The first time a woman rode a bicycle while wearing pants in Victoria, B.C., she was threatened with arrest for disturbing the public. For wearing something that looked like this:
In March 1895, Ethel Delmont wore bloomers—loose-fitting trousers, gathered at the ankle, worn under a short skirt—while riding a bicycle. As Ethel cycled through the streets of Victoria, the town “came forth to gaze” and “the police were petrified with amazement”, reported the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper (picture right). So strange, so in violation of social convention was Ethel in her bloomers that the police decided she had to be reprimanded. Ethel was informed that if she wore “that costume” again, she would be charged with “creating a disturbance on the public street”.
I never thought of the bicycle as a vehicle for women’s rights; to me, it was just transportation. Then I read Wheels of change: how women rode the bicycle to freedom by Sue Macy, a lively book documenting the introduction of the bicycle to North America in the late 1800’s, told with vintage photographs, advertisements, newspaper articles, song lyrics and quotes. Macy’s central point is that the bicycle gave women greater mobility and independence in a time when women were heavily restricted by social conventions and, quite literally, the clothes on their backs—tight heavy skirts that prevented a full stride, rib-crushing whalebone corsets, and the like. Bicycling, with its new sensations of freedom, exercise and thrill, empowered women and directly fueled the women’s rights movements in the late 19th and early 20th century.
I was delighted by Wheels of Change. I loved the vintage photos and ads (I’ve posted a selection below). Learning about early bicycle models was fascinating, like the 1860’s iron-wheeled “boneshaker” and the ridiculously unstable “penny-farthing” with its 48-inch front wheel.
Aside: Did you know people used to race those high-wheeled wrist-breakers?! There were no air-filled tires yet. Roads in the 1800’s were designed for horses—they were not paved nor flat and smooth like today’s roads. Falling, or “taking a header” was common, as was breaking both wrists. People who raced those beasts, like champion racer Elsa von Blumen who rode a six-day, 1000 mile marathon (what?!) were, in my opinion, awesome but also bat-sh*% crazy.
Wheels of Change made me appreciate my own bicycle and the freedom to dress comfortably. I use my bicycle almost every day to get around Vancouver. If I couldn’t ride because it wasn’t “lady-like”? Horrible. Or if I could ride, how awkward and restricting, not to mention suffocating, it would be to cycle in a whalebone corset and layers of skirts. To never take a full, deep breath! Never wear a tank top! To miss out on a cool breeze whistling by my armpits on a hot day? How awful.
I think a few quotes from American suffragist Francis Willard sums up how I feel nicely. Willard learned to ride a bicycle in her fifties—a big deal in the 1890’s—and chronicled the experience in her book Wheel within a Wheel; How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle
“At sixteen years of age, I was enwrapped in the long skirts that impeded every footstep.”…”[Later] I began to feel that myself plus the bicycle equaled myself plus the world, upon whose spinning wheel we must all learn to ride.”…”She who succeeds in gaining the mastery of [a bicycle], will gain the mastery of life.”
After all this meditation on the bicycle, I became curious to know the history of cycling here in B.C. I’ve done some digging (The first bicycles arrived from Paris in 1869! Stanley Park used to have a track where they raced penny-farthing bicycles!) and think that will be the subject of my next post.
So what’s your relationship to the bicycle? Did you ever consider it as a catalyst of social change? Whatever your gender, have you ever thought how your clothes—their practicality, shape, weight, tightness—might be affecting your mobility or view the world? Amazing how the little things we (or maybe just I) take for granted today, like loose clothes or a beat-up old bicycle, could be so different only a few generations ago.
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