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The Biggest People on the Road! Cover illustration by Louis Dalrymple, Puck magazine (New York), May 1896.
1899, Akron Daily Democrat (Akron, Ohio)[*]
Chris Heller has filed a petition in Common Pleas court asking for a divorce from Lena Heller. He alleges gross neglect. To substantiate this he says that she refused and neglected to keep house or prepare meals. He says his wife is a victim of the bicycle craze and that she spent nearly all her time riding her wheel in company with people who were strangers to propriety.
1896, The Wichita Daily Eagle (Wichita, Kansas)
The bicycle has appeared in a new role—that of destroyer of a once happy home. The woman in the case is Mrs. Elma J. Dennison, formerly of 513 Fifth Street, Brooklyn, 23 years old, a “bicycle girl,” who rides a man’s wheel and wears bloomers. She was married to Charles H. Dennison in 1892. At that time she devoted herself to household duties which were soon increased by the arrival of two pretty children.
Then, in an evil hour, Mr. Dennison presented his wife with a bicycle. Mr. Dennison says that his wife developed the bicycle fever to such a degree that she neglected everything—her home, her children, and her husband. She lived only for her wheel, and on it. Soon she changed her bicycle for a man’s wheel, then she discarded her skirts and adopted bloomers. Since then, she says, her husband has treated her cruelly, so that she was finally compelled to leave him. Now she has commenced a suit for a separation on the grounds of cruelty. Mr. Dennison contends that his wife is a bicycle fiend, and offers, with proof, the following letter, which she recently sent to him: “My Dear Husband—Meet me on the corner of Third Street and Seventh Avenue and bring with you my black bloomers, my oil can, and my bicycle wrench.”
1896, The World (New York, New York)
Henry Cleating and his wife once lived happily together at Butler, near Paterson, N.J., but now they have gone to the divorce court, both of them, and all on account of her bicycle and bright red bloomers. He stated publicly last Saturday that he would sue her for absolute divorce, because she persisted in wearing bloomers, taking long bicycle rides and neglecting her household duties. Mrs. Cleating alleges, after she returned from a ride last Wednesday, her husband ran out of the house and pulled her to the ground so hard that her bright red bloomers were torn to shreds. While she fled, blushing and shrieking, into the house, Cleating, she says, got an axe, and smashed the bicycle into a snarl of bent spokes, gashed tires and ruined tubing. The bloomers are of no further use as bloomers but will serve as exhibits in the divorce suit.
1891, The Essex Standard (Colchester, Essex, U.K.)
Philip Pearce, alias Spurgeon, of 9, Warwick Road, Stoke Newington, aged 15, who on July 24 was sentenced to a month’s hard labour by the Chelmsford Magistrates for stealing a bicycle of Mr. Alfred Boon, of Tindal Street, was discharged from the gaol on Aug. 22, but was immediately arrested outside on a charge of stealing other bicycles. The father said that up to Easter the boy has been in the Co-Operative Stores in the City, and he was a very good boy until seized with the “bicycle mania.” That had been his ruin.
1895, The Journal and Tribune (Knoxville, Tennessee)
They arrived at Glen Island [N.Y.] on Thursday, July 11. They had their bicycles with them, and described themselves as John and Peter Carlston, college students from Pennsylvania. Both were given jobs, and John was put in the dining room as a waiter. They rode about on their wheels a great deal and attracted considerable attention. Yesterday John went to wait on a man, and when he got near his table dropped his [tray] and ran. The customer started out after John, and the head waiter chased the elderly customer and caught him.
“That waiter is my daughter Tillie,” said the elderly man. “She is masquerading in men’s clothes.”
The two young “men” were found in their room in tears. They confessed. They are the daughters of Henry Carlston, who lives in Chicago, near Oak Park.
“I am employed in the auditor’s department of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad,” he said. “These are my daughters. The one who assumed the name of John is Matilda, twenty years old, and the one you call Peter is Harriet, aged eighteen.”
