Peddling Bicycles to America

Peddling Bicycles to America PDF Author: Bruce D. Epperson
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 078645623X
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
This economic and technical history of the early American bicycle industry focuses on the crucial period from 1876 to the beginning of World War I. It looks particularly at the life and career of the industry's most significant personality during this era, Albert Augustus Pope. After becoming enamored with English high-wheeled bicycles during a visit to the Philadelphia World's Fair in 1876, Pope soon started paying Hartford, Connecticut's Weed Sewing Machine Company to make his own brand of high-wheeler, the "Columbia," the first to be manufactured in America in significant numbers. A decade later, Pope bought out that company, and ten years after that, Hartford's Park River was lined with five of Pope's factories. This book tells the story of the Pope Manufacturing Company's meteoric rise and fall and the growth of an industry around it.

Peddling Bicycles to America

Peddling Bicycles to America PDF Author: Bruce D. Epperson
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 078645623X
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Get Book Here

Book Description
This economic and technical history of the early American bicycle industry focuses on the crucial period from 1876 to the beginning of World War I. It looks particularly at the life and career of the industry's most significant personality during this era, Albert Augustus Pope. After becoming enamored with English high-wheeled bicycles during a visit to the Philadelphia World's Fair in 1876, Pope soon started paying Hartford, Connecticut's Weed Sewing Machine Company to make his own brand of high-wheeler, the "Columbia," the first to be manufactured in America in significant numbers. A decade later, Pope bought out that company, and ten years after that, Hartford's Park River was lined with five of Pope's factories. This book tells the story of the Pope Manufacturing Company's meteoric rise and fall and the growth of an industry around it.

Pedalling to Panama

Pedalling to Panama PDF Author: Clive Parker
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1467898872
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Clive quit his job as an accountant to fulfil a dream of cycling through Mexico and Central America. Pedalling through impressive scenery he ran out of water, suffered eye injury and had to get the bike fixed after a breakdown. In the heat of Mexico he frequently needed to stop for refreshment. This created ideal opportunities to chat to local people. He found the charm of Mexicans arresting, and their tales add spice to a colourful portrait of life in Mexico today. He chronicles the build up to a festival in San Cristóbal, where he spent nearly three weeks. At times Clive had doubts about his ability to carry on. A strand of optimism runs through the narrative, which helps him see problems not as obstacles but as something waiting for a solution. From Mexico he continued cycling through Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Civil wars made Central America a no-go area for tourists for twenty years. There is eye-arresting poverty seldom seen in Europe. Now it is changing. Clive’s story tells of warm and hospitable people who are happy to talk about their experiences and views of the world. Even the police buck the popular image, as he finally arrived on the banks of the Panama Canal with a police escort, concluding in style a 7,000 kilometre journey through a little known but fascinating part of the world.” See clive's website www.cliveparker.co.uk "It is a wonderful read, giving a vivid picture of life in Central American countries. The writing style is crisp and punchy.......the effect is one of great immediacy. Recommended reading for anyone visiting Central America." Anne Mustoe, best selling author of A Bike Ride and other books.

Bicycle Man

Bicycle Man PDF Author: Alan Snel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781949720525
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Bicyclist/journalist Alan Snel decided to pack a lifetime of bicycle misadventures, crazy times and tender moments into a collection of bicycle stories thatspan nearly 40 years. Bicyclingcan be about giving you a ride to work, a front-row seat to see nature, a meditation session, a workout or a ride across the country. Alan has bicycled it all and tried it all, even trying to increase the profile of bicycling in Tampa Bay -- talk about a long uphill ride. This is Alan's love sonnet to bicycling in all its forms. Never stop pedaling.

An Alternative History of Bicycles and Motorcycles

An Alternative History of Bicycles and Motorcycles PDF Author: Steven E. Alford
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498528805
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
An Alternative History of Bicycles and Motorcycles: Two-Wheeled Transportation and Material Culture accounts for the nineteenth-century creation and development of two-wheeled vehicles, both human-powered and motorized. Specifically, the book focuses on the period from 1885 (which saw the appearance, simultaneously, of the Safety bicycle and the Einspur, the first motorcycle) to 1920, while exploring implications for later bicycling and motorcycling. We argue that invention of these vehicles, rather than the product of gifted individuals, should be seen as the consequence of a number of historical, economic, cultural and political forces that intersect so unpredictably that the notion of a genius inventor is reductive. The common evolutionary model of development from the bicycle to the motorcycle oversimplifies both the technology and its origins. Stripping the vehicles of all their material and cultural associations, such a model fails to advance our understanding of the devices, their creators, and their riders. Taking a contemporary vehicle and tracing its lineage creates a false sense of evolutionary necessity in its creation, and fails to account for the many possible developmental paths that were, for whatever reason, abandoned. By contrast, our book adopts a material culture approach, a form of inquiry that stresses the connections between artifacts and social relations. We consider not simply the bicycle and motorcycle as material objects but focus also on the complex socio-political and economic convergences that produced the materials, materials that in turn themselves shaped the vehicles’ appearance, function, and adoption by riders.

