Effie Price Gladding

Effie Price Gladding was an American travel writer remembered chiefly for Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway (1915), a book based on a cross-country automobile journey she made with her husband, Thomas. Her writing is closely tied to the early years of long-distance car travel in the United States, when the Lincoln Highway was becoming a symbol of modern mobility and exploration.

Sources available here also suggest that she had already spent several years traveling around the world before that 1914 drive, which helps explain the confident, observant tone readers associate with her work. She also contributed to the culture of early motoring by writing the foreword to the Lincoln Highway Association's first road guide, addressing women motorists at a time when automobile travel was still new and demanding.

A surviving museum portrait and archival references point to her as both a traveler and a public-minded guide for readers eager to see more of the country. Today, she remains of interest to readers of travel literature, women's history, and the story of America's first great road trips.