“I lay this to the bicycle craze,” he continued. “Both girls insisted on having bicycles, and then got to bloomers. Finally they have adopted male attire entirely.”
1896, The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, Iowa)
Sunday the police developed a case of extreme cruelty. It was found that ex-Alderman Frank Dietz had fastened to his daughter’s foot a heavy log chain, in order to keep her at home. The girl wanted to go out on her wheel and the father refused, and fearing that she might go while he was away, he used the chain.
1895, The Allentown Leader (Allentown, Pennsylvania)
A dispatch from Unadilla, N.Y., says that the opposition of a prospective mother-in-law to bicycles and bloomer costume resulted in a novel bicycle wedding. Mrs. Frank Moses has persistently opposed her 17-year-old daughter Florence, ever since she purchased her wheel and bloomers.
On two occasions the mother strewed tacks on the walks, to puncture the tires of her daughter’s wheel, and another time nearly ruined her bloomer costume by besmearing her wheel with paint. Mrs. Moses, however, regarded Jerome Snow, her daughter’s escort, as instrumental in inducing the girl to adopt the bloomers. When Mr. Snow called last week to invite Miss Moses to join in a cycling party, Mrs. Moses ordered him to leave and never return.
The daughter just then appeared, dressed for a cycling trip, and hastening from the house the couple soon disappeared down the road. The two journeyed several miles, discussing the unpleasant incident, when the young man suddenly exclaimed:
“Let’s have a bicycle wedding tonight and settle this question.”
“All right,” said Miss Moses, “Where is the minister?”
The young couple were soon joined by a cycling party, one of whom was the Rev. Mr. Mead. The necessary arrangements being completed, the clergyman repeated the marriage ceremony, received the responses and pronounced the couple husband and wife while the wheels were making ten miles an hour.
1895, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine (New York, New York)
As a revolutionary force in the social world, the bicycle has had no equal in modern times. What it is doing, in fact, is to put the human race on wheels for the first time in its history. When we consider the increase in rapidity of locomotion which is attained, and the fact that it is self-supplied with such ease, it is not surprising that the changes required to meet the demands of the new order of things are so many and so radical as to amount virtually to making the world over again.
1896, Munsey’s Magazine (New York, New York)
In every civilized land, the bicycle has become a familiar object; and even into some of the wildest corners of the earth it has penetrated. European royalties have taken to the wheel no less kindly than America’s social lights. The young aristocrat of all the Russias, the Czar Nicholas, has been photographed with his wheel. Grouped with him were his cousins, the two tallest princes in Europe—George of Greece and Charles of Denmark. The latter not long ago taught his betrothed, Princess “Harry” of Wales, to ride—an accomplishment shared by the Princess Louise and several other members of Queen Victoria’s family. Both lines of French pretenders are represented in the cycling world, Prince Napoleon and Prince Henry of Orleans being wheelmen. The former’s kinswoman, the Duchess of Aosta, has somewhat scandalized her sedate brother, King Humbert, by “scorching” through the streets of Turin in the most emancipated costumes.
In Turkey it is not long since the bicycle was officially designated as “the devil’s chariot,” and its use was proscribed through the Sultan’s domains; yet today it is stated that in the three cities of Constantinople, Smyrna, and Salonica there are more than a thousand wheelmen. In Egypt, the Sphinx looks down upon the bicycle with unmoved eyes. At the other end of the Dark Continent, British settlers have introduced the wheel along with the tennis racket and the cricket bat. All over the world, the story is the same, from Rio de Janeiro, where there is a fine racing track, to Cabul, where the Ameer has recently ordered a consignment of wheels for the benefit of the ladies of his harem.
1897, The Muncie Evening Press (Muncie, Indiana)
American bicycles have made their appearance in Arabia. About the only regions of the earth where the American bicycle has not penetrated lie beyond the Arctic and Antarctic circles.
