Every summer, the city of Sequim holds an annual festival to celebrate their lavender crop.  Yesterday I cycled out there to see the fields, and had a lovely time.

"Lavender is an old favorite English perfume in which country it finds its best conditions of growth.  It is also largely raised in France, but the product is not considered to equal the English.  There are some four to eight grades of lavender oil in the market, the Mitcham and Hitchin, English, commanding the highest price.  The French is very good however, the "Mont Blanc" being usually a fine article.  Lavender enters into the composition of colognes, also into Lavender Water." - Good Houskeeping, May 26, 1888[1]

[1] Dorman, Will B. "Perfumes and Perfumery." Good Housekeeping. May 26, 1888. page 30.

Historic article:


A Plea for the Old-Fashioned Lavender
By Mrs. H.E. White, Bryan, Brazos Co., Texas (1880)

...There is another flower, even dearer to me from the associations that cluster around it... and this much loved flower is the Lavender.  It is called Lavendula from the Latin lavare, to wash - because the ancients used it in bathing and washing; and we all know the oil is used in medicine and perfumery.  Lavender water and lavender tea are used to soothe the nervous and hysterical.  These qualities give it a rank among doctors and perfumers.  Now for its use in flower gardens.  With its silvery, compact leaves, and purple blooms it makes a beautiful hedge, planted and trained and trimmed...  I remember a garden I visited frequently while I was in Southern Europe, and to me, one of the sweetest, prettiest things in it, was a hedge tenderly guarding the flower beds, a hedge, all silver and purple, of modest, old-fashioned Lavender.  Bring it from the kitchen garden and let it adorn our flower yards, where low hedges are wanted.  In obsolete parlance to "lay in lavender" meant to lay away nicely and carefully, to keep sweet, showing that from time immemorial, lavender has been used to perfume clothing.  Does not the dainty Keats tell us, in his "Eve of St. Agnes," of the "Lavender-scented sheets!"  Does not its perfume bring to us a delicious dream of our childhood?
            ...  We lay our loved dead, our holiest memories, to rest in sheets scented with Violets and Lavender; there is a holiness, a purity about these two modest, purple blooms, that no other fragrance can claim; other flowers smell stale after a time, these two always seem fresh and pure.
            Lavender was, in old days, an emblem of affection, and Dryden as well as Keats, has embalmed it in verse.

"He from his lass, him Lavender hath sent,
Showing him love, and doth requittal crave."

            Let us revive the ancient love and appreciation of this flower!  Let it perfume our linen, our baths, and soothe our nerves with its fragrant tea.  Let us honor our gardens with this ancient patrician plant that stands on its simple suit of silver and purple, and claims a place among flowers that gold and scarlet can never fill.

-White, Mrs. H.E. "A Plea for the Old-Fashioned Lavender." The Gardener's Monthly and Horticulturalist. Vol. 22. No. 263 (November, 1880): p. 325.    

Spring

She: Oh mercy! Mercy!  Are you badly hurt?  I hope no bones are broken.  Take my hand - it was a cruel fall.

He: You're very good to help me up.  'Tis nothing.  That's a way we have of stopping sometimes.  'Twas your fault - no, no!  I don't mean that, exactly, Miss.  I thank you.  Oh, don't mind my dusty clothes.

She: I'm truly sorry, Sir. 

He: 'Twas not your fault.  I should have seen the wretched rut, instead of looking - well, to speak the truth - at you.  I think I'm all right now.  What lovely flowers - anemonies?

She: They are fine specimens.  I always seek them when the bright days come.  They are so pure and spotless and so shy.  And peep so timidly from out the grass.  They always seem to brighten and gladden life.

He: As pure and spotless as a young maid's thoughts.  Please, may I have one as a souvenir?  They're early, aren't they?

She: (Looking knowingly at a companion.)  Yes, it seems to me that everything is forward, Sir, this spring.

He: (A goodly hit!  I would I knew her name.  Taking the flower and looking into her face.)  So fair and saintly!  Thanks.

She: I'm truly glad you were not hurt.  Come, Nellie.  Let us go.  'Tis growing late.  Good afternoon!

He: Goodbye - Why, I'm going that way too.  (Confound the Wheel.)  I'm tired of riding.  If my company will not annoy you, and you don't object, I'll walk along.  There!  Let me take the flowers.

Summer

She: Heavens!  How you frightened me!  Those awful wheels glide by so silently, one never knows they're coming 'till they're gone.

He: Excuse me, Miss - I would have spoken had I thought 'twas you.  (Lie number one.)

She: What are you doing here?  A pathway through a whortleberry field it seems to me is not the place to ride a tricky steed like yours.

He: Oh as to that I frequently choose such a winding way to test my nerve and skill (Lie number two.)  Besides I'm fond of berries. 

She: Help yourself.  Or shall I pick you some?

He: Thanks!  If you please.  How sweet you are - I mean they are.  How strange it that we should meet again so far from home.

She: 'Tis rather strange.  I often come out here when Mr. May can share an afternoon.  You know Fred May, of course.  He's just down beyond that clump of alders.

He: Mr. May?  We're not acquainted.  (And don't wish to be.)

She: Next week the golden rod will be in bloom and then we're coming-

He: Golden rod, you said?  I hate all yellow flowers.  A daisy now, a wild red rose - or an anemone-

She: But faded memories of the past - Fred often laughs and says all kinds of flowers are sweet to him, but sweetest: Rose in season.  Ain't he nice to waste so much time on a silly girl?

He: Self-sacrificing truly - and the world so full of selfishness.  (Think I'll leave.  Picks up his Wheel which has been lying against the bushes.)

She: What - going so soon?  I'll speak to Mr. May-

He: No thanks!  Some other time.  I shall be late - I've lingered now too long and had no thought of stopping ere we met so suddenly.

She: The golden rod will be in bloo next week - oh pardon, I forgot.

He (Moving the wheel.) Goodbye.

She: (Turning her face to hide a smile.) Goodbye.

