Even before they could vote, women traveled alone

(Photo: Humanities Washington)

One of the best features of Jess Walter’s novel “The Cold Millions” is how it portrays the activist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn as a single-minded, independent woman of her time.

Or, as Walter sees it, of all time.

It turns out, not surprisingly, that there were other groundbreaking women of the early 20th century, too. This is the history that Port Townsend writer Tessa Hulls documents in her presentation “She Traveled Solo: Strong Women in the Early 20thCentury.”

The Humanities Washington event, sponsored by Spokane Public Library , will be held online at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday. Registration is required .

According to Hulls, the women in question included “explorers, mountaineers, and even a circus performer—women who defied expectations and embarked on unprecedented journeys, but whose stories have remained largely untold.”

Until now, that is. As the Humanities Washington website says, “Using historical photographs, primary documents, and hand-drawn illustrations, Hulls takes participants into the lives of intrepid female adventurers who lived through the turn of the 20th century – before the right to vote or the right to own property.”

That didn’t stop them. Nor, as Walter wrote, did it stop Gurley Flynn.