1896, The Journal (New York, New York)
In all the wonder story of commerce and money dealings from the days of the Phoenicians there is no chapter so astounding as that which tells of the bicycle.
A toy, it has overturned the trade of nations within the compass of five fleeting years. There have been South Sea bubbles and fevers of gold and coal and oil. But all this history of money manias shows no parallel to the bicycle fever. It has set civilization by the ears.
Five years ago, in this whole wide country, not 60,000 bicycles were made or sold, and the solid, stolid, business-men made mock of the “playthings.”
Mark the change. In this year of grace and pneumatic tires, four-fifths of a million of wheels will be marketed in the United States alone.
The leaders of the bicycle trade say that the average price for these machines is $80. Multiply. There will have been $66,000,000 spent this year in the United States alone for bicycles. The world is bicycle mad.
Man, woman, and child—the population of Christendom—is awheel. “Business hours” are only the intervals, now, that must elapse between trips upon the wheel. The butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker may whistle for their pay so long as the bicycle vendor is well reckoned with.
The church? It is forgotten. The Sabbath? A cycling day. The theatre? Old-fashioned fun. The horse? Token and companion of gentlemanhood, a hack, browsing on the highway. Jewels? Watches? Clothing? The men who carried on those industries have turned their machinery to the making of rubber tires and ball bearings.
Tobacco has been forsaken. Wine is a mocker mocked at. Wheels and ginger pop. That is the order of the day. Railroad dividends are decimated. Politics has become merely a catering to the wheelmen’s wishes.
1896, The Forum (New York, New York)
The economic effects of this new force in human affairs affords much material for curious and even amusing study. The loudest outcries come from the makers of watches and jewelry. Many of them have abandoned the business altogether and substituted for it bicycle-making.
It is stated by the journals of the tobacco trade that the consumption of cigars has fallen off during the present year at a rate of a million a day, and that the grand total of decrease since the “craze” really got going is no less than 700,000,000. The tailors say their business has been damaged at least 25 percent, because their customers do not wear out clothes so rapidly as formerly, spending much of their time in cheap bicycle suits which they buy ready-made. Shoemakers say they suffer severely because nobody walks much any longer.
The hatters say they are injured because bicyclists wear cheap caps and thus either save their more expensive ones or else get on without them. One irate member of the trade proposes that Congress be asked to pass a law compelling each bicycle rider to purchase at least two felt hats a year.
Saloon-keepers say that they suffer with the others, that their saloons are deserted on pleasant evenings, and that riders who visit them take only beer and “soft drinks.” There are many other complaints of injury to trade which might be enumerated but I must content myself with the mention of only one other which is, perhaps, the most moving of all. It was made by a barber in New York City. “There is nothing in my business any longer,” he said, “the bicycle has ruined it. Before the bicycle craze struck us, the men used to come in on Saturday afternoons and get a shave, and a haircut, and maybe a shampoo, in order to take their lady friends to the theatre, or go out somewhere else in the evening. Now they go off on a bicycle and do not care whether they are shaved or not. You see where it hurts our business is that when a man skips a shave today, we can’t sell him two shaves tomorrow; that shave is gone forever.”
1897, The Anaconda Standard (Anaconda, Montana)
The Rev. Thomas B. Gregory of Chicago has made a violent attack upon the bicycle. The Rev. Mr. Gregory says the bicycle is a menace to the mind. It annihilates the reading habit. The reading rooms and libraries as compared to what they used to be, are deserted. It is a menace to the health. It provokes heart disease, kidney affections, consumption and all sorts of nervous disorders. It is a menace to the domestic virtues. It breaks up and destroys the home. The children are turned into the street or left at home to look out for themselves while father and mother go spinning. It is a menace to morality. It makes women immodest. And when a woman throws off the beautiful reserve which the Almighty has placed around her she stands on dangerous ground. There is no telling what a woman will do after she has lost her womanliness. The bicycle opens the way for everlasting ruin to a multitude of young men and women who might otherwise escape.