Autumn

He: Good afternoon!  If pony won't take fright, I'll ride with you a mile.

She: Good afternoon!  Oh no, he's used to wheelmen.  Mr. French, my friend Miss Nellie Clark - you've met before.

He: (Bowing politely.)  Oh yes, six months or so ago.

She: Take care!  We're coming to some dreadful ruts.  (Turns out the phaeton, giving him half the road.)  The woods are lovely now.  I think I never knew the autumn leaves so richly tinted.  See!  Is not that maple gorgeous?  Mr. French, we're only going about a mile beyond the old mill.  We should like your company if you have leisure.

He: Thanky - if the horse don't mind the wheel so long.  I will accept.

She: Fred says the ferns are splendid at the mill.  I think you've met Fred May -

He: Yes - no - that is -

She: Oh, I remember!  Poor Fred had to stay in town this afternoon.

He: (Thank Heaven!)  Indeed, how you must miss him!  If you will play I'm Fred May for just one afternoon, I'll wade about in all the cattail swamps and climb trees for leaves.  I'll gather ferns - and if there's one poor summer flower alive I'll try to be in season.

She: You're too late.  The season's past for summer flowers and now but brown and withered leaves strew all the fields.

He: (I wonder if she meant all that for me.  I won't catch on.)  I think to love dead leaves were better than no love at all, perhaps.  To love a dead anemone -

She: Look out!  There's rocks ahead, you surely will be thrown!  We turn off yonder just below the bridge.  The road is narrow - on such dangerous ground perhaps twere better I should take the lead. 

Winter

He: Miss Grayson, may I have the next dance?  I tried an hour ago to speak.

She: Oh certainly.  I think your Wheelmen Hop[1] quite a success.  What is the next dance, please?

He: A plain quadrille.

She: Oh dear!  I thought it was a waltz.

He: The waltz comes after that Miss Grayson.  If you wish, we'll promenade and wait for it.

She: Oh, no!  But, as you please - where can we promenade?

(In the conservatory)

She: I love conservatories - or the flowers - and this is such a fine one.  Here are seats.  But, Mr. French - are all the Wheelmen's Hops held at the members' houses?

He: Certainly.  The Wheel is an aristocrat.  How nice it seems to know you now so well.  How strange that introduction!  'Twas a dreadful fall.

She: You didn't seem to mind it much.

He: Well no, but then I've never gotten over it and doubtless never will.

She: Why, Mr. French!  You've never mentioned such a thing before.  It's terrible!  How are you injured?  Or -

He: My heart's affected.  Ah, no one can tell what I've suffered in the past six months.

She: Oh I'm so sorry and 'twas my fault too.  That is, if I had not come in your way -

He: I never should have known how nice you are.  I met your cousin Mr. May last week.  So he's a blood relation, and to think you never told me.

She: Well whose fault was it?  I tried to introduce you - goodness knows - that day we met by chance the usual way.  Out in the berry field you ran off.  But tell me truly, does the doctor say you never will be well?  Was it the shock which brought on this affection of the heart?  It was an awful fall.

He: (Sighing.)  A dreadful fall.  Ah, me!  All wheelmen fall so once they say.  And Fannie dear-

She: (If he keeps on he'll take a "header" soon.  But I won't keep him - no, I'll die first.  There!)

He: Don't go!  Why, how you tremble - I believe your heart became affected, girl, the day I fell so dreadfully in love with you.  What blushing!  You confess it!  (Kissing her.)  There!  It's done.

[1] Club dance

Transcribed from an 1897 women's magazine:

Is Bicycling Harmful?
By Arthur Bird, M.D.
Godey’s Magazine, 1897

         Shall women ride the bicycle?  Or is it such an abnormal form of exercise that, while under reasonable limits it is acknowledged to be health-giving  and conducive to the well-being of man, yet for woman it is not to be recommended?  A calm and dispassionate consideration  of the arguments for and against will, I hope, lead the vast majority of people to decide in favor of the sport.

         The writer does not claim that every woman is able to ride the bicycle without injury, any more than he would assert that every man can take up this form of exercise  with impunity; but that, of either sex, the greater number can be and are greatly benefited by the proper use of the wheel rationally indulged in, just as much as by other forms of physical exercise reasonably used and directed.

         The advisability of taking up the bicycle is to be decided by the condition of the individual.  Broadly stated, every person who is in good health and able to undergo the usual exertions of life, and who is free from any indication of disease, can ride the wheel.  Anatomically and physiologically, no such difference exists between man and woman as would preclude the latter from indulging to a proper degree in physical exercise.  I am sure that if the question of woman’s ability to perform the ordinary duties of life and the usual labor incident to the care of her home were brought up for discussion, little support would be given to any claim that she was not fitted or able to perform these duties in such degree as they usually fall to woman’s lot.

         The old idea that a woman should not engage in out-of-door sports has long since been abandoned, and their beneficent effect upon her is daily seen in our young women and growing girls, whose step, erect carriage, and glowing color are in themselves unmistakable evidences of health.

         All the arguments against women’s use of the bicycle are to me fallacious.  On that side are brought forward disadvantages which in reality do not exist, or should not exist if the rider is properly instructed and mounted.  In my opinion the bicycle has been of the greatest value in preserving and restoring health to all people who have used it without going to excesses either in speed or distance.  Everyone before using a bicycle, or indeed, going into any sport which involves continued muscular exertion, should seek the advise of a physician and ascertain if there is any weakness which should forbid such exertion.

         For a woman, bicycle riding possesses advantages which are shared by no other form of exercise.  Its influence upon both body and mind are beneficial.  The exhilarating effect produced upon a rider’s mind by the swift and easy movement, the rapid presentation of changing scenery, at once interest the brain and distract its attention from cares and worrying thoughts; and it is this influence which has made all riders so devoted to their exercise and constant in its practice.  Any form of training which is not enjoyable quickly becomes laborious, and is not productive of such good results as it would be were the mind interested in its pursuit, and by it enticed from the constant pressure of worries of life for the time...

