Beginning of the Road

These are photos of the Palace of Transportation at the 1915 World's Fair in California. 

The diorama was constructed to show Anita's progress as she traveled along the Lincoln Highway.

I guess we're as ready as we can be to re-enact her historic journey.

Amazing Coverage of Anita's Story through the Associated Press

We are all so overwhelmed with all of the newspapers and other media that have been publishing the story or sharing the link to Eric Lindquist's article in last week's Eau Claire Leader Telegram. The most interesting site that we found a link was the Hindi Bollywood Movie webpage.

Here are just a few of them -

http://www.travelpulse.com/news/destinations/sisters-to-make-trip-across-us-in-support-of-anita-king-lincoln-highway.html

Madison Wisconsin State Journal, USA News, Washington Times, World News, News United, the Kansas City Star, The Merced Sun & Star, The News Tribune, Myrtle Beach Newspaper, The Olympian, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Macon Georgia paper, Tacoma Washington paper, the News & Observer. . .

We're getting quite excited about taking this journey!

Check out our video on our GoFundMe page -
http://www.gofundme.com/paramountgirl

Road Trip Redux by Eric Lindquist

A huge thank you Eric Lindquist of the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram for this great article about our Centennial Celebration of one of our family stories!

http://www.leadertelegram.com/News/Front-Page/2015/08/16/Great-great-nieces-repeat-woman-s-historic-road-trip.html

Press Release for Our Re-Enactment of Anita's Feat

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A Story of a Woman’s Heroism Inspires Today - Happy Birthday Aunt Anita

Contact: Lucianne Boardman 

715/933-2510 or luciannefbd@gmail.com

In honor of Silent Screen Star Anita King’s first female solo drive across America, three sisters celebrate the Centennial of her

historic feat by retracing her trip this September.

Lucianne Boardman, Aleta Beckman Wilke and Heather Pancratz are following in the footsteps of their Great, Great Aunt Anita King by embarking on their own journey from San Francisco to New York City beginning on September 7 and ending one week later in New York. Although only personally known by Boardman, she is hoping her family story can be an inspiration to other young women by creating the story through their blog and photo journal of the event.

Ms. Anita King was born Anna Keppen in Michigan City, IN and orphaned at 16. She and her eight siblings were left to fend for themselves until she relocated to Chicago, seeking employment on the stage and reinventing herself as Anita King. Actress Lillian Russell encouraged Anita to try motion pictures in Hollywood, and soon Anita followed her dream to become a famous actress in Hollywood, starring in more than 19 silent movies, many of them directed by Cecil B DeMille.

Ms. Anita King movies include The Virginian in 1914, followed by The Man from Home (1914) and The Girl of the Golden West in 1915. She appeared in two Cecil B. DeMille films with the soprano, Geraldine Farrar, in the starring roles, Carmen and Temptation, followed by Snobs, directed by Oscar Apfel, and Chimmie Fadden, directed by DeMille (Drew, 2003). In order to sell her as a leading lady, publicists re-created her less than idyllic upbringing without realizing how her personal hardships would give her the strength to drive solo across the newly christened Lincoln Highway with little more than a six shooter and an aviator’s hat.

Because of her relationship with the famed silent film directors, King was challenged by Jesse Lasky and Cecil B. DeMille to be the first woman to drive the Lincoln Highway from San Francisco to New York. In 1915 she accepted their challenge, completing the solo journey without mechanic or security further demonstrating women's strength and courage at a time when women were treated as secondary citizens. In honor of her heroism, her great, great nieces decided to re-enact her journey this fall on the 100th anniversary of her voyage.

Ms. King’s cross country journey was a publicity gold mine for Paramount who dubbed her the Paramount Girl and established a rigorous itinerary for her to meet fans and conduct public events in cities along the way. Newspapers told stories of her defending herself against a coyote attack, changing tires, and completing general maintenance along the way. She began her voyage on September 1, and finished her journey 49 days later at a banquet at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York City. Boardman and her sisters hope to finish their journey in fewer days.

As a result of her journey, Ms King used the publicity to start a shelter for runaway girls in Hollywood who found themselves friendless and victimized by the Hollywood machine. This cause was picked up by Constance Adams DeMille, director Cecil B DeMille's wife. “We seek to highlight the accomplishments of our great, great aunt and give her the recognition we believe she deserves,” says Lucianne Boardman coordinator for the trip and oldest of the three. “At this point, we are planning on leaving San Francisco on September 7 and arriving in New York 49 hours (seven days) later. We will make stops along the route at the locations of Aunt Anita’s historic itinerary and hope to increase awareness of her strength as a woman who stood up in a unique time of America's history.” Ms. Boardman remembers meeting her great, great aunt prior to her death in 1963, “She was an amazing woman with amazing stories. I only wish my sisters had a chance to know or meet her!” In the spirit of sharing Ms. King with her sisters, Boardman coordinated this trip and has maintained the energy for this trip for herself and two sisters, Aleta Beckman Wilke and Heather Pancratz, “I can’t believe it’s finally

going to happen! We’ve been talking about this for years and now it’s becoming a reality. I know my sisters and I will have a great time, seeing the heartland that our aunt did 100 years ago. We are going to use this experience to share her story -- a story of hope and strength for people to pursue and achieve their goals.” Anita's story, although obscured in an era of media image-making, can also create an inspiring story for young women today who are seeking to face obstacles in the modern world to make a difference in the world. The

sisters also invite local and national organizations to partner on their historic journey or follow along and hear their story as they share the courage and experiences of their great, great aunt, Anita King, as a woman of courage in their family story, a story worth sharing with others.

