This was the story of the first women and cyclists
With their high seats up, glancing sideways at the stunned passers-by, but with a firm course pointing to the distant horizon, those first women cyclists they must have looked like valkyries defying danger.
Her hair tied up with hairpins, her hands firm, gripping the handlebars, her back straight, her long skirts half rolled up, her breathing somewhat short of effort, and her bright eyes, with an intense look, giving an expression of complete happiness… He saw them everywhere, ignoring prohibitions, advice, insults, warnings… and it was precisely their obstinacy that gave them a thousand times more fearsome aspect.
The 19th century ended with winds of change
Expressions such as “equality”, “freedom”, “women’s suffrage”, sounded in the meetingsin cafes, in parades and in the squares of the big cities.
In old Europe, the divorce battle It was won in the United Kingdom in 1857 and the suffrage movement started in 1866 with the presentation before the British Parliament of a petition signed by 1,499 women demanding the reform of the vote and other decisive advances for women, such as the opening of university classrooms. from Oxford and Cambridge to female students, or new professional opportunities in fields such as nursing or teaching.
The bicycle was integrated into the feminist revolution and in the campaign tactics used by the organized suffrage movement. “Pedaling for suffrage” became a key proclamation that spread like wildfire. Thus, cycling went from being a recreational activity to acquiring a vindictive meaning against the restraints of the Victorian era.
In other words, bicycles became synonymous with liberation and equality.
In the words of celebrated suffragette Elizabeth Cady Staton:
«The bicycle is a tool that motivates women to gain strength and assume greater roles in society».
This is how the chapter dedicated to the “Bicycle Pioneers” begins in the book published by Ediciones Casiopea: “Queens of the road”, a tribute to the first fighters for the right to pedalto the travelers on motorcycles or in ailing vehicles with which they circumnavigated the planet.
Pilar Tejera has dusted off stories of women who paved the way for future generations.
Women’s rights fighter Frances Willard was, in the mid-19th century, at the height of her power and influence as a leader of the women’s social reform movement.
His life was centered around the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the US Constitution.
As the national president of the Women’s Christian Union (WCTU), a powerful organization spanning the country with thousands of followers, she guided her steps under the motto: “do everything” for the WCTU.
In his talks, he encouraged his members to participate in a wide range of social reforms through lobbying.
Issues such as the age of consent to have social relationships, labor improvements for the eight-hour work day, prison reform, Christian socialism, or women’s rights, occupied most of the hours of her life.
Over the years, she had held important positions in feminist organizations and founded some of them.
It was the decade of the 80’s and bicycles were already popular and represented a safe-conduct towards the emancipation of women.
So when her doctor recommended that she do some exercise, Willard saw in it the perfect excuse to learn to master the vehicle that the fighters for equality had erected as their symbol.
At 53, she was excited by the challenge.
She hoped, with her example, to help women be seen by men as an equal.
«What made me successful on the bike was precisely what allowed me to achieve some success in life. The one who manages to master the bicycle will gain mastery of life».
Her book: “How I Learned to Ride a Bicycle: Reflections of an Influential 19th Century Woman” was a bestseller.
Thousands of women who wanted to join the bicycle fashionThey saw in him the answer to their hopes.
Women cyclists: a fight without quarter
The big question that was on everyone’s lips was: could the bicycle help create a new era of equality between men and women?
Things are not easy. In 1879, when the University of Cambridge, in England, opened its doors to women, male students staged a fierce protest raising a puppet of a woman on a bicycle.
Marie Curie
Suffragettes like Maria E. Ward, the photographer Alice Austen, who was seen pedaling through New York equipped with her 50-pound camera. weight and that throughout her life she took 8,000 images of immigrants, workers, stevedores and people on the street, Susan Brownell Anthony, the American activist for women’s rights, Marie Curie, who decided to enjoy her honeymoon by pedalingAmelia Bloomer, styling the famous bloomers or bloomers to pedal, the fighter for equality Millicent Garrett Fawcett, one of the thousands of English women who learned during the madness unleashed by the bicycle in the 90s, and who also set out to demonstrate that women were capable of displaying driving styles more elegant and dignified than those of their male counterparts, were some of the names that became famous in that fight.
The opening of the world’s First Bicycle Lane in 1894, in Brooklyn, New Yorkthe story of Annie Londonderry, the first woman to cycle around the world, or Fanny Bullock Workman, who cycled to numerous destinations in the 19th century, including Spain, are also collected in the chapter dedicated to cycling in this book with flavor Vintage.
From “queens of the road«, the book that Ediciones Casiopea has presented to us