         I have said that there is no anatomical or physiological difference between man and woman which should make wheeling healthful for one and harmful for the other; but there are those who raise points of objection against the sport for either sex.  There are two of these in particular which have weight, but which can be nullified by the rider at the outset of his career.  One of these is based on the formation of the saddle, the other on the position assumed by the wheelman.  The old styles of the saddle were doubtless dangerous for long-continued riding, but the application of hygienic principles has been carried so far now in the manufacture of the seat that no vital objection can lie in this direction.  So long as the points of contact are not materially different from those we are accustomed to in the usual sitting posture or even in horseback riding, the danger of bicycling is not greater (viewed from this standpoint) than is sitting or riding.

         The posture of the rider is dependent upon the adjustment of the seat and handle-bars.  Doubtless these may be so set as to force a position in which the spine is curved and the lungs compressed; but it is as much a matter of choice with the rider whether he will sit up straight or make himself round-shouldered as it is with anyone who walks or sits.  The argument against bicycling on this ground is equally applicable against standing or sitting or lying down.

         A number of my patients have consulted me as to the advisability of their using the bicycle.  To only two have I been obliged to say that it would not be wise.  Those whom I have advised to ride have been benefited very markedly, and some from almost a state of invalidism have been restored to comparative health.

         From my own experience, which I think cannot be different from that of other practitioners, I can assert that the influence of the bicycle has already made itself felt in a marked degree upon the general health of the community.  I notice it in the patients, especially the women, who come under my care, and my advice to them is always in favor of its use except where there is some special pathological obstacle.

         My concluding recommendation to readers is: Be sure to consult a physician who knows how to ride a wheel himself.  With this reservation only, it is safe to say to all men - and women - ride the wheel rationally, and a bright eye, a clear mind, and a long life will be yours.    

Hi folks!  
     I just came back from a 90-mile bicycle ride from Port Townsend to La Conner and back and thought some of you might enjoy another historic cycling article.  (Pictures from some of my recent trips can be seen down below the article.)
     Incidentally, if you're interested in Victorian bicycles, my husband and I will be showing our presentation, "An Ordinary Bicycle: The fascinating way in which the Wheelmen changed our world" on Saturday, June 7th at Village Books in Bellingham, WA.  Hope to see some of you there! -SC

WOMAN'S CYCLE
By Mary L. Bisland
Godey's Magazine, 1897

         If in an assemblage of women to-day we should be asked to name the most precious acquisition by the sex in this century, the majority of shrilly-sweet voices would be lifted up - not in favor of the approaching privileges of the ballot, O earnest lady suffragist; nor yet, Minerva, in advocacy of the advantages of higher education.  Those are great and glorious blessings, but there is something women of every class have learned to prize as a shorter road to freedom than wide, welcoming college doors, or open gateways to the polls.  In possession of her bicycle, the daughter of the nineteenth century feels that the declaration of her independence has been proclaimed, and, in the fulness of time, all things will be added to complete her happiness and prosperity.

         The fact is patent, that in three years' time the bicycle has created, not only a revolution, but a revelation in the thoughts and actions of our worthy female citizen.  It is the actual medium through which the "new" woman has evolved herself: the truly new woman, who builds her intellectual, after her muscular strength has been developed, who builds her muscular strength on outdoor exercise, and who has accepted the new means of exercise without any of those doubts as to to its efficacy and purity that naturally assailed the feminine mind in the other paths of advancement...


         The world is a new and another sphere under the bicyclist's observation.  Here is a process of locomotion that is absolutely at her command, a little light machine of steel and rubber that she can lift in her arms, that has greater staying powers than a horse, that is all her own, and at her will must halt or advance, speed like the wind or jog on at an even pace.  The magic carpet possessed no higher virtues.  Once in the saddle, the rider is on absolute equality with any man, needs no assistance in or out of her seat, and, while she rides at as rapid a gait as her masculine companion, loses not one of her feminine perogatives.  The road is as open to her as to him, and she is dependent on no strength or encouragement but her own.  For the first time in the memory of her sex she is an absolute free agent, and yet a woman still.  She has lost nothing in in grace, in womanliness, in her claims on courtesy, admiration, chivalry, and her thousand and one inalienable rights.  This fact alone is a sufficiently strong recommendation of the bicycle to every girl who loves pleasure.

         But there are greater gains added at each revolution of the pneumatic tires, by which the coming woman is going to profit in all avenues of advancement.  Primarily, in reckoning up the plain, practical advantages of the wheel among women, its physical profits exceed all others.  What is true of nations is true of sexes - that without physical strength no victories can be won.  For a time - and a most anxious period it was - the growth of intellectual efforts, and the ambitions and professions adopted by women, threatened  to allow their minds to outrun the growth of their bodies.  The opening of new and almost purely sedentary employments for women, and the increase in educational exactions, threatened dire results for the physical condition of our girls and matrons.  Where their grandmothers, with broom and duster and stirring spoons, used to work up a capable amount of muscle, scientific methods have minimized household duties to the merest formalities, and even the gymnasium failed to counteract the steadily increasing epidemic of nerves.  At colleges and in towns the gymnasium offered only indoor exercise, not only failing to interest the average woman, but savoring too much of labor, obligatory and costly.  A cruel, sedentary existence was promising to cast a melancholy pall over both the working girl and her sister of leisure.

         Right at this crisis, when everyone was prognosticating the evils of extending the liberties of modern civilization to women, two wheels, a saddle, and a pair of pedals bowled to the rescue.  And how opportunely the bicycle came!  If the bicycle is to be valued for nothing else, let us remember that it has been the means of carrying women into the open air; and that to speed it, meant active use of long torpid feminine muscles.  There is really no estimating its economic advantages on this score alone.

