It’s the 1890s, the dawn of the golden age of bicycling in America, and women have joined their male friends at Bicycle Row. A Washington, D.C. newspaper reports over 30,000 cyclists take to the streets in 1896. The new drop-frame bicycle solved the problem of entangled skirts, and fashion designers are producing female-friendly bicycle clothing. As one Chicago newspaper reports “the fashionable girl no longer lolls about in tea gowns in darkened rooms, but joins her male friends for a spin in a fetching sailor hat, a shirtwaist with a mannish collar, leg-o’-mutton sleeves, and bloomers.” 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.