"Bicycling for Ladies" by Maria E. Ward. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
Subways and yellow taxis may be the icons of New York transportation, but it is the bicycle that has the longest claim to New York’s streets: two hundred years and counting. Never has it taken to the streets without controversy: 1819 was the year of the city’s first bicycle and also its first bicycle ban. Debates around the bicycle’s place in city life have been so persistent not just because of its many uses—recreation, sport, transportation, business—but because of changing conceptions of who cyclists are. In On Bicycles, Evan Friss traces the colorful and fraught history of cycling in New York City. He uncovers the bicycle’s place in the city over time, showing how it has served as a mirror of the city’s changing social, economic, infrastructural, and cultural politics since it first appeared. It has been central, as when horse-drawn carriages shared the road with bicycle lanes in the 1890s; peripheral, when Robert Moses’s car-centric vision made room for bicycles only as recreation; and aggressively marginalized, when Ed Koch’s battle against bike messengers culminated in the short-lived 1987 Midtown Bike Ban. On Bicycles illuminates how the city as we know it today—veined with over a thousand miles of bicycle lanes—reflects a fitful journey powered, and opposed, by New York City’s people and its politics.
"Bicycling for Ladies" constitutes a comprehensive instruction manual originally designed specially for women. It includes advice for beginners, information on training, an exposition of mechanics, and chapters on etiquette, technique, possible dangers, appropriate attire, and much more. Although old, this volume contains much information that will be of utility to those learning to cycle, and it would make for a fantastic addition to collections of vintage sporting literature. Contents include: "Possibilities", "What the Bicycle Does", "On Wheels in General and Bicycles in Particular", "For Beginners", "How to Make Progress", "Helping and Teaching; What to Learn", "A Few Things to Remember", "The Art of Wheeling on a Bicycle", "Position and Power", "Difficulties to Overcome", "Dress", et cetera. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in a modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on the History of the Bicycle. "Bicycling for Ladies" was first published in 1896.
This volume of the Sports She Wrote series completes the nine-volume chronological journey of 19th century cycling articles written by women. By the end of the century, the bicycling craze transitioned from a fleeting fad into a deeply ingrained aspect of American culture. Bicycles were no longer mere novelties but essential methods of transportation for the masses, sources of physical exercise, and vehicles for leisure and sports. Forty-eight articles (102,000 words) authored by dozens of women writers and 38 illustrations from 20 periodicals offer insightful discourse on the state and development of women’s cycling. These articles offer a multifaceted exploration of various cycling topics, reflecting the evolving attitudes and practices surrounding the sport. The final cycling article, published in 1900, is emblematic of the progress made and the future prospect for athletic cycling, focusing on women’s “fancy riding,” now known as trick riding. This volume includes the comprehensive book “Bicycling for Ladies,” written by Maria E. Ward, published in 1896. With 34 accompanying photographs, Ward's book serves as a testament to the vibrancy and diversity of cycling culture during this pivotal period in history. In addition to the basics of riding, Ward provides detailed instructions for maintenance and repair of bicycles and demonstrates how to use the necessary tools that many women of the era were unaccustomed to using. The volume concludes with a foretaste of the future penned by Mary Sargent Hopkins, whose cycling articles are featured in several volumes of this series, but in this case introduces readers to a new wheeled contraption destined to revolutionize independent transportation—the automobile. Sports She Wrote is a 31-volume time-capsule of primary documents written by more than 500 women in the 19th century, including nine volumes on cycling.
During the nineteenth century, European women of all countries and social classes experienced dramatic and enduring changes in their familial, working and political lives. However, the history of women at this time is not one of unmitigated progress - theirs was an uphill struggle, fraught with hindrances, hard work and economic downturns, and the increasing intrusion of the public into their innermost private and personal lives. Breaking away from traditional categories, Rachel G. Fuchs and Victoria E. Thompson provide a sense of the variety and complexity of women's lives across national and regional boundaries, juxtaposing the experiences of women with the perceptions of their lives. Three themes unite this study: - The tension between tradition and modernity - The changing relationship between the community and individual - The shifting boundaries between public and private Dealing with individual women's lives within a large social and cultural context, Fuchs and Thompson demonstrate how strong and courageous women refused to live within the prescribed domestic roles - and how many became the modern women of the twentieth century.
An Alternative History of Bicycles and Motorcycles: Two-Wheeled Transportation and Material Culture accounts for the nineteenth-century creation and development of two-wheeled vehicles, both human-powered and motorized. Specifically, the book focuses on the period from 1885 (which saw the appearance, simultaneously, of the Safety bicycle and the Einspur, the first motorcycle) to 1920, while exploring implications for later bicycling and motorcycling. We argue that invention of these vehicles, rather than the product of gifted individuals, should be seen as the consequence of a number of historical, economic, cultural and political forces that intersect so unpredictably that the notion of a genius inventor is reductive. The common evolutionary model of development from the bicycle to the motorcycle oversimplifies both the technology and its origins. Stripping the vehicles of all their material and cultural associations, such a model fails to advance our understanding of the devices, their creators, and their riders. Taking a contemporary vehicle and tracing its lineage creates a false sense of evolutionary necessity in its creation, and fails to account for the many possible developmental paths that were, for whatever reason, abandoned. By contrast, our book adopts a material culture approach, a form of inquiry that stresses the connections between artifacts and social relations. We consider not simply the bicycle and motorcycle as material objects but focus also on the complex socio-political and economic convergences that produced the materials, materials that in turn themselves shaped the vehicles’ appearance, function, and adoption by riders.