         The bicycle is, and promises more than ever to be, the very mainstay of health and pleasure to that great factor in modern life, the bread-winning woman.  Leaving her desk, her sewing-table, her counter, or school-room, this worker knows, with unerring instinct, where she will soonest find the quickest reaction from her mental and bodily fatigue.  Her bicycle is her first thought, her sweetest refuge.  Once in her saddle, the world of petty cares runs behind her like the road she travels.  It is no use on your wheel to ponder over vexing questions and the irritating worries of the day.  While you roll rapidly along, a brand new set of nerves and interests is quickened.  You must keep your eye on the path and take heed of your surroundings.  At every turn of the rubber tires fresh fields and pastures new are revealed, fresh oxygen whips up the blood, and from crown to toe the sinews spring back and forth in obedience to new motions.  One's voluntary inclination is for speed, and speed means accelerated circulation and a sense of mental buoyancy that purifies the brain of its ill humors.  One may ride five miles or fifteen, but at the end of one's jaunt the discontent with which drudgery clouds the impressionable mind is superseded by a wholesome calm of philosophy and cheerful resolution.  The world of tasks is more pleasant to endure, and fuller of compensations.  Given a holiday, the average working girl prefers to spend it on her machine, in the sunshine and open air, and thus the city toiler is brought into close communion with the country.  The bread-winner with a vacation who goes abroad can study her Europe bit by bit from the white high-roads where she cycles, and extends her travels at small expense.

         Truly there seems no higher mission for the bicycle to accomplish than this, and yet it is not only the medium of travel and pleasure to the working woman.  One enthusiastic woman, who climbed out of an invalid's bed to try a bicycle as a desperate resort, has gallantly taught her three tiny daughters to ride, in pursuit of her well-demonstrated theory that half the illnesses of women in this generation are the direct lack of out-door exercise.  She would empty half the infirmaries of their weekling [sic] feminine inhabitants and cure them in a few spins about the park.  Her theory in action would put every new woman on a bicycle, as soon as she could toddle from her cradle, for, by raising, stout, handsome specimens of womanhood, the wheel is bound to play an important part in the building of the next generation.  It will cut down their chances of nervousness and dyspepsia by half, double their lung power, treble their muscular force, and help them to the acquirement of the natural bodily grace, that are the prime requisites in the make-up of our ideal female of the future.

         It has been computed by learned statisticians that when we turn the nineteenth-century mile-post to begin a new era, at least one-third of the female population of our States will own and ride their own bicycles.  This is calculated on the basis of the manufacturers' present sales, where the demand for women's wheels over those for men is almost two to one, and where the manufacturer receives nearly every day advice, commands, and sensible suggestions from women as to the improvement of their machines.  This shows how the woman's interest is waxing instead of waning, and, taking the statisticians' assertion for an excuse, it is hardly an exaggerated fancy that paints the women of two thousand and fifty, every one taking her bicycle as much a matter of course and necessity as food and clothing.  Why should she not, when already the bicycle has established a wonderful democracy among women, who ride it winter and summer, rain and shine, for ills and for pleasure?  The damsel who is the heiress to millions will stop at any time in the roadway to exchange points and bicycle gossip with the maiden who sells hairpins over the counter, and the white-haired venerable, with a score of grandchildren to her credit, never ceases to smile as she spins along the turn-pike as briskly as a girl.  The limp, consumptive-looking individual is as thoroughly recognized in her efforts as the matron who tips the scale at a hundred and ninety, and this is as wholesome a sign among women as the health and pleasure accruing from the sport.

         Were the gift given us to look a bit into the future, what should we probably find the middle-of-the-twentieth-century girl wearing on her wheel - bloomers, very short tunics, or trouserettes and similar abominations in the sight of grace and sweet femininity?  Not if she is the direct descendant of her nineteenth-century grandmother, who here in these United States, spite of talk to the contrary, and of the efforts of fashion, still sticks to her traditions and her skirts.  Long may they wave, the petticoats in modest ankle-length folds of brown cloth or gray, since those are the best colors for cycling!  In time may petticoats triumph over the women who fail to recognize that bloomers are too great a sacrifice for our sex ever to make, and that in skirts only can they maintain at once in the eyes of men their womanliness and their independence.

         Beyond all doubt the twentieth-century girl will recognize this just as she will realize that to ride at once healthfully and well no woman should ever push her speed to the limit of her strength.  There it becomes an engine of destruction.  Only the exceptional woman can stand a trial of strength, or educate her body beyond a point of well-proportioned vigor.  It is the extra heart-beats that hurt, and the over-tense muscles that destroy poise and rounded proportion and stunt the proper growth that easy motion gives.  The woman's bicycle is built for easy trips at moderate speed, and unless so treated it will not prove to be what it now promises to become - the Pegasus on which the sex will one day ride into the fulfillment of all its dreams of universal health and beauty.

This website lists Deception Pass among the World's Scariest Bridges http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/worlds-scariest-bridges/15 - but I enjoy biking over it!

Coupeville, WA

The exercise of riding a tricycle is one highly to be recommended for women, especially young women who have nothing to do but imagine that they have got all the ills under the sun.  A primary effect of riding is to strengthen the muscles, not only of the lower extremities, but those of the abdomen, chest and the arms, which are constantly being excited to contract.  The stagnant air in the lungs is more thoroughly expelled and the apparatus of breathing is more powerfully acted upon by the greater difficulty of respiration and aspiration experienced in quickly propelling a tricycle.  The more effectual expulsion of the stagnant air from the lungs is of very favorable influence upon the change of matter in the human body, in so far as the entry of oxygenated air into the lungs is thereby increased, and oxygen is one of our most important means of nourishment.  Those who wish to expand their chests should mount a tricycle.

         English women are as famous for propelling these three-wheeled vehicles as they are famous as pedestrians.  One lady writes that she never enjoyed such good health as during “this, my first cycling year.”  She rode 100 miles the first month; 210 the next; then 300 miles a until in the last two months of the season she rode 500 miles each, making 2,166 miles in eight months, a part of the time being lost by foreign travel.  A 16-year-old girl writes that she has ridden four miles to school on her tricycle; and a 10-year-old girl rode 150 miles in a little over four months.  Ladies make tours on their wheels, and, if they have some talent at making sketches, they derive additional pleasure.  The tandem rides that Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell have made with their sketch books are famous.

