Bicycles

The Wright brothers built and sold bicycles in Dayton, Ohio, before they built an airplane. The shop paid for their experiments, and the skills it taught them, light frames, chains, balance and steering, went straight into the first flying machine.

The early history of the bicycle is a story of awkward machines. The first ones had no pedals at all and were pushed along with the feet. Pedals attached to the front wheel came next, and to go faster makers made the front wheel bigger and bigger. The result was the high-wheeler, sometimes called the ordinary or the penny-farthing, which stood taller than a man and threw riders over the handlebars at any bump.

The safety bicycle changed everything. In the mid-1880s English makers introduced a design with 2 wheels of equal size and a chain driving the back one, and a few years later John Boyd Dunlop's air-filled tire made the ride comfortable. By the 1890s the bicycle was the hottest product in America. Millions were sold, clubs were formed in every town, and racing filled stadiums.

Cyclists pushed for better roads well before the automobile arrived. The League of American Wheelmen, founded in 1880, campaigned for paved roads, and many of the arguments and organizations later used by motorists started with them.

The bicycle also changed life for women. It gave them a way to travel on their own, and it helped loosen the rules about clothing, since riding in a long skirt and corset was difficult. Suffragists, Susan B. Anthony among them, praised the bicycle for the freedom it gave. Worth noticing in the photographs and posters is what the women riders are wearing, from long skirts to bloomers. The French and American bicycle posters of the 1890s, full of flying hair and art nouveau curves, are some of the best poster art of the period.