Hidden San Francisco by Chris Carlsson;

Author:Chris Carlsson;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Book Network Int'l Limited trading as NBN International (NBNi)

T7: Nineteenth-Century Bicycling: Rubber Was the Dark Secret

Market and 6th Streets

The bicycle came to San Francisco during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Like other places, it first developed based on wooden wheels, similar to those that were bearing stagecoaches and being drawn by horses. Horse-drawn streetcars were the predominant mode of transit in the 1870s, peaking in the 1880s, at a time when the individual horse was also still a major source of personal transportation.

The “boneshakers” were aptly named, running over heavily rutted streets on solid wooden wheels, eventually improved by coating them in solid rubber. The bicycle was not a transit option at that early stage but a novelty, and a device that attracted the adventurous few who were ready to break with the limits of human-powered locomotion. In “The Winged Heel” column in the San Francisco Chronicle of January 25, 1879, the writer fully grasps the possibilities:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.