         New England ladies seem to be foremost in this kind of exercise.  The ladies of Boston, says a newspaper of that city, are realizing that a tricycle ride is a most delightful and exhilarating pastime, and that it also combines pleasure with the best of practical, common-sense exercise, insuring health and spirits, while it is also an economical means of rapid transit.  Within the past season, says another newspaper of that city, the number of women who ride the tricycle has increased materially and a tour for several days is occasionally the result.

         A certain woman known to a correspondent of Bicycling News, who was of very delicate health and confirmed invalid habits, and who for years had never been able to walk beyond her own gate or to take any prolonged drive in her carriage, so improved herself by gradual attempts to propel a tricycle that she was able to achieve her six or eight miles in a morning without the least fatigue.

         A Washington tricycler writes that the exercise “thoroughly distributes the blood to every portion of the system, promotes digestion, strengthens the muscles of the limbs, keeps the feet and clothing from the dampness and slop of the streets, while it protects and supports the spinal column in such a manner that the brain is not exhausted by invigorated by an exercise that may be continued for hours.  Let every feeble, nervous woman try it, and she will soon find her limbs rotund, cheeks ruddy, and step elastic.”

         In Chicago, as well as in Boston and Washington, the tricycle is finding more and more favor with women, and everywhere and in every instance where nothing unreasonable is attempted to be done, the testimony is a most positive commendation of the exercise as a means, not only of building up the health of women, but of contributing to their enjoyment and happiness of mind and body.    

ON WINGS OF LOVE

By S. Conant Foster

Outing And The Wheelman

March 1884

Freshets rushing,

Bridges crushing,

Stay the way of

     Train and team -

What bold stranger

Braves the danger?

Who doth cross yon

     Angry stream?

Strong and swiftly,

Deep and deftly,

Dip his paddles

     In the tide;

Bravely done, sir!

Nobly won, sir!

See! he gains the

     Other side.

Wheel he carries,

Waits nor tarries,

Mounts, and quickly

     Rolls away;

While in wheeling,

Joyous feeling

Vents in happy

     Roundelay.

"'Cycle, 'cycle,

Whirling 'cycle,

Tell thy rider,

     An' thou please,

What sweet saying

Love betraying,

Thou dost whisper

     To the breeze.

"Nay, my beauty,

'Tis thy duty

To unfold thy

     Wisdom.  Come!

Voice thy learning

To thy turning;

What! in whisper

     Still art dumb?

"Rogue of metal!

Leaf and petal,

Twig and shrub on

     Either side;

Wondering prattle,

As we rattle;

Tell them why so

     Swift we ride.

"Still, dost falter?

At the altar,

All impatient,

     Waits a bride;

That is why we

Hurry by thee,

That is why so

     Swift we ride.

"On!  O 'cycle!

Knavish 'cycle!

Churl to make thy

     Master speak;

On to meet her!

On to greet her!

On! till journals

     Smoke and creak.

"Hark!  O 'cycle!

From St. Michael

Tolls the appointed

     Hour of four;

Hurry! speed ye!

Fly! for heed ye,

She doth signal

     From the door."

Another fun piece about bicycles, transcribed from an antique ladies' magazine.

The Evolution of a Sport
Godey’s Magazine, 1897

Man lives in the present, revels in the future, and occasionally recalls the past, notwithstanding that in the latter there is much that is keenly interesting, much that is highly instructive.

Of the hundreds of thousands who now ride bicycles, how few there are who know of its history, its birth, its growth, its struggles, and its final and far-reaching triumph!  Not many really care, perhaps, but for all of that, there are few who will not exhibit at least a show of interest in almost anything which pertains to that which has become so much a part of our daily life that it can well afford to rank as a wonder of the final quarter of the nineteenth century...

In 1865 Pierre Lallemont, a Frenchman, exhibited a bicycle with the cranks and pedals attached to the front wheel, which was also the larger of the two.  Previous to that time, the front wheel had always been the smaller.  Lallemont’s invention was the forerunner of the “ordinary” or high bicycle, which was so familiar and in such general use twenty years later.  In 1868 the rubber tire was introduced, and other improvements followed in time.  It was not until 1876, however, that a bicycle, in the general acceptance of the term, was seen in America, and not until the following year that an American, A.D. Chandler, of Boston, was in actual possession of one.

The Englishmen were quicker to realize the advantages of the wheel, and for a time all bicycles used in America were of English make.  In 1878, however, a sewing machine company in Hartford, Conn., undertook their manufacture, on a small scale, of course.  That it was not a gold mine may be imagined from the fact that one year later the sales of bicycles in this country had reached a total of exactly ninety-two.  In November, 1879, there were, by actual census, easily taken, just thirty-five wheels in New York City.  A club had been organized during the previous year and a bicycle race run.  These attracted notice, and slowly but surely the bicycle crept into favor.  There were stumbling-blocks at every corner, however.  The “new-fangled thing” frightened horses, nurse-maids, and old women, and was voted a menace to public safety.  The law-maker legislated against it, and the common citizen damned it most vigorously.  Even as late as 1881 three wheelmen were arrested for daring to ride in Central Park, in New York City.  This arrest, however, proved an opening wedge.  There were then some one hundred bicycle clubs scattered throughout the country, and the hue and cry that arose resulted in the park authorities removing certain of the restrictions.  Cyclists were permitted within the confines of the park after they had proved their proficiency and had been awarded a brass badge, attesting to the fact, by the Park Commissioners...

Until 1886 the high wheel was in general use.  The previous year - recall Dalziel’s invention and note how history repeats itself - a low-built bicycle, driven by chain-power, had made its appearance in England, and naturally found its way to this country.  It met with immediate disfavor and when, in 1887, a woman’s bicycle was invented by a Washingtonian, the roar that went up... proved such a shock to the public that it was years before it recovered.  But it did recover, as all the world now knows.

