Library Company of Philadelphia
Connie King, Curator of Women’s History, wrote about this piece of sheet music: ‘The woman bicyclist on the cover of this sheet music is the “scorcher,” slang for a bicycle racer. In the 1860s, calling a woman bicyclist a “scorcher” would have had profoundly negative connotations, suggesting wild hedonism (of a gender-inappropriate kind!). But by the 1890s, the negative connotations had diminished and both men and women were happily riding bicycles, joining bicycle clubs, and … apparently … dancing to music inspired by bicycling.’
According to suffragist Susan B. Anthony, bicycling “did more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.” Check out Connie King’s blog post about women and bicycling here (and for information about her upcoming collection review) here.
George Rosey. The scorcher: march and two-step. New York: Jos. W. Stern & Co., [1897?]
This summer, Franklin & Marshall intern Lydia Shaw has been working on women’s history projects at the Library Company. In preparation for Women’s Equality Day (today!), Lydia read Frances Willard’s 1895 book on her personal experience learning to ride the bicycle. Willard became enthralled with bicycling at a time when bicycling was a new pastime, and one associated with male athleticism. Lydia writes:
“In the second half of the 19th century, a new, healthy, and excitingly challenging means of transportation appeared in American popular culture: the bicycle. The first bicycle (known as the “Ordinary”), the amusing-looking 19th-century bicycle of collective popular memory, had a giant front wheel and a small back wheel and was exclusive to young men who possessed the funds to purchase it. These same young men made yet more exclusive biking clubs, to which they could bring their female romantic partners as guests… Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, women were discouraged from riding a bicycle whatsoever.”
To read Lydia’s full post, click here.
Frances Willard, the author of Wheel within a Wheel, will be featured in the exhibition Women Get Things Done, opening soon at the Library Company of Philadelphia!
Frances Willard. Wheel within a Wheel (1895).
It is National Bike Month and we wanted to celebrate by showing this lantern slide shot by William Harvey Doering of a woman standing next to her bicycle in Long Island, N.Y. (1900). There is nothing like riding a bike on a cool Spring day, and for women in 1900, cycling was a piece of independence.
Among his many interests, Marriott C. Morris was a fan of bicycling. Whether playing with his children or taking extended trips, Morris had joined in on a craze that swept America and Europe in the late Victorian period. Interested in the many images of bicycles and bicycling parties within the Marriott C. Morris Collection, Curatorial and Reading Room Assistant Emma Ricciardi wrote a quick history of the bicycle. Read more about her research on the Library Company blog: http://librarycompany.org/news/
#MorrisMonday