A Short History of Women & Cycling - The Early Years

The invention of the bicycle has had an enormous effect on society. A short hop around Wikipedia revealed the following, fascinating information.

Bicycles were introduced in the 19th century in Europe. As they became safer and cheaper, more women had access to the personal freedom they embodied, and so the bicycle came to symbolize the New Woman of the late 19th century, especially in Britain and the United States. The New Woman was a feminist ideal that emerged in the late 19th century and had a profound influence on feminism well into the twentieth. The term "New Woman" was popularized by American writer Henry James, to describe the growth in the number of feminist, educated, independent career women in Europe and the United States.

The bicycle craze in the 1890s also led to a movement for so-called Rational Dress, which helped liberate women from corsets and ankle-length skirts and other restrictive garments, substituting the then-shocking bloomers. The Rational Dress Society was an organization founded in 1881 in London. It described its purpose as follows:

The Rational Dress Society protests against the introduction of any fashion in dress that either deforms the figure, impedes the movements of the body, or in any way tends to injure the health. It protests against the wearing of tightly-fitting corsets; of high-heeled shoes; of heavily-weighted skirts, as rendering healthy exercise almost impossible; and of all tie down cloaks or other garments impeding on the movements of the arms. It requires all to be dressed healthily, comfortably, and beautifully, to seek what conduces to birth, comfort and beauty in our dress as a duty to ourselves and each other.”

The Lady Cyclists' Association, established in 1892, was the United Kingdom's - and probably the world's - first cycling organization expressly for women, set up to provide rides, tours and social gatherings for women cyclists. The organization published a handbook, containing details of reasonably priced places to stay while cycle touring, and a monthly journal, the Lady Cyclists' Association News.

The bicycle was recognized by 19th-century feminists and suffragists as a "freedom machine" for women. American Susan B. Anthony said in a New York World interview on February 2, 1896: "I think it has done more to emancipate woman than any one thing in the world.  I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel. It gives her a feeling of self-reliance and independence the moment she takes her seat; and away she goes, the picture of untrammelled womanhood."


"Let go — but stand by"; Frances Willard  
learning to ride a bicycle.

In 1895 Frances Willard, the tightly laced president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, wrote A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle, with Some Reflections by the Way, a 75 page illustrated memoir praising "Gladys", her bicycle, for its "gladdening effect" on her health and political optimism.  Willard used a cycling metaphor to urge other suffragists to action.
 
 

In Western Society, the bicycle gave women unprecedented mobility, contributing to their emancipation in Western nations. Who knew the debt we owe to the humble but brilliant bicycle?

Wikipedia Sources:
History of the Bicycle
New Woman
Rational Dress and Victorian Dress Reform