ENG 3620, American Literature II —Pedaling to Power—Women on the Wheels of Change

Spring 2020, michael wutz

• (1) The Gilded Age, Realism, and Naturalism, 1865-1914The Gilded Age / Reconstructing America / The Literary Marketplace /Forms of Realism / The “Woman Question” / Unseen Forces /The New American Empire

• (2) American (Literary) Modernism, 1914-1945

• (3) Contemporary American Literature, 1945-present

Pedaling to Power—Women on the Wheels of ChangeFemale Body/Female Autonomy

Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than any one thing in the world. I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a bike. It gives her a feeling of self-reliance and independence the moment she takes her seat; and away she goes, the picture of untrammelled womanhood.

The bicycle will “make the next generation more vigorous of mind and body; for feeble mothers do not produce great statesmen, scientists and scholars.”

—Susan B. Anthony

Pedaling to Power—Women on Wheels of ChangeFrom the Penny Farthing to the “Safety” Bicycle (1885)

Pedaling to Power—Women on Wheels of ChangeFrom the Penny Farthing to the “Safety” Bicycle (ca. 1885)

The Safety bicycle fills a much-needed want for women in any station of life. It knows no class distinction, is within reach of all, and rich and poor alike have the opportunity of enjoying this popular and healthful exercise.

—The Bearings (American cyclist magazine, 1894)

Pedaling to Power—Women on Wheels of ChangeJumping through the Hoops into the Bloomers

Pedaling to Power—Women on Wheels of ChangeMale Anxieties about Female Action, or Firebolts for Feminists

• The Unthinkable. To even imply that a woman had legs that might partwas cause for the highest degree of moral panic in certain circles.

• “bicycle face” — showing the physical strain in your face: a haggard, worn-out look, lowering the prospects of marriage

• The oversexed woman – physicians claimed that riding could produceorgasms and, hence, oversexed women. A saddle is a dangerous thing!

• The dangers of velocity – dizziness, headaches, damaged internal organs and, heaven forbid, uteruses!

• “If there is any object on earth which makes jubilee in the realm of unclean spirits, it is a ‘society woman’ in masculine habiliments, straddling a bicycle and prepared to make an exhibition of her immodesty on the thoroughfares of a great city.” —Rev. T.B. Hawthorne

Pedaling to Power—Women on Wheels of ChangeThe Chains that Set Women Free

Thank you.