The Bicycle and the Woman
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In the late
1800s the bicycle transformed from the penny farthing, those impossibly high
highwheelers, to something not too different from what we ride today—except it
didn’t cost over $5,000.
Just imagine all
you needed to go beyond your village was to put air in your tires. In one day
you could go further than you could simply walking. And, you didn’t need a
companion. It could be done solo without the help of a conductor or driver. It
didn’t matter what color you were, class status (even today I see a lot of
homeless on bikes), or gender. Suddenly women could become mobile.
Bicycles freed
the woman.
“Myself plus the
bicycle equaled myself plus the world,” wrote Frances Willard, a founder of the
Women’s Christian Temperance Union. As women took to the activity, they quickly
realized that long skirts were a tangling hazard and that corsets compromised
their aerobic capacity. Some began wearing split skirts or bloomers and
loosened tops, while others shortened their hems.—from a recent NY
Times article
Women were able
to wander further and further afield.
Small wonder
that Susan B. Anthony said of cycling, “I think it has done more to emancipate
women than any one thing in the world.”
On July 23 I
leave for a week of cycling. Minneapolis to Chicago. Check back to the
blog the beginning of August for a trip report. I plan to use a combination of
on-road and rail-to-trails connecting with friends in both Minneapolis and Milwuakee. Wish me a safe
journey.
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