It is useless to delve deeper into history.  The safety, slowly at first, and then with a rush that was amazing, found its way into such favor that the high wheel was soon almost wholly obliterated.  The pneumatic tire - invented by a veterinary surgeon, J.B. Dunlop, of Belfast, Ireland - came out in 1889, and completed the “death” of the “ordinary,” although, as a matter of fact, it was not until 1893 that the air tire was fully understood and was in general use.

About the time that the safety bicycle was introduced, interest in cycling was on the wane.  The high wheel was hardly a practical machine for all round purposes and for all ages and conditions of men.  From its very nature its use must be limited.  The low wheel came in at about the proper moment, and was followed by a revival of flagging interest.  It was not, however, until the pneumatic tire became known that cycling can be said to have had a really permanent foundation, and to no one other invention is due the present happy condition of things.  The new tire wrought a great change in the construction of bicycles, reducing their average weight from fifty to twenty-three pounds; it abridged distances, completely upsetting the old tables of records - witness  that it has reduced the mile record from 2:22 3/5 to 1:40 3/5; it permitted travel on streets and roads previously thought unridable, and added to cycling a degree of ease and comfort never dreamed of.  Yet how few know how much of this is due to the insistence of an eight-year old boy, Inventor Dunlop’s son?

It is true that as early as 1845 an Englishman named Thompson patented an inflated tire designed for use on wagons, but this was never utilized.  It does not appear to have been known to Mr. Dunlop at the time he was experimenting.  In simple fashion, he has put the story of his invention in writing, a story which has but seldom seen the light.

“In 1885,” says he, “I bought a tricycle for my only son, John, who was then eight years of age.  For a few years previous to that I had been thinking of spring wheels, with the object of reducing vibration, and rendering the propulsion of vehicles comparatively easy.”

“John often complained of the ‘roughness’ or ‘shaking’ he experienced on his tricycle, especially over sets.  I understood that spring steel was not reliable in spokes or rims of spring wheels, and I knew that htere was a loss of power in heavy rubber tires.  I formed the opinion that compressed air contained in a thin, strong, flexible, non-expansible jacket or tube, and applied to the outside of a wheel, would be the best means for increasing speed and reducing vibration of cycles, etc.  I told John that I could make the fastest and easiest running machine that had ever been made.

“I was exceedingly busy in the practice of my profession, but John often urged me to have a machine or wheels made according to my ideas.  I was anxious to gratify his ardent wishes; besides, I had an ambition to produce a fast machine.  I therefore resolved to have an experiment tried.  About the end of 1887, or beginning of 1888, I procured two thin strips of American elm about three inches broad, which I bent and formed into rims.  I also ordered a few yards of sheet rubber, one-thirty-second of an inch thick, and rubber solution, and bought a few yards of strong Drogheda linen.  Out of these we made two air-tubes and tires complete, and secured same to the wooden rims.  The tread surface of the canvas tube was covered with two or three layers of the sheet rubber, and a single layer was used near the rims.  As we had no workshop these operations were carried on by John and myself in a bed-room seldom used.

“The rims and tires were then suspended round the driving-wheels of the tricycle by means of wires.  I did not use an air-tire in the front wheel, because the forks were too narrow, and I had no means of altering them.

“It would take too long a time to describe how these tires were the subject of ridicule and laughter.  However, they realized our expectations, and I resolved to have a better tricycle fitted with air-tires.

“When the rubber makers were requested to make the air-tubes, they replied to their Belfast agent that they had been asked to make many absurd things before, but this was the most absurd and impracticable idea they had ever heard of.  The agent wrote them again to make the air-tubes, and informed them that the idea was not impracticable, as a pair of such tires were actually in regular use.  The bicycle was regularly ridden during the winter, in order to test the tires.”

Thereafter young and old, high and low, male and female caught the infection, until to-day the man or woman who would deride the bicycle would be at once, and rightly, set down as a dyspeptic crank.

The wonderful demand for bicycles which developed during 1895 - a demand so great and wholly unexpected that the bicycle factories of this country, working night and day, could not supply it - is not without  parallel.  Indeed, the history of the bicycle in America can best be likened to a series of great waves, this, of course, assuming that the curious and fantastic two-wheeled and man-propelled vehicles of the distant past may with propriety be termed “bicycles.”

The first wave reached its greatest height in 1819.  Quotations from a publication of that year state that “excitable citizens were in an ecstasy of astonishment and delight over the introduction of the ‘dandy horses,’” and that “the manufacturers could not apparently meet the demand of the ‘velocipeders.’”  As with all waves, this receded, and “the people who had purchased machines at great prices gave them away as playthings to grown-up boys.”

In 1868 - 69 another cycling wave precipitated itself on these shores and swept the country from end to end.  The velocipede factories worked overtime but could not equal the demand; “riding academies” were over-numerous; “velocipede receptions” were nightly occurences and attracted the fashionable element.  At one of the “receptions,” it is recorded that “Among the gentlemen who gave proof of their skill was Charles A. Dana, who is an expert rider.”

This reprint from a record of 1868 is of unusual interest at this time and shows how closely history has repeated and is repeating itself:

“Several months have passed since we heard of a two-wheeled contrivance, called ‘bicircle’ or ‘veloce’ by which it was possible for an active Frenchman to traverse ten miles of the streets of Paris in a single hour.  The fever which raged so high there seems to have broken out in America.  Schools for the instruction of velocipede-riding are being opened.  Youngsters ride down Fifth Avenue with their school-books strapped in front of their velocipedes, and expert riders cause crowds of spectators to visit the public squares, which afford excellent tracks for the light wheels to move swiftly over.  The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher has secured two of the American machines, and other gentlemen, well known in the literary and artistic world, are possessed of their magic circles.  One of them takes his ride of nearly ten miles daily, and saves time as well as enjoying the ride.  A number of persons are already making use of the velocipede as a means of traversing the distance between their homes and places of business.  Professional inventors are now loboring to bring it to American completeness, and the few dealers in New York are doing quite a driving business.  Their prices range from $60 to $100, about the same as in France.  The weight of a medium sized machine is about sixty pounds, and the size of driving-wheel most in favor from thirty to thirty-six inches.  The winter season is not favorable to veloce-riding, but with the opening of spring we may expect to see the two-wheeled affairs gliding gracefully about the streets and whizzing swiftly through the smooth roads of Central Park.”

