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Chronicling America is a searchable digital collection of historic newspaper pages through 1963 sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
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Also, see the Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries, a searchable index to newspapers published in the United States since 1690, which helps researchers identify what titles exist for a specific place and time, and how to access them.
The first popular models of the bicycle were high-wheeled, and known to be dangerous because of the frequency of “headers”, or flying over the handlebars. However, with the invention of the “Safety” and several other modifications, the bicycle became safer and more popular. The women’s safety, allowing for women’s dress, helped boost the bicycles popularity even more. By the 1890s, the safety bicycle could be used by everyone, regardless of age or gender, for both transportation and recreation. Read more about it!
The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.
The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.
| Late 1800s | The “Ordinary”, a previously popular model of the bicycle, is beat out by the “Safety”. Because of the position of the rider on the “Ordinary”, it is seen as more dangerous than the low to the ground position of the “Safety”. |
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| 1890s | The popularity of the Safety, and the women’s version, lead to a bicycle fad that everyone can enjoy. |
| Late 1890s | As bicycles continued to be very popular, more laws and ordinances were put in place to protect the rider and pedestrians. |
| 1900 | The U.S. bicycle industry pays $10,000,000 in wages and salaries, buys $17,000,000 worth of materials, and employs 20,000 Americans to manufacture 1,2000,000 bicycles, costing an estimate $100 each. |
| 1908 | Demand and price of bicycles falls. The U.S. bicycle industry manufactures 250,000 bicycles this year, costing an estimate $35 each. |
