The Self-Propelled Voyager: How the Cycle Revolutionized Travel by Duncan R. Jamieson (review)

In his comprehensive Self-Propelled Voyager, Duncan R. Jamieson provides an overview of cycle touring from the roots of the bicycle in the 1800s all the way to the present. The book is refreshing in its time frame, as the author sheds the typical “just discuss the cycling boom era” (1870s–1900) that most authors of works on cycling in North America take. For example, in the first chapter, he discusses the League of American Wheelman, the best-known cycling advocacy group, and how it survived into the twenty-first century. He points out that the proportion of members today to the American population is as high as it was at its peak during the “Bicycle Era” (12–13). Jamieson uniquely discusses almost all the bicycle-touring luminaries of the nineteenth century, including Florine Thayer McCray, Thomas Stevens, Karl Kron, Frank Lenz, and Annie Londonderry.

Jamieson splits his narrative into six chapters, with titles from “Beginnings” to “Renaissance: 1961–.” Jamieson begins not only by looking at and showing the well-trodden development of the bicycle during this period but also devotes several pages to an interesting discussion of the sport’s historiography. In his second chapter, “Pioneers—1878–1887,” Jamieson discusses both the men and women who helped the public imagine a newly interconnected world in which one person, without a giant industrial steam engine, could travel the countryside and even the world. He shows how educated men and women, such as the first author of a cycling-themed novel, Florine Thayer McCray, not only rode long distances on bicycles but also created a new genre of literature on bicycle touring and adventuring.

In his third chapter, “The Early Years, 1888–1894,” Jamieson continues his coverage of many of the most famous cycling adventurers, such as George Thayer and the ill-fated Frank Lenz, who vanished while cycling in Asiatic Turkey, and the ensuing international investigation of his death in 1894. In his fourth chapter, “The Golden Age, 1895–1899,” Jamieson shows that, despite Lenz’s death, bicycle touring was alive and well and that, as the bicycle became more ubiquitous, touring became more commonplace. In “Sharing the Road, 1901–1960,” he continues his theme of showing how, despite ups and downs in the bicycle industry and coverage of cycling in the press, cycle touring continued. Jamieson notes, “If the motor represented the enemy, then the cyclist clearly gave aid and comfort” (119). In his final chapter, “Renaissance: 1961–,” he shows how cycling and cycle touring regained the widespread interest of the public and the press in the latter part of the twentieth century. His narrative follows and illustrates the stories of many global cycling tourists and the continued affection for the bicycle.

Jamieson’s big contribution is in providing a unified story of mainly American bicycle touring from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Still, it is illustrative of the press and writing interest in cycling to point out that, following the writing and primary sources available, four of six of the first chapters follow cycle touring in the late nineteenth century.

Jamieson’s footnotes and research are commendably erudite. A criticism of the work, which is one of many works on cycle touring, is that it does not discuss the discriminatory natures of societies at the various points throughout touring’s long history. The majority of riders that Jamieson discusses were white and middle to upper class, and they rode in a highly discriminatory era. While Jamieson cannot be blamed for the source material that his book represents, which is predominantly from white, highly educated males, there could have been a greater acknowledgment of these issues of a “white man” visiting the “uncivilized” world.

The book is a valuable resource in its breadth. As Jamieson aptly begins his conclusion, “Bicycle travel has an appeal that transcends time” (169). He successfully links the experiences of riding from its roots to the present in...