Synopses & Reviews
Cycling has experienced a renaissance in the United States, as cities around the country promote the bicycle as an alternative means of transportation. In the process, debates about the nature of bicyclesandmdash;where they belong, how they should be ridden, how cities should or should not accommodate themandmdash;have played out in the media, on city streets, and in city halls. Very few people recognize, however, that these questions are more than a century old.
The Cycling Cityand#160;is a sharp history of the bicycleandrsquo;s rise and fall in the late nineteenth century. In the 1890s, American cities were home to more cyclists, more cycling infrastructure, more bicycle friendly legislation, and a richer cycling culture than anywhere else in the world.and#160; Evan Friss unearths the hidden history of the cycling city, demonstrating that diverse groups of cyclists managed to remap cities with new roads, paths, and laws, challenge social conventions, and even dream up a new urban ideal inspired by the bicycle. When cities were chaotic and filthy, bicycle advocates imagined an improved landscape in which pollution was negligible, transportation was silent and rapid, leisure spaces were democratic, and the divisions between city and country were blurred. Friss argues that when the utopian vision of a cycling city faded by the turn of the century, its death paved the way for todayandrsquo;s car-centric citiesandmdash;and ended the prospect of a true American cycling city ever being built.
Review
andldquo;The Cycling City tells the story of an ephemeral cityandmdash;half imagined, half realandmdash;a city of bicycles. Powering these new machines with their own muscles, Americans of the 1890s found that they could travel farther and faster than their legs alone would take them, in directions no streetcar tracks ran, through the city and into the countryside. Though sometimes ridiculous in their utopian pronouncements and their fashion choices, they understood the bicycleandrsquo;s potential, and Friss has done important work in recovering their insights and their voices.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;As cyclists fight their way back onto the streets of American citiesandmdash;theyandrsquo;ve had a prominent place in European cities foreverandmdash;it is instructive and, yes, lots of fun, to travel back in time with Friss to the andlsquo;cycling cityandrsquo; of the 1890s and the moment in time when the bicycle offered New Yorkandrsquo;s wildly varied populations of natives and immigrants, men and women, boys and girls, the idly rich and working folk alike, a cheap, healthy, efficient, effective, noiseless, pollution-free, and, in good weather, fun way to get to work and, when work was done, get out of town. Powerfully argued, beautifully composed, timely, and with some great photos, The Cycling City is history as it should be written.andrdquo;
Synopsis
The nineteenth century was the golden age of the horse. In urban America, the indispensable horse provided the power for not only vehicles that moved freight, transported passengers, and fought fires but also equipment in breweries, mills, foundries, and machine shops.
Clay McShane and Joel A. Tarr, prominent scholars of American urban life, here explore the critical role that the horse played in the growing nineteenth-century metropolis. Using such diverse sources as veterinary manuals, stable periodicals, teamster magazines, city newspapers, and agricultural yearbooks, they examine how the horses were housed and fed and how workers bred, trained, marketed, and employed their four-legged assets. Not omitting the problems of waste removal and corpse disposal, they touch on the municipal challenges of maintaining a safe and productive living environment for both horses and people and the rise of organizations like the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
In addition to providing an insightful account of life and work in nineteenth-century urban America, The Horse in the City brings us to a richer understanding of how the animal fared in this unnatural and presumably uncomfortable setting.
Synopsis
Honorable mention, 2007 Lewis Mumford Prize, American Society of City and Regional Planning
The nineteenth century was the golden age of the horse. In urban America, the indispensable horse provided the power for not only vehicles that moved freight, transported passengers, and fought fires but also equipment in breweries, mills, foundries, and machine shops.
Clay McShane and Joel A. Tarr, prominent scholars of American urban life, here explore the critical role that the horse played in the growing nineteenth-century metropolis. Using such diverse sources as veterinary manuals, stable periodicals, teamster magazines, city newspapers, and agricultural yearbooks, they examine how the horses were housed and fed and how workers bred, trained, marketed, and employed their four-legged assets. Not omitting the problems of waste removal and corpse disposal, they touch on the municipal challenges of maintaining a safe and productive living environment for both horses and people and the rise of organizations like the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
In addition to providing an insightful account of life and work in nineteenth-century urban America, The Horse in the City brings us to a richer understanding of how the animal fared in this unnatural and presumably uncomfortable setting.
Synopsis
As Evan Friss shows in his mordant history of urban bicycling in the late nineteenth century, the bicycle has long told us much about cities and their residents. In a time when American cities were chaotic, polluted, and socially and culturally impenetrable, the bicycle inspired a vision of an improved city in which pollution was negligible, transport was noiseless and rapid, leisure spaces were democratic, and the divisions between city and country blurred. Friss focuses not on the technology of the bicycle but on the urbanisms that bicycling engendered. Bicycles altered the look and feel of cities and their streets, enhanced mobility, fueled leisure and recreation, promoted good health, and shrank urban spaces as part of a larger transformation that altered the city and the lives of its inhabitants, even as the bicycleand#8217;s own popularity fell, not to rise again for a century.
About the Author
Evan Friss is assistant professor of history at James Madison University. He lives in Virginia with his wife and two sons.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Rise of the Cycling City
Chapter 2: The Cyclists
Chapter 3: Rules of the Road
Chapter 4: Good Roads
Chapter 5: The Bicycle Paths (Not) Taken
Chapter 6: Riding for Recreation and Health
Chapter 7: Riding for Utility: The Commuters
Chapter 8: Riding for Reform: Wheelwomen
Chapter 9: The Crash
Epilogue
Notes
Index