4 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 2 04 



Daimler's was a two-wheeled vehicle — a motorcycle — while Benz's 

 machine was a large tricycle with wire-spoked wheels, the single front 

 one being the steerable wheel. 



The higli-wheeled ordinary and the vStar bicycles were sncceeded 

 by the so-called safety, pioneered by J. K. Starley, nephew of James 

 Starley, and l\y I^awson. to eliminate the danger, inherent in the 

 ordinary, of the rider taking a header over the high front wheel, 

 (iradnally the size of the high wheel was reduced until, by the middle 

 1880's, the proportions of the modem safety had been achieved. Cu- 

 I'iously, this was a return, after many years of evolution, to the pro- 

 jwrtions of the old Hobby Horse which also had two wheels of equal 

 size. However, the safeties were driven by chain or shaft to the rear 

 wheel from pedals located well below the rider. Most of those pro- 

 duced at the turn of the century were chain driven. A contemporary 

 description of a typical bicycle of this period can be seen in figure 1. 



Prior to 1898, bicycles had appeared with braking mechanisms 

 associated with the driving systems, but these did not include coasting 

 or free-wheeling features. The idea of a coaster brake for bicycles 

 appeared in the patent applications of Harry P. Townsend, of the 

 New Departure Manufacturing Co., Bristol, Conn., in 1898; James 

 S. Copeland, of the Pope Manufacturing Co., also in 1898 ; and William 

 Robinson, of Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1899. These issued as patents, respec- 

 tively, in 1907, 1913, and 1903. It is stated that the Townsend patent, 

 No. 850077, contained the broad and controlling claims. The 1898 

 catalog of the Pope Manufacturing Co. describes the Columbia New 

 Departure automatic brake, first used by them in that year, as a device 

 for which a need had long existed. There is no doubt that the wide- 

 spread adoption of the coaster brake made the bicycle a much safer 

 vehicle to ride. 



In the 1890's interest in bicycling reached boom proportions. Pro- 

 duction of bicycles rose from an estimated 200,000 in 1889 to 1,000,000 

 in 1899, and the machine attained an importance it has not held in 

 America since. On a population basis the 2,000,000 bicycles produced 

 in 1950 is roughly equivalent to the 1,000,000 of 1899, but the im- 

 portance of the bicycle to the life of the 1890's was much greater than 

 it is to life today. Then, only a few score automobiles had been built, 

 horses and carriages were expensive to maintain in crowded cities, 

 and urban public transportation was, with few exceptions, slow and 

 frequently inadequate. The bicycle met the need for inexpensive 

 individual transportation— much as the automobile does today — for 

 going to and from business, for business deliveries, for recreational 

 riding, and for sport. 



What to moderns seems a simple device of modest and limited 

 performance was, in the relativelj' unmechanized 1890's, a swift vehicle 

 and a fine machine. Owners were drawn ^^ogether by their interest 



