Women on the Move: The Forgotten Era of Women’s Bicycle Racing by Roger Giles (review)

The growing availability of historical journals and periodicals that have been scanned into keyword searchable electronic resources has, of course, been a boon to researchers. Roger Giles demonstrates, however, that we must look beyond those resources to see cycling’s full history. He avoids the pitfall of relying solely on the League of American Wheelmen Bulletin, Outing, or Cycle Age and Trade Review—all of which are available online. These sources lead one to believe women cycled only for pleasure and very rarely for competition. Giles shows this was not actually the case and that prominent journals, like the Bulletin, were intentionally silent on news of women’s bicycle racing. Giles uses a well-rounded collection of primary sources to tell the in-depth story of some of cycling’s biggest female stars in the 1890s, and he tells the story well. Overall, he presents an extremely informative and easy-to-read narrative.

Tillie “the Terrible Swede” Anderson and her relatively short but significant career get the most attention in Giles’s book. His access to her scrapbook and supplemental research give Giles an excellent vantage point for providing the play-by-play of several well-attended women’s races. Had he incorporated the research of a broader array of secondary sources, he may have provided deeper historical analysis. While not focused on racing, there are a few books about female cyclists of the 1890s that are noticeably absent from Giles’s work. There is no mention of controversial distance rider Annie “Londonderry” Kopchovsky, who attempted to ride a bicycle “around the world.” This was a missed opportunity to enrich the discussion of portrayals of female cyclists as unmarried as well as the backlash to women’s cycling fashions. Likewise, Ellen Gruber Garvey’s research might have helped Giles provide a more meaningful discussion of the medical/moral debate surrounding women’s cycling.

Giles’s work is a much-deserved celebration of the heroic significance of female cyclists during cycling’s golden years, but he may overstate his case at times. He argues, for instance, that female cyclists gave “rise to a new unity that helped to advance the first wave of feminist reform” (p. 139). The Seneca Falls Convention occurred nearly fifty years before the cycling boom, and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union predated it by more than twenty years. Feminist leaders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frances Willard, and Susan B. Anthony were certainly drawn to cycling, but to say it “spurred” first wave feminism is perhaps anachronistic. Similarly, Giles clearly argues that men used stimulants in six-day racing, but does not take a stance regarding the possibility that women also used performance-enhancing drugs (pp. 14, 125, 154–56). This neutrality is curious, since he seems to offer evidence that women were indeed also using stimulants. A direct statement on this point would help clarify his argument. On the point of technology, there are some interesting details about track construction and geometry, but beyond that, there is little new information regarding bicycles and technology in his book. Some of his points on that subject are oversimplified. For instance, he argues that “the cycling technology of the 1880s prevented all riders . . . from riding very fast” (p. 36). There were, however, a significant number of holdouts who were hesitant to adopt the safety bicycle because they believed it would never be as fast as its predecessor—the high-wheeler of the 1880s. Regardless, these slight defects do not negate the value of his work. He is to be commended for plowing fresh ground in terms of female cyclists in competition, and this book will surely help other historians see a more complete picture of the past. While he does not offer a complex analysis of gender and sport, he does offer an important and compelling story. It is the fact that Giles has uncovered...