Boston's Cycling Craze, 1880-1900: A Story of Race, Sport, and Society

✍ Scribed by Lorenz John Finison

• Year: 2014
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 316
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

From 1877 to 1896, the popularity of bicycles increased exponentially, and Boston was in on it from the start. The Boston Bicycle Club was the first in the nation, and the city's cyclists formed the nucleus of a new national organization, the League of American Wheelmen. The sport was becoming a craze, and Massachusetts had the largest per capita membership in the league in the 1890s and the largest percentage of women members. Several prominent cycling magazines were published in Boston, making cycling a topic of press coverage and a growing cultural influence as well as a form of recreation. Lorenz J. Finison explores the remarkable rise of Boston cycling through the lives of several participants, including Kittie Knox, a biracial twenty-year-old seamstress who challenged the color line; Mary Sargent Hopkins, a self-proclaimed expert on women's cycling and publisher of The Wheelwoman; and Abbot Bassett, a longtime secretary of the League of American Wheelman and a vocal cycling advocate for forty years. Finison shows how these riders and others interacted on the road and in their cycling clubhouses, often constrained by issues of race, class, religion, and gender. He reveals the challenges facing these riders, whether cycling for recreation or racing, in a time of segregation, increased immigration, and debates about the rights of women.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Kittie Knox, Boston, and the League of American Wheelmen
2. The Ladies’ North Shore Tricycle Tours, Mary Sargent Hopkins, and Wheelwoman
3. The Wheelmen and the Wheel around the Hub
4. Abbot Bassett, the League of American Wheelmen, and the Cycling Poets
5. Women’s Cycling Clubs and the Movement to Oust Women from a Boston Club
6. Ethnic Cycling Stories: Irish, Italians, Jews, and a Chinese American
7. African American Cyclists: Company L, the Riverside Cycle Club, and Robert Teamoh
8. Beyond Asbury Park: Kittie Knox Returns Home
9. The Fight over Cycling Space and Time: Parkways, Parks, Railways, Taxes, and Dogs
10. Racing Routes and Personalities: The Linscott Race, the McDuffees, the Butlers, and Major Taylor
11. Wheeling Home: What Became of the Cyclists in the Twentieth Century?
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Author
Back Cover