New Materials

New Materials PDF Author: Amy E. Slaton
Publisher: Lever Press
ISBN: 1643150146
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
This edited volume gathers eight cases of industrial materials development, broadly conceived, from North America, Europe and Asia over the last 200 years. Whether given utility as building parts, fabrics, pharmaceuticals, or foodstuffs, whether seen by their proponents as human-made or “found in nature,” materials result from the designation of some matter as both knowable and worth knowing about. In following these determinations we learn that the production of physical novelty under industrial, imperial and other cultural conditions has historically accomplished a huge range of social effects, from accruals of status and wealth to demarcations of bodies and geographies. Among other cases, New Materials traces the beneficent self-identity of Quaker asylum planners who devised soundless metal cell locks in the early 19th century, and the inculcation of national pride attending Taiwanese carbon-fiber bicycle parts in the 21st; the racialized labor organizations promoted by California orange breeders in the 1910s, and bureaucratized distributions of blame for deadly high-rise fires a century later. Across eras and global regions New Materials reflects circumstances not made clear when technological innovation is explained solely as a by-product of modernizing impulses or critiqued simply as a craving for profit. Whether establishing the efficacy of nano-scale pharmaceuticals or the tastiness of farmed catfish, proponents of new materials enact complex political ideologies. In highlighting their actors’ conceptions of efficiency, certainty, safety, pleasure, pain, faith and identity, the authors reveal that to produce a “new material” is invariably to preserve other things, to sustain existing values and social structures.

Bicycles in American Highway Planning

Bicycles in American Highway Planning PDF Author: Bruce D. Epperson
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476616795
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
The United States differs from other developed nations in the extent to which its national bicycle transportation policy relies on the use of unmodified roadways, with cyclists obeying the same traffic regulations as motor vehicles. This policy--known as "vehicular cycling"--evolved between 1969, when the "10-speed boom" saw a sharp increase in adult bicycling, and 1991, when the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials adopted an official policy that on-road bikeways were not desirable. This policy resulted from a growing realization by highway engineers and experienced club cyclists that they had parallel interests: the cyclists preferred to ride on highways, because most bikeways were not designed for high speeds and pack riding; and the highway engineers did not want to divert funding from roadways to construct bikeways. Using contemporary magazine articles, government reports, and archival material from industry lobbying groups and national cycling organizations, this book tells the story of how America became a nation of bicyclists without bikeways.

Critical Geographies of Cycling

Critical Geographies of Cycling PDF Author: Glen Norcliffe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317157354
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Examining cycling from a range of geographical perspectives, this book uses historical and contemporary case studies to look at the history, politics, economy and culture of cycling. Pursuing a post-structural position in viewing understandings of the bicycle as contingent upon time and place, author Glen Norcliffe argues for the need for widespread processes such as gendered use of the bicycle, the Cyclists’ Rights Movement, and the globalization of bicycle-making to be interpreted in different ways in different settings. With this in mind, the essays in the book are divided into two sections: relational aspects are examined as Spaces of Cycling which treats technological development, innovation, and the location of production and trade of cycles, while Places of Cycling interprets specific sites of consumption - the streets of the city, in the cycling clubs, among men and women, and at the trade show. Written from a geographer’s integrative perspective to offer a broad understanding of cycling, this book will also be of interest to other social scientists in urban studies, cultural studies, technology and society, sociology, history and environmental planning.

The Mechanical Horse

The Mechanical Horse PDF Author: Margaret Guroff
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 147731587X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
In this lively cultural history, Margaret Guroff reveals how the bicycle has transformed American society, from making us mobile to empowering people in all avenues of life. Book jacket.

Culture on Two Wheels

Culture on Two Wheels PDF Author: Jeremy Withers
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803269722
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
"Analyzes how print and visual texts of various kinds reflect, refract, and respond to the social and political significance of the bicycle from its origins in the nineteenth century to the present"--

America Goes Green [3 volumes]

America Goes Green [3 volumes] PDF Author: Kim Kennedy White
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1598846582
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 1358

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Book Description
This three-volume encyclopedia explores the evolution of green ideology and eco-friendly practices in contemporary American culture, ranging from the creation of regional and national guidelines for green living to the publication of an increasing number of environmental blogs written from the layperson's perspective. Evidence of humanity's detrimental impact on the environment is mounting. As Americans, we are confronted daily with news stories, blogs, and social media commentary about the necessity of practicing green behaviors to offset environmental damage. This essential reference is a fascinating review of the issues surrounding green living, including the impact of this lifestyle on Americans' time and money, the information needed to adhere to green principles in the 21st century, and case studies and examples of successful implementation. America Goes Green: An Encyclopedia of Eco-Friendly Culture in the United States examines this gripping topic through 3 volumes organized by A–Z entