The new American girl glides into a new century on the 1899 cover of Puck magazine. She holds onto her hat, her skirts flapping and duster billowing out behind her, a measure of her velocity. She smiles in a frank and carefree way, as Puck pushes her from behind.
Frank Nankiwell‘s marvelous drawing captures the freedom and athleticism that the American girl of this era was enjoying. Though her clothes look constraining to a modern eye, in relation to fashions that had come before, her garb was practical, masculine, and revealingly form-fitting.
In the Gay 1890s, as horizons for women broadened, their increasing physicality prompted dramatic changes in the clothing they favored. Women began wearing shirtwaists and belts borrowed from men’s fashions. Their bell-like skirts hugged their hips and thighs, before flaring out dramatically above the knee. The length was short enough to reveal ankles and leave feet more free. So dressed, the American woman moved faster and more freely, increasingly visible on skates, on bicycles, and in automobiles.
‘At a women’s skating race in Leeuwarden [the Netherlands] in 1809, the crowd watched sixty-four unmarried women vie for a gold cap-brooch. The winner was Houkje Gerrits Bouma. For greater ease, many had thrown off their cloaks. Baur painted the finalists with bare arms, a jettisoned cloak on the ice. It left little to men’s imagination and caused an outcry; therefore it was the last women’s race for many years.’
Image: Nicolaas Baur (Dutch, 1767-1820)
‘Women’s Skating Competition on the Stadsgracht in Leeuwarden, 21 January 1809’ Rijks Museum via Wikimedia Commons
This is the ninth in an occasional series of posts on ice-skating. Click here to go to the first post.
The first bicycle had neither pedals nor a drive train; what made it a bike was the principle of balance, and the way it connected the human frame and locomotion to the efficient wheel.
The concept of the balance bike was magical if simple. For the first time in recorded history, humans discovered that, with the right machinery, they no longer needed animals but could be a self-generating source of speed. Until that moment, man’s conception of personal mobility consisted solely of walking or running. For millennia, humans had had to depend on beasts—whether oxen, mules, or horses—to either carry them or power the conveyances that could transport them with speed.
The discovery that a human being could balance on a wheeled contraption and use his or her legs to push it was itself wildly revolutionary. It was also a foundational discovery, crucial to developing the modern bicycle, the motorcycle, the automobile, and even (think Wright Brothers with their bike shop) the first airplane. We owe the balance bicycle to a brilliant German inventor named Karl von Drais (1785-1851). He was born in Karlsruhe, the capital of Baden, but as a young adult he moved to the smart city of Mannheim; he invented the first keyboard typewriter and hand-powered rail car, too.
Curiously, Drais’s invention of the balance bicycle—which he dubbed a Laufmaschine, and which became known as a draisine or dandy horse—had its roots in an environmental crisis. The bicycle was a consequence of the Summer without a Summer (1816). The devastating eruption of the Indonesian Mount Tambora in April 1815 precipitated a long period of global cooling, depressing agricultural yields in northern Europe and the US and leading to widespread food shortages, livestock losses, and human suffering. Von Drais’s thoughts turned to devising a new human conveyance because so many horses had died. He called his foot-propelled vehicle a ‘running machine.’ This was in 1817.
Rooted in practicality, the draisine caught on because it was fun. In no time, the rest of civilization had taken it up, smitten with a love of bikes and biking that continues on.
December 6, 1908. It’s Sunday night, and everyone inside the Garden is in a state of suspense, waiting for the six-day race to begin. Continue reading →
The French cyclists pose for the camera like something out of Gentlemen’s Quarterly. They exude a cool nonchalance befitting their international fame and unbounded commitment to athleticism. Continue reading →