Whether it is proper to term the 1895 demand a wave is, of course, open to serious question.  If it is, it certainly has not reached its height.  The greatly increased outputs of the various factories, and the intense displayed by the public in the several cycle shows of the past few months, make this appear certain.  That is not a “wave,” that it will not recede, that the present demand is not a “craze” nor a “mania,” there is abundant reason to believe.  That the sudden and sky-rockety increase last year was unnatural is generally admitted.  That the business will continue to grow is certain, but that it must settle down to a strictly commercial basis is equally true.

Let not the bicycle be confounded or too closely linked with the so-called “motocycle” [sic]- a general inclination of this time.  The two vehicles are too disimilar in purpose and in accomplishment to be placed in the same class.  It is the bicycle, the vehicle propelled by human energy, that is making the world better and healthier and more contented, and which deserves the praise.  It has abridged distance - which accomplishment, the sages say, is second only to the invention of the alphabet - but better still, perhaps, it is making a happier and healthier people.  It has, to an extent, broken down the barrier between classes, and has contributed to the home circle a means of contentment by which there may be a more nearly equal division of the joys, a division which may be shared by father and son, by mother and daughter.  Every revolution of the pedals means a breath of new air, an infusion of new blood, a quickening of the energies, a bettering of the mind, a bettering of the body; all of which have a direct bearing on the affairs of home and business.

The bicycle has brought the world one step closer to Nature.

The following article was transcribed from an antique ladies' magazine.  It is a wonderful reminder that roads were paved not for automobiles, but for and by cyclists!

The Work of Wheelmen for Better Roads
Isaac B. Potter
Godey’s Magazine, 1897


“When a man rides a bicycle he begins to study the face of the earth.”  The novelty of riding a vehicle of which the rider is himself the propelling power is in many ways an instructive one.  The experience is delightful or dangerous; easy or irksome; inspiring or tiresome, and the pace of the rider is rapid or slow, just in proportion to the effort required to keep the vehicle in motion.  And since this effort depends in a marked degree on the condition of the surface over which the bicycle is propelled, it has come to pass that the cyclist of to-day is tolerably familiar with the road question, and his familiar knowledge has been gained in that best of all schools - the school of experience.  He knows, indeed, what all the horses and all the mules knew thousands of years ago, with the added advantage of being able to tell about it.  The only beast that was ever known to speak is said to have called Balsam’s attention to the bad going.  Every wheelman who talks for good roads tells the story that every horse would tell, and has the happy satisfaction of voicing the sentiment, not only of millions of his fellows, but of millions of dumb and patient brutes that have become galled and wind-broken and spavined and foundered and mangy in the service of millions of thoughtless and selfish masters, who, with an almost communistic fervor, are perpetually trying to dodge the road-tax.

And this leads me to say, in passing, that a tax is not a think got be afraid of; it is the tribute which savagery pays to civilization; the entrance-fee to community life; the price we pay for the privilege of living together, and for the right to fly a national flag.  The wheelmen of America have considered these things, and have thought out and wrought out many problems which have seemed to impede the movement for better roads.  They have formed a “League of American Wheelmen,” an organization now in its sixteenth year, whose main object is “to facilitate touring and to secure improvement in the condition of the public roads and highways.”  The history of this League is a vastly interesting one.  It began as a fraternity of young men banded together for mutual protection and for the attainment of the right to travel upon the public roads and parkways.  Having, at the end of bitter opposition, accomplished these ends, the officers of the League, about eight years ago, took up the work of agitating the question of better roads.  Many members of the League had travelled on their wheels over the splendid roads of France, Switzerland, Germany, and the British Isles, and knew of the wonderful internal development which good roads had brought to all of the great countries of Europe.

When Mr. Blaine was made Secretary of State in 1889, a letter was sent to him at Washington by the Highway Improvement Committee of the League, suggesting that our consuls, ministers, and representatives at the principal cities of Europe be directed to report at length concerning the various methods of making and maintaining public roads in the various counties in which they were officially located.  Mr. Blaine, with his usual sagacious foresight, immediately acted upon this suggestion, and in 1891 there was issued from the Government Printing Office at Washington, a bound volume of Special Consular Reports on the subject of “Streets and Highways in Foreign Countries,” comprising nearly six hundred printed pages and copiously illustrated.  The distribution of these reports did much to stimulate the movement in the United States, and in the fall of the same year the League of American Wheelmen established the Good Roads Magazine, an illustrated monthly publication, of which, during the three years of its existence, more than a million copies were distributed throughout the United States.

Meanwhile the several State Divisions of the League had given active attention to the subject, and in all the more populous States, Highway Improvement Committees were appointed and set at work.  In many States highway improvement legislation was attempted, and in some it has been successful.  In Massachusetts, the new system of highway construction under the provision of the State Highway Commission, has been highly successful, and the system there adopted suggests many features that might be copied with advantage by other States.  The three members of the Massachusetts Commission are Hon. George A. Perkins, of Boston, an ex-member of the Massachusetts Legislature, Professor N.S. Shaler, of Harvard University, and William E. McClinstock, a skilled road engineer, all men of undoubted fitness, as the result of their work has shown, and all members of the League of American Wheelmen.  In New Jersey the construction of improved roads through Union, Essex, and other counties, was largely the result of agitation begun by the wheelmen, and the adoption of the excellent Highway laws now in force in that State was brought about by the direct influence of wheelmen in the legislative halls at Trenton.

