The story of bicycling in the United States begins in the years just after the Civil War. In the mid-1860s, French mechanics working in blacksmith and carriage shops helped develop machines known as “velocipedes” (from the Latin words velox pedis, or “swift of foot”). Early champions hailed the new technology largely for its utility. Calling it the new “poor man’s horse,” such early “velocipedestrians” promised an end to transportation dependency. The new machines gave individuals a safe, efficient, and reliable private transportation option that did not require food or much by way of everyday maintenance and upkeep.
Following a wave of demand, a handful of velocipede makers shipped their new inventions to the United States where they fostered a veritable “velocipede mania” between 1868 and 1869. From New York to San Francisco, new …show more content…
Bicycling technologies, demographics, and the geographic reach of the bike “boom” all rapidly expanded. At the same time, the sport became less synonymous with appeals to fostering a “poor man’s horse” and more a sport of recreation, leisure, and daredevil competition, as in venues such as short-track and long-distance races. The bikes themselves also remained well out of the reach of most middle-class consumers. Hi-wheel bicycles of the 1870s and 1880s were difficult and often dangerous to ride. Upstart organizations such as the League of American Wheelmen (LAW, founded 1880 in Rhode Island) embraced the exclusionary technology and thus helped white and predominantly upper-class bicyclists push back against demands for better access to the sport routinely called for by women, workers, and non-whites seeking more practical and utilitarian points of entry. Wheelmen built elaborate new clubhouses throughout the country to house their bikes and equipment and provide a space to their bicycling clubs. Yet access to these places was never equally
Following a wave of demand, a handful of velocipede makers shipped their new inventions to the United States where they fostered a veritable “velocipede mania” between 1868 and 1869. From New York to San Francisco, new …show more content…
Bicycling technologies, demographics, and the geographic reach of the bike “boom” all rapidly expanded. At the same time, the sport became less synonymous with appeals to fostering a “poor man’s horse” and more a sport of recreation, leisure, and daredevil competition, as in venues such as short-track and long-distance races. The bikes themselves also remained well out of the reach of most middle-class consumers. Hi-wheel bicycles of the 1870s and 1880s were difficult and often dangerous to ride. Upstart organizations such as the League of American Wheelmen (LAW, founded 1880 in Rhode Island) embraced the exclusionary technology and thus helped white and predominantly upper-class bicyclists push back against demands for better access to the sport routinely called for by women, workers, and non-whites seeking more practical and utilitarian points of entry. Wheelmen built elaborate new clubhouses throughout the country to house their bikes and equipment and provide a space to their bicycling clubs. Yet access to these places was never equally