The Mechanical Horse

How the Bicycle Reshaped American Life

Margaret Guroff

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781477315873
• eBook ISBN: 9781477308158
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Technology & Engineering

"Guroff has broken new ground with this masterful account of the bicycle revolution set in the broad context of American social and cultural history." —Tom Crouch, author of The Bishop's Boys
With cities across the country adding miles of bike lanes and building bike-share stations, bicycling is enjoying a new surge of popularity in America. It seems that every generation or two, Americans rediscover the freedom of movement, convenience, and relative affordability of the bicycle. The earliest two-wheeler, the draisine, arrived in Philadelphia in 1819 and astonished onlookers with the possibility of propelling themselves "like lightning." Two centuries later, the bicycle is still the fastest way to cover ground on gridlocked city streets.
Filled with lively stories, The Mechanical Horse reveals how the bicycle transformed American life. As bicycling caught on in the nineteenth century, many of the country's rough, rutted roads were paved for the first time, laying a foundation for the interstate highway system. Cyclists were among the first to see the possibilities of self-directed, long-distance travel, and some of them (including a fellow named Henry Ford) went on to develop the automobile. Women shed their cumbersome Victorian dresses—as well as their restricted gender roles—so they could ride. And doctors recognized that aerobic exercise actually benefits the body, which helped to modernize medicine. Margaret Guroff demonstrates that the bicycle's story is really the story of a more mobile America—one in which physical mobility has opened wider horizons of thought and new opportunities for people in all avenues of life.
"[A] fascinating volume . . . Like them or loathe them, cyclists are reprising their initial role as adapters of disruptive technology." — The Wall Street Journal

NOTES

Introduction

1 Lane splitting like this is legal: Metropolitan Police, District Department of Transportation, and Washington Area Bicyclist Association, “Pocket Guide to DC Bike Laws,” October 2012, 9.

1 the main thing that slows cars down: Traffic studies show that, on average, one cyclist creates a fraction of the congestion created by one car. See, for example, Dianhai Wang, Tianjun Feng, and Chunyan Liang, “Research on Bicycle Conversion Factors,” Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, October 2008, 1129–1139; Victoria Transport Policy Institute, “Transportation Cost and Benefit Analysis—Congestion Costs,” August 29, 2003, 5.5–12; David Cranor, “Standard Responses #3: Response to ‘Cyclists Cause Congestion,’” accessed June 16, 2015, www.thewashcycle.com/2011/09/standard-responses-3-response-to-cyclists-cause-congestion.html.

Chapter One: The Birth of the Bike

5 nearly 10:30 p.m.: “Tracena,” UUSG&TA, May 18, 1819. An account of this scene appears in Herlihy, Bicycle, 40–42.

5 the artificial horse: See, for example, “Tracena,” BP&MA, February 6, 1819, 3: “These horses are cheap, they are safe, and do not fall without the rider’s consent.”

5 fashionable citizens: Until 1815, the square had been a potter’s field, but the addition of walkways and tree plantings starting that year gradually turned it into a “beautiful square” used by “citizens and strangers as a promenade” (Watson, Annals of Philadelphia, 351).

5 a long day of rain: Philadelphia Navy Yard Log/Diary for 1819, Record Group 181, National Archives and Records Administration.

5 white picket fence . . . candle-lantern streetlights: Karie Diethorn, chief curator, Independence National Historical Park, e-mail message to author, March 21, 2012.

5 misty half-moon: The moon would enter the last (third) quarter on May 16, 1819.

5 huge, swinging strides: Hans-Erhard Lessing, e-mail message to author, March 14, 2012. To see the Toronto artist Alberto de Ciccio riding a reproduction draisine, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKGGOKnmGLk.

5 The fascinated reporter: “Tracena,” UUSG&TA, May 18, 1819.

6 the first one had appeared in Philadelphia: Charles Willson Peale to Isaiah Lukens, May 8, 1819, APS.

6 There was a tiller: Sketch by Charles Willson Peale, 1819, APS.

6 Those who first saw the machine: Lessing, “What Led to the Invention of the Early Bicycle?,” in ICHC 11, 33.

6 A typical draisine could weigh fifty pounds: Charles Willson Peale to Charles P. Polk, May 16, 1819, APS.

6 twice the weight of the average bicycle: Most mountain bikes and hybrid bikes weigh twenty-eight to thirty-two pounds; most road bikes, seventeen to twenty-three pounds. Bikes Direct, “What Does It Weigh?,” accessed April 5, 2015, http://bikesdirect.com/weights.htm.