1895, The Oshkosh Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin)
Whenever a healthful amusement becomes a mania, it ceases to be healthful. The doctors have invented the word bicychloris to designate a condition in which the blood is impoverished and the vitality of the system lowered from excessive wheeling.
1893, Buffalo Courier (Buffalo, New York)
Doctors seem to agree that there is such a thing as a bicycle disease, and no one who sees a rider bent in two over his machine, going along as if a prairie fire or a band of wild Indians were after him, will wonder at it. The bent position which is assumed by bicyclists, in order to secure the greater amount of power over their machines and to attain the highest degree of speed while running them, is attended with an unnatural flexion of the spine, which appears in the region of the back and causes not only unsightliness of form, but in boys of 14 years and under is fraught with serious and possibly fatal consequences.
1896, The Medical Age (Detroit, Michigan)
The wheel is often the primary or exciting cause of serious rectal trouble, and there is no affection of the rectum which it will not aggravate. Cases of fissure, piles, and pruritus ani have developed from bicycle riding, which resisted all treatment until the machine was discarded.
In attacks of acute diarrhea, where the anus is excoriated from watery evacuations, and the rectal mucus membrane congested and often inflamed, the bicycle adds more fuel to the flame, and is often the direct cause of fissure, rectal ulcer, or internal hemorrhoids.
Dr. John T. Davidson believes excessive use of the bicycle will lead to sterility in the male, especially where there is already hyperaesthetic deep urethra from an old gonorrhea.
1896, The Daily Sentinel (Grand Junction, Colorado)
Of all the deformities produced by biking the strained, nervous expression known as bicycle face is the most pronounced. It is so common nowadays that a description of it here would be a waste of valuable space.
The bicycle neck is also becoming more prominent every day. Bicycle arms may be seen on the boulevard any pleasant day. The fiend spins along with his elbows projecting outward as far as possible. He is usually so accustomed to this unusual position that he finds it next to impossible to straighten his arms and assume any another when not riding.
Bicycle legs are also characteristic of this peculiar specimen. They are usually knock-kneed, with an abnormal development of the calf. The peculiar position causes him to toe in, producing bicycle toes, similar to pigeon toes.
As a result of indiscriminate riding, scorching and racing, we see a long, strained and nervous-visaged, crooked-necked, round-shouldered, narrow-chested, hump-backed, knock-kneed and pigeon-toed specimen of humanity.
1898, Chattanooga Daily Times (Chattanooga, Tennessee)
The wry-faced, hunchbacked, human monkey, otherwise known as the scorcher, is again at liberty. The scorcher is a menace to every pedestrian and to every decent bicyclist. He should be suppressed. The police should begin a vigorous campaign against him and he should be nabbed wherever found. It is of little concern that the scorcher is unmindful of his own safety; the concern is that he has no regard for the safety of others. A few days of solitary confinement in the county jail would have a salutary effect upon the scorcher.
1896, Toronto Saturday Night (Toronto, Canada)
The bicycle maniac should be shot on sight. The term fiend is no longer appropriate, for the fiend has brains, but the maniac is a reckless, wicked and irresponsible terror for whom no consideration should be shown. The newest of his minor performances is to scorch along the devil-strip on College Street and when he sees a rider approaching to yell, “Right of way,” and accelerate rather than diminish his speed, thereby frightening women unaccustomed to such hoodlum conduct and sometimes causing serious injury to himself and his scared vis-a-vis. Prithee give us one trolley to run over him!
1897, Saint Paul Globe (Saint Paul, Minnesota)
Doctors of France are puzzled by a new mania which is afflicting women who ride bicycles. The feminine cyclists are becoming extremely cruel.
The first case which came into general notice was that of Mme. Eugenie Chantilly. An enthusiastic wheelwoman for a very long time, she even takes her wheel with her when she goes upon visits to friends some distance away. It was on one of those visits to a friend of her girlhood in Paris, Mme. Henry Fournier, that a strange affliction came upon her. Her hostess is also a wheelwoman, and the two went riding one morning along the boulevards which have made Paris famous.
