338 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1934 



wheel-drive bicycles, equipped with the latter's twisting handle-bar 

 brake on the rear wheel, during the 1860's and exhibited machines at 

 the Paris Exposition of 1867. One of these reached England the fol- 

 lowing year and was reproduced in quantity by the Coventry Sewing 

 Machine Company. It proved immediately popular both in Eng- 

 land and France, and by 1869 a host of manufacturers, some making 

 Michaux and others Lallement models, were operating at capacity 

 to meet the demand. A similar activity developed in the United 

 States beginning in 1868 with Lallement's machine and with the 

 patented improvements of the Hanlon brothers, consisting of a 

 better frame, larger front wheel, and slotted cranks. 



Thus was started the modern cycling era covering a period of 

 some 30 years until the beginning of the twentieth century. Seem- 

 ingly, almost every month during the first decade of this period, 

 especially in England, some novel improvement in the bicycle ap- 

 peared. Wire-spoked wheels were applied in 1869 by Reynolds and 

 Mays; James Starley in 1870 produced the first all-metal machine, 

 equipped with solid rubber tires and with a patented provision for 

 tightening the spokes; and in 1872 J. K. Starley introduced his 

 " spider- wheel " bicycle, one of the earliest of the " ordinary " bicy- 

 cles — the type name applied thereafter to the high-front-wheel 

 machine. Throughout the 1870's and into the 1880's the front wheel 

 was gradually enlarged to obtain greater speed without increased 

 pedaling speed to a maximum of 60 inches. Solid iron frames, too, 

 were replaced by tubular ones of steel ; ball bearings were introduced, 

 and the weights of the machines were reduced from 60 or more 

 pounds to 20 pounds. The " ordinary ", however, was never admit- 

 tedly a safe bicycle to ride, the rider running the risk of taking 

 " headers ", and as early as 1873 or 1874 H. J. Lawson, in England, 

 made the first experimental rear-chain-driven safety bicycle. This 

 was too drastic and sudden a change from the " ordinary ", and 

 instead the " Xtraordinary " was developed, with the rider's seat 

 further back from the center of the big wheel ; then the " kangaroo " 

 and the " grasshopper ", with the dwarfed front wheel, were intro- 

 duced; and finally, in 1879, came Lawson's commercial model of his 

 " safety ", called the " bicyclette." 



Meanwhile in the United States, after its first brief spurt, the 

 interest in cycling had waned considerably, and only an occasional 

 boy was to be seen trying out his father's old " boneshaker." In 

 1878, however, the Pope Manufacturing Co. in Hartford, Conn., 

 was organized and began the manufacture of its high-wheeled 

 " Columbia " bicycle along the lines of the best English-made " ordi- 

 nary." It proved immediately popular, other bicycle makers entered 

 the field, and in the course of the next 10 years cycling in the United 

 States reached the proportion of a craze. In England during this 