6 The draisine had been invented: Hadland and Lessing, Bicycle Design, 10.

6 whose well-connected father: Sören Fink and Hans-Erhard Lessing, “Karl Drais: All about the Beginnings of Individual Mobility,” accessed April 4, 2015, www.karldrais.de/?lang=en.

6 Times were tough in Europe: Lessing, “Invention of the Early Bicycle?,” 33; Hans-Erhard Lessing, “The Two-Wheeled Velocipede: A Solution to the Tambora Freeze of 1816,” in ICHC 22, 180–182; Hadland and Lessing, Bicycle Design, 8–15; Lessing, Automobilität.

6 Drais first demonstrated: Hadland and Lessing, Bicycle Design, 10.

6 he was selling plans for the devices: Herlihy, Bicycle, 26–27.

7 “velocipede,” constructed from the words: Lessing suggests that Drais derived the term vélocipède from vélocifère, the word for a then-new rapid horse-drawn coach (Hadland and Lessing, Bicycle Design, 20). The French words veloce (swift) and pied (foot) have Latin roots.

7 Crossing the channel to England: Herlihy, Bicycle, 31–38.

7 In the United States, the draisine: Ibid., 39.

7 The maker, James Stewart: Dunham, “Bicycle Era,” 34.

7 charging twenty-five cents: “Tracena,” BP&MA, February 6, 1819, 3.

7 added evening hours: “Tracena,” BP&MA, February 8, 1819, 3.

7 Philadelphia’s Charles Willson Peale: D. Ward, Charles Willson Peale, xvii–xxii.

7 a mastodon skeleton: Beth Py-Lieberman, “The Great Hall of American Wonders Opens Today at American Art,” July 15, 2011, www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/the-great-hall-of-american-wonders-opens-today-at-american-art-31832317.

7 only the second fossil reconstruction: Richard Conniff, “Mammoths and Mastodons: All American Monsters,” Smithsonian, April 2010, www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/mammoths-and-mastodons-all-american-monsters-8898672.

7 Peale came out of artistic retirement: “Aged Novelty,” BP&MA, February 6, 1819, 3.

8 he found a British illustration: Charles Willson Peale to his son Rembrandt, May 22, 1819, APS. Although the place where he found this illustration, “Aitken’s repository,” is described as “unidentified” in L. Miller and S. Hart, Selected Papers, Karie Diethorn suggests it could refer to (John) Aitken’s Musical Repository, a sheet music shop on North Second Street in Philadelphia: “Since Peale had seen in Baltimore the velocipede made by Thomas or James Stewart, and the Stewarts were musical instrument makers, maybe that’s the link to John Aitken’s shop.” Karie Diethorn, e-mail message to author, March 21, 2012.

8 hiring a blacksmith to make the machine: Charles Willson Peale to his son Titian, July 20, 1819, APS.

8 Peale deposited the machine: Charles Willson Peale to his son Rembrandt, May 22, 1819, APS.

8 And the riders were probably: Charles Willson Peale to Charles P. Polk, May 16, 1819, APS.

8 The young men had liberated: Charles Willson Peale to his son Titian, July 20, 1819, APS; see also Herlihy, Bicycle, 40.

8 flew downhill “like the very devil”: Charles Linnaeus Peale to his brother Titian, May 10, 1819, APS.

8 Among his other activities: L. Miller and S. Hart, Selected Papers, xxxix–xl.

8 “in a swiftness that dazzles the sight: Charles Willson Peale to his son Rembrandt, July 24, 1819, APS.

8 the machines bumbled along fine: “New Patents and Mechanical Inventions,” Monthly Magazine, or British Register, March 1, 1819, 156; S. Harris, Horse Gaits, 36, 49.

9 “in as short a time as horses”: Mississippi State Gazette, July ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• One. The Birth of the Bike
• Two. The Need for Speed
• Three. The Wheel, the Woman, and the Human Body
• Four. Paving the Way for Cars
• Five. From Producers to Consumers
• Six. The Infinite Highway of the Air
• Seven. The Cycles of War
• Eight. The King of the Neighborhood
• Nine. The Great American Bicycle Boom
• Ten. Bike Messengers, Tourists, and Mountain Bikers
• Eleven. Are We There Yet?
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index