When in the vicinity of the Jardin des Plantes, Mme. Fournier scorched ahead of her friend, and as she drew away from her, looked back laughingly over her shoulder and called to her “Adieu, mon amie.” Mme. Fournier, who tells the story, said she received no response and looking back a moment later, saw her friend darting down upon her at terrific speed. She rode to one side thinking Mme. Chantilly would be unable to check herself by the time she came up with her, but what was her horror when her friend deliberately steered the wheel straight at her. Before Mme. Fournier could evade her, Mme. Chantilly had collided with her wheel and knocked her down. Mme. Chantilly rode back a few paces and then, riding at a lightning rate, actually rode over the prostrate form of Mme. Fournier.
Screaming with terror, Mme. Fournier attempted to rise but was repeatedly knocked down by her infuriated friend, and it was not until others came to the rescue that she was able to gain security from the repeated assaults of Mme. Chantilly.
Mme. Fournier’s injuries were such that the constant care of a physician was required for several days. The physician, deeply interested in so singular an assault, took pains to investigate it and communicated with the insanity expert who had been called to examine into the condition of Mme. Chantilly.
Considering the case on the whole these two medical savants determined that they had discovered a brand new disease which was due solely to the bicycle. They also caused a careful inquiry to be made throughout France. They found seventeen women who had been seized with the same irrepressible desire to injure all cyclists of their own sex whenever possible. The doctors also found additional evidence that the mania inspired a keen delight in all things savoring of cruelty. One woman who was found torturing her dog, when asked the reason, said that she was illustrating the methods of the Spanish Inquisition.
1894, The Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois)
The question, it seems to me: Does the New Woman spring from the bicyclist, or does the bicyclist spring from the New Woman? They are certainly cousins.
Is bicycling beautiful? What a question! The woman, perched on a tiny saddle, balancing herself on the wheel, cannot be anything but ungraceful. When she’s in motion she reminds me of an octopus, with her arms and legs going at once.
1896, The Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska)
Miss Charlotte Smith, the president of the Women’s Rescue League, says that bicycle riding by women is “leading them headlong to the devil,” and proposes to have it stopped by an act of Congress.
1895, The American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children (New York, New York)
A very grave objection has been made to the use of the bicycle among women, which, if true, would induce us to be exceedingly cautious in ever suggesting this exercise. It has been said to beget or foster the habit of masturbation.
It is perfectly conceivable that under certain conditions the bicycle saddle could both engender and propagate this horrible habit. The saddle can be tilted in every bicycle as desired, and the springs of the saddle can be so adjusted as to stiffen or relax the leather triangle. In this way a girl could, by carrying the front peak or pommel high, or by relaxing the stretched leather in order to let it form a deep, hammock-like concavity which would fit itself snugly over the entire vulva and reach up in front, bring about constant friction over the clitoris and labia. This pressure would be much increased by stooping forward, and the warmth generated from constant exercise might further increase the feeling.
1895, The Medical World (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
To my brethren I feel I must speak plainly and unreservedly on this subject. Have we not sexual troubles enough on our hands without opening Pandora’s Box and hauling out a bike? It is a dreadful thing to think that the first thing that should render a young and pure girl conscious of her sexual formation would be her first ride on a bicycle. God save our girls, and keep them pure and virtuous!
1897, The Cincinnati Lancet-Clinic (Cincinnati, Ohio)
A word in regard to the tandem where used by a male and female. The sight of it is immodest to say the least—a tandem bicycle with a girl at puberty bent forward in what may be called a scorch attitude, and right behind her a fellow in a jumping bullfrog position, together working their legs in unison. Every city, town, and State should enact misdemeanor laws that would stop such double riding as may be seen on our streets on tandem bicycles.
