new Powerplus had gathered along the way. The sisters’ historic journey was often dismissed as simply a holiday and by one newspaper as ‘galivanting playacting’, which disappointed the sisters so much that they decided to lengthen their trip, riding on from San Francisco through California to Tijuana to cross the border with Mexico, adding an extra 1000 miles to their transcontinental trek.
These additional miles included a detour to San Diego, where they were congratulated by San Diego Exposition governor President GA Davidson, and presented with a special medal, commemorative of their tour (officially) terminating at the Exposition.
On September 18, the girls boarded an eastbound train in Los Angeles, bound for the Grand Canyon, New Orleans, Washington DC and finally New York on – this time – a whistlestop sightseeing holiday. Their bikes were shipped eastward for them by Paul Derkum, a representative of the Indian factory.
In the September 28 issue of Motor Cycle Illustrated (the specialist publication that had given Van Buren’s credit throughout the trip), Derkum said: “Beyond question the Van Buren girls have made one of the most noteworthy motorcycle trips ever accomplished, chiefly because they have proved that the motorcycle is a universal vehicle. They have shown that it does not take a husky man to handle a standard twin machine. When you consider that one of the girls weighs 105lb and the other only 117, and they made the whole trip without (serious) accident, motor trouble or any dangerous adventure, one has to admit that they accomplished their purpose with marked success.”
Despite their good intentions, however, their efforts still had little effect. Adeline’s application to become a biker ordnance in the US military was immediately denied. Only in 1920, four years after their trip, was the 19th amendment to the American Constitution ratified, ending discrimination on the basis of gender. From that moment on, women were allowed to vote.
Adeline later obtained a law degree and became a lawyer. Augusta continued to play a major role in the women’s rights movement but also became a pilot, flying in Amelia Earhart’s ‘Ninety Nines’ – an all-women aviation organisation founded on November 2, 1929, at Curtiss Field, Valley Stream, Long Island, New York to support women pilots. The group’s name represented the initial 99 charter members.
Augusta’s saying: ‘Woman can if she will’ became a Van Buren hallmark. She died in 1959 at the age of 75; Adeline had passed away 10 years earlier, aged 60. Their extraordinary transcontinental motorcycle journey is just one chapter in the story of two remarkable lives.