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Humanities To Go / Public Scholars Project / Catalogue / PS Programs

Women on Wheels: How Women Found Freedom through Bicycling

Is it surprising that in the 1890s conservatives panicked at visions of women riding alone, with other women, or with unsuitable men, and campaigned to stop them? Some claimed that women would damage themselves by acquiring a “bicycle face,” or would get sexual pleasure from bicycling — and thus ruin their reproductive capacities. When women and girls first rode bicycles in large numbers, they celebrated their new freedom to move around in the world. Susan B. Anthony thought bicycling had “done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.” Other suffragists praised bicycling as a road to fuller citizenship for women: women would travel more widely on their own, and would learn a larger sense of responsibility to their fellow travelers. This PSP program will ask audiences to consider how bicycling and other means of mobility have affected history and our own levels of physical activity.

apply for this program


Ellen Gruber Garvey, Ph.D.
Professor of English, New Jersey City University
PROGRAMS BY THIS SCHOLAR

  • Women on Wheels: How Women Found Freedom through Bicycling
  • Writing with Scissors: American Scrapbooks

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  • ABOUT
    ▼
    • Mission
    • Impact
    • Staff and Interns
    • Board
    • Katz Prize
    • Strategic Plan
    • Job Openings
    • Accessibility
  • EVENTS
    ▼
    • 50th Monthly Events
    • 50th Anniversary Gala
    • Events Calendar
  • GRANTS
    ▼
    • Grants Overview
    • Funded Projects
    • For Grantees
  • PROGRAMS
    ▼
    • Clemente Course in the Humanities
    • Community Conversations
    • Community History
    • In the Weeds
    • Informed NJ
    • Museum on Main Street
    • Sponsorships
  • NEWS
  • DONATE
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