1896, The Sun (New York, New York)
Among the bicyclists of the Boulevard she is known as the Woman in Black. On the police court records she appears as Carrie Witten. One name is probably about as near correct as the other. She got into the police court records because the ordinary wheeling pace wasn’t good enough for her, and she took along with her, both on the wheel and to the court, a companion of the opposite sex. They rode tandem; they were arrested tandem; they were arraigned tandem.
It is revealing no secret to announce that Miss Witten is not slow in any sense of the word. Her ordinary bicycling costumes consists of a jaunty black cap, a modish black jacket, well-fitting black knickerbockers—not bloomers by any stretch of the imagination or otherwise—and black silk stockings. Moreover Miss Witten is a very pretty girl in that or any other costume. Clad in this fetching costume she travels along the Boulevard, not only frequently defying the law herself by her pace, but also inciting others (principally of the male sex), to lawlessness in their endeavor to keep her within view.
1896, Cheltenham Chronicle (Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, U.K.)
An extraordinary incident has occurred in Battersea Park. Miss Barlow, of Wandsworth Common, a well-known lady cyclist, entered the park on her bicycle about 3 p.m. Attracted, doubtless, by the fact that the lady wore “bloomers,” instead of the orthodox skirts, a number of boys gathered round and pursued her, and their shouts soon caused a group of roughs to join in the chase. The lady went into the lake house for shelter, which was surrounded by a very demonstrative crowd. Eventually police assistance was procured and Miss Barlow was enabled to leave the park.
1897, Public Opinion (New York, New York)
Press Dispatch, Cambridge, England, May 21: Cambridge University today, by a vote of 1,713 to 662, rejected the proposal to confer degrees upon women. When the voting began the Senate House was thronged, and there were large crowds outside the building. Everywhere were posters inscribed: “Varsity for Men; Men for Varsity.” The excitement continually increased, especially in the streets. An effigy of a woman in bloomers on a bicycle was suspended above the Senate House.
1896, The Glencoe Transcript (Glencoe, Ontario, Canada)
The bicycle fever will not have spent its fury before another craze has developed and taken hold of the community. The horseless vehicle is the coming sensation. The French and German builders cannot keep up with the demand for them. It is predicted that the fever will be due in this country in two years and that before five years have elapsed every city will be turned into a veritable pandemonium of wheels and automobiles.
1896, The Philadelphia Times (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Are the days of the bicycle numbered, and the poor horse threatened with extinction?
Many people have heard of the real horseless carriages, but few have seen them. They are in the same category of public estimation as the bicycle was in the early seventies. But once fin de siècle society takes it up, the bicycle will have to step out and the horseless carriage will be “king,” and as popular as the bicycle is at present.
In the days to come, when automobiles shall outnumber all other styles of vehicles and means of passenger and freight transportation on the streets, the present laws of the road must be radically revised. All streets and boulevards will be divided into two sharply defined sections, which will be indicated by a line of posts or a narrow strip of parking.
Perhaps the greatest boon to suffering humanity that this popular horseless carriage will afford will be the subjugation, humiliation and relegation to the past of that end-of-the-century freak, the cadaverous scorcher.
1899, Comfort (Augusta, Maine)
There are some who claim the automobile will replace the bicycle, but this is rank nonsense. Those who have become attached to their bicycles—there are several millions of bicycle riders—will not easily give up the pleasure of skimming along the country like a bird—or a scorcher!—for the more doubtful delight of riding in the cumbersome, ill-smelling automobile.
1896, Fort Scott Daily Monitor (Fort Scott, Kansas)
Those people who affect to believe the bicycle craze is dying out should peruse the following advertisement from a Buffalo newspaper: “Will exchange folding bed, child’s white crib, or writing desk for lady’s bicycle.”
Skip Notes
* All of the items in this chapter are excerpts from articles published in the popular press, or more specialized academic and medical journals, between the years 1890 and 1899. In many cases, I’ve transcribed the excerpts verbatim. In some instances, I lightly edited the passages in the interest of pace and clarity—condensing the text, or excising confusing period language or references.