Amelia Bloomer - underwear advocate

The good old days when government was smaller and didn’t interfere in everyones personal lives…

From the web site Jolique, which has an exhaustive amount of information on bicycling and bloomers:

Although both bloomers and bicycles were gaining popularity for women by the late nineteenth century, for some they were a dangerous combination. Many opposed both bicycling and bloomer-wearing on the bases of morality and a concern for the public good. For example, some opponents believed that by wearing “male dress” (i.e., bifurcated garments, later called “rational dress” or “alternative dress” by dress reform advocates) women would adopt other masculine traits, such as the desire for other women.

There was opposition to bloomers in Detroit, too.

It was Feburary 16th, 1897 during the Golden Age of Bicycling.

Detroit City Council had the third reading of some very critical legislation: “An ordinance to prohibit obstructing the views of persons in theaters halls or opera houses where theatrical performances are given and to provide a penalty therefor.”

Alderman Batchelder offered substitute language for this ordinance.

Sec 1. Any person who shall wear upon his or her head any hat bonnet or other covering for he head or wear sleeves which obstructs the view of any person or persons in any theater opera house or other place or building wnere theatrical or other performances are given where an admission fee is charged or in any church during services therein or in any restaurant during a feed

And any female bicycle rider caught wearing bloomers in the public streets or any street car conductor found flirting with female passengers while in the active performance of his duty as such shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall on conviction thereof for each offense pay a tine of not more than $10 nor less than $2

Apparently Batchelder had no issue with men bicycling in bloomers.

Nonetheless, there was no support for his substitute language and his proposal died. Female bicyclists in Detroit could still ride in bloomers (and flirty streetcar conductors were given a reprieve.)

The ordinance which penalized those obstructing views in theater halls and operas also failed on a 10-20 vote.

And people complain about today’s Detroit city council?

The Henry Ford blog has a new post which gives a basic but brief early history of bicycles.

“Hurry out to Greenfield Village — the summer season with all its old-fashioned games on the green, period-clothed strollers and ordinary bicyclists ends this Sunday, August 22!”

It’s too late to see the bikes firsthand, but you can see them in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DURjFwgNfvQ

If you do get a chance to visit Greenfield Village, don’t forget to see the Wilbur and Orville’s Wright Cycle Company building, which Henry Ford bought and moved to Dearborn in 1937.

Shorpy has a great photo of Detroit’s Campus Martius and old City Hall from 1900. We have just a small portion of it showing a couple cyclists chatting in the street.

Of course there are no cars. The auto industry hasn’t created the term “jaywalking” yet.

These were Complete Streets before the introduction of cars made them incomplete.

Sandra Svoboda at the Metro Times found this historical bicycle movie made in 1925 by the Detroit News.

According to this newsreel, “Residents of Bloomfield Hills have taken up bicycle riding as a means of recreation.”

Mrs. Warren S. Booth is highlighted. Her husband eventually became the president, publisher and chairman of the board of the Detroit News — the newspaper his grandfather James Scripps founded in 1873. So, this newsreel was more of a family movie than news.

Still, those are some sweet bikes, riding clothes, and hats — a nice tweed ride.

We’ve documented how the bicycling industry helped birth the automotive and road building industries. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that bicycle racing helped birth auto racing — and the Ford Motor Company.

In 1902, Henry Ford worked with two famous professional bicycle racers, Tom Cooper and Barney Oldfield. This partnership was instrumental in the creation of the Ford Motor Company.

The below story by Anthony J. Yanik was originally published in Winter 2009/2010 issue of WHEELS, a journal of the National Automotive History Collection, located at the Skillman Branch of the Detroit Public Library.

Barney Oldfield Meets Mr. Ford

YEARS AFTER HE HAD BECOME a famous racing star, Barney Oldfield would kid everyone about the day he “made” Henry Ford. “Henry Ford said “we made each other, I guess I did the better job of it,” he commented in 1915.

That he helped add to the reputation of Henry is indisputable, but the truth of the matter was that Henry Ford launched Barney Oldfield on a career that made his name a household word on the racing barnstorming circuit prior to World War I.

In April 1902, having been let go by from his second auto company, Henry Ford had become enamored of the racing scene. He asked Tom Cooper, then the most famous professional bicycle racer of the day, to join him in a new project: the build a race car and enter it in the Manufacturers Challenge Cup that would take place at Grosse Pointe, Michigan on October 25.

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