For more information view their blog at anitakingfilmstar.blogspot.com or contact Ms. Lucianne Boardman at 715/933-2510 or luciannefbd@gmail.com.

References

Drew, W. M. (2003). Anita King, The Paramount Girl Who Conquered a Continent. Retrieved from http://

www.welcometosilentmovies.com/features/king/anitaking.htm

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A Reliable Car and a Woman Who Knows It

This has great info about Anita's trip -

Women Can Drive Gasoline Engine Cars. . .Bye Bye Electric Cars, 1905-1915

A great story about Anita's historic trip -

. . .For the most part they were content for a year or two to drive within the confines of the city limits. But one morning in the summer of 1915 the nation awoke to read that a lovely cinema favorite was about to attempt the most daring motor trip that a lone and unprotected female had yet undertaken.

The lady’s name was Anita King, more commonly called “The Paramount Girl,” for at that time all movie stars had trick soubriquets of that kind.

It seemed that Miss King, a daring stunt girl in her day, had been grieving over the death of her younger sister and had decided to get away from the tinsel of Hollywood for a while. She wanted to be alone to think out life’s problems. So she had decided to take a solitary motor trip from Los Angeles to New York, via the Lincoln Highway.

The Kissel Motor Car Company, of Hartford, Wisconsin, kindly offered to lend her a Kisselkar for her lonely jaunt to New York, and the mayors of San Francisco and Los Angeles, both anxious to send messages to the mayor of New York, asked Miss King to deliver same for them. This information was all painted on the side of Miss King’s Kisselkar so that she would not have to stop along the way and answer questions.

As she left Los Angeles, Miss King wore a suede motoring coat, a suede racing helmet, goggles and a dazzling smile. Paramount’s press agents followed Miss King at a respectful distance, and also preceded her, through the unadvertised courtesy of the Kissel Motor Car Company.

There was not a day of Miss King’s famous crossing of the continent that was not fraught with danger or excitement. It was positively as thrilling as a movie script.

In a lonely mountain pass she stopped to pick up a strange man on foot. He tried to molest her and steal her car. She quickly covered him with a small pearl-handled revolver and could easily have shot him between the eyes. But woman’s intuition told her that this poor unfortunate man was a victim of circumstances. Instead of shooting him she gave him a lecture, drove him on to the next town and turned him loose without saying a word to the authorities.

Then came the Great Salt Desert. Halfway across she found herself lost on its salt-encrusted expanse. With all the water boiled out of her radiator and her last drop of drinking water gone, it looked as though Miss King was a goner. She stumbled out onto the hot desert sands and fell fainting beside her faithful Kisselkar.

“The Paramount Girl,” Anita King’s Kesselkar.

She knew not how long she lay thus in the broiling sun, but when she came to she was in the shade of a Joshua tree, strong arms were holding her, and cool water was trickling down her throat. She had been rescued by three desert prospectors. They filled her radiator and sent her on her way, followed closely by her press representative and two photographers, who had been recording this thrilling life drama from behind a near-by giant cactus plant.

But according to Miss King her “real big lasting thrill of the trip came on a lonely rain-swept hill in Wyoming.” Miss King had been driving all day and was passing a farm when she saw a young girl waving to her to stop. But let the reporter for ‘Sunset’ magazine describe what took place, egged on by the Paramount publicity department:

“A girl of about sixteen came running through the gate and up to the car, breathless, wide-eyed, pale.

“‘Oh,’ she gasped, ‘I thought you wasn’t going to stop!’

“‘I wasn’t,’ answered Miss King unamiably.

“‘But I’ve been waiting for two days,’ protested the little girl. ‘They said you’d come by, two days ago, and I’ve been watching all the time. And I haven’t slept a wink for fear you might go by in the night.’

“The child’s distraught appearance confirmed the statement.

“‘But why have you been so foolish?’ said Miss King.

“‘No,’ said the girl. ‘It isn’t foolish. It’s life and death. I can’t stand it any longer. I have to go.’ She clung to the car, and looked up appealingly into the puzzled eyes of the Paramount Girl. ‘Oh, please take me with you!’

“‘Why, child,’ cried Miss King. ‘What in the world do you mean?’

“Then followed, in the drizzle of that darkening afternoon, the impassioned recital of a little drama which is being enacted in countless homes all over the country, though Anita King had never understood it until then. The story of the screen-struck little girl to whom the humdrum routine of home had become unbearable under the spur of a newborn ambition to be a motion picture star.

“Impatience of the home which had become a prison, a naive assurance that ‘the pictures’ meant life’s real opportunity, despair at the dull parental wits that could not understand. Anita King listened to the flood of eager words from the white-faced youngster on the running board. And as she listened, her soul awoke to a responsibility. . .”

So Miss King told the girl that Hollywood was no place for her; stay home, marry and have kiddies, she advised, then she got back in her Kisselkar and was off again in the rain and mud.

There wasn’t much subtlety to Hollywood publicity in those days and probably there didn’t need to be, for millions of women from coast to coast waited and watched for Anita King, with her Mary Pickford curls and her girlish figure, to come barreling down the road or the boulevard in her big Kisselkar.

Some saw her with their own eyes and some had to read about her in the newspapers, but surely there was not a woman in the country but envied Miss King her derring-do and her ability to drive a six-cylinder 60-horsepower Kisselkar across the country without the help of a man.

When The Paramount Girl finally reached New York and drove down Broadway, the throngs along the curb cheered for her long and loud, and very soon the women of America had their husband’s cars by the steering wheel and were plotting a course straight down emancipation road. The following year the automobile industry doubled its output.

* * *

http://saltofamerica.com/contents/displayArticle.aspx?17_261

3 Days on 4 Cans of Beans