It is sometimes urged by thoughtless people that the interest of wheelmen in the improvement of the public roads is a purely selfish one, and that the public at large should not be taxed for the purpose of constructing roads for the convenience of bicycle riders; but most of this sort of argument runs to sophistry and works its own destruction.

Bicycle riding is neither a trade, a profession, nor an industrial occupation.  A million people in the United States are to-day the owners and possessors of bicycles, and the time is soon to arrive when it will be no more proper to speak of a man as a “bicycle rider” because he occasionally rides a wheel, than it would be to style one a “carriage rider” who finds frequent occasion to drive his horse over the public roads.

The wheelmen of the United States include men engaged in all the learned professions, in all branches of trade, manufacture, and commerce, and they include thousands of farmers whose acquaintance with the bicycle has induced a more useful and intimate acquaintance with the miserable condition of the public roads, over which they and their fathers and grandfathers have dragged their weary way for more than a century.

There is really but one argument on the good roads question, and that is the argument in their favor.  We all know, in the first place, that we are have never had really good going.  We may as well admit that these country roads are about as bad as roads can possibly be; that they are frost-laden and wet, and soft and soggy in spring and fall; dry and dusty in summer, and rough the year around.  These roads are all out-doors, in plain sight; everybody knows they are bad, and every honest man will admit it.  As farmers, let us admit that these bad roads keep us from town and from each other; that we can’t get to market when prices are good; that we are hauling scant loads, racking our wagons, killing our horses, and rasping our tempers; that they keep our wives shut up like cattle in a pen; that they increase our solitude, keep our children from school, and send our young men to the cities with a solemn oath upon their lips that they will never till the soil.

Last year our railroads carried a thousand million tons of freight.  Every year the amount increases.  Every pound of this freight is carted and carried over our streets and roads before it gets to the railroad.  Million os tons more are hauled in wagons and sold in the country towns and consumed by the local buyer.  Here is the farmer’s end of it: hay, fifty-four million tons.  Think of it! ... - ninety million tons of potatoes; two million tons of cotton; total, one hundred and fifty-two million tons, not counting the mud on the wagon wheels.  Five hundred million dollars paid for farm implements and machinery to harvest it.  Twelve hundred millions invested in farm horses and mules to drag it to market.  Think of it!  Think of waiting for the mud to “dry up.”  Sixteen million horses and mules idle in the stable.  Four million dollars a day for the horse feed; twenty-eight millions a week.  Think of the loss of time and labor; the dwarfed and shrunken value of our farms; of the slack supply and good prices when the roads are impassable; think of the procession of farmers that rush to town and glut the market in the first days of dry weather, and think of the paltry prices they get when everybody is trying to sell to an overstocked merchant.

And so the wheelmen are trying to encourage the movement for better roads, not only because good roads are needed for bicycle riding, but because they are needed by everybody.  Every improvement is a herald of prosperity; every good country road increases the value of every farm that fronts it.  Raise the value of real estate on American farms five per cent, and you make our farms richer by six hundred and fifty millions of dollars.  Put a like increase on the value of farm products, live stock, and farm machinery and you gain three hundred and fifty millions more.  Decrease the cost of hauling one year’s crop of hay, cereals, potatoes, tobacco, and cotton, by only ten cents per ton, and you save fifteen millions of dollars.  A good road, therefore, is a splendid investment.  There never was a good road made in any civilized country on earth that didn’t pay a hundred percent a year on its cost.  It raises the value of every acre, invites us to market when prices are good, and takes us out of the clutches of the commission pirates who sell our goods behind our backs at their own figures, keep their own accounts, and pay us a pittance for our toil and trouble.  A good road shortens distance, saves time, wagons, horse-flesh, and harnesses, increases the load and lessens the burden, and makes it possible to haul two tons to market with the same power that now leaves one ton stuck in the mire.  And good roads bring us closer together, drive out the gloom, make neighbors of hermits, discount every farm mortgage, and bring joy and contentment to every community.  Imagine a man, knee-deep in the mud, trying to look cheerful!

... If, therefore, the wheelmen are seeking to divert the efforts of our statesmen into a new and promising field, should they not have substantial encouragement?  Years of experience have taught them the lessons of fortitude, and they have been repelled too often not to understand that a lost battle is not a lost victory.  The year 1896 finds the League with a larger membership than ever before, a membership that grows with the growth of wheeling, and that promises in the near future to make the subject of better roads a political issue, and to declare a platform from which the more or less important but well-worn question of a tariff on tomato-cans will give place to one of greater public concern."

One of the most popular presentations given by my husband and myself during the recent Port Townsend Victorian Festival was our discussion of Victorian bicycles.  These wonderful machines are always fascinating to people when we venture out on them.  Today, I thought some of you might enjoy this delightful poem from 1884 - a love song to a bicycle!  It was originally published in the cycling journal, “Outing and the Wheelmen,” and I have transcribed it from my husband’s antique copy.  Enjoy!

A  MODERN LOVE
 SUNG IN ANCIENT FASHION

By Basil Webb

Outing And The Wheelman
 March, 1884

O AM'ROUS bards of olden time,

Alcaeus thou, and though, sublime

Anacreon, and though, sweet maid,

Whose burning songs of love once played

Sad havoc with the hearts of men

In Lesbos, Sappho, though who then

Wert called "the sweetly-smiling," lend

Me somewhat of your grace.  Befriend

My feeble muse; for I would sing

My love - slender, fair-formed thing,

With ev'ry charm and beauty graced,

As Helen fair, as Dian chaste,

Of look as bright as Venus.  Still

With loving looks, nor speakes she e'er

One word of love.  She has no care

That I be ever constant.  Cold

She is, and passionless as gold

In form of goddess wrought.  Yet, strange,

She does my will, nor dreams of change,

And faithful is and true as steel

Can be.  My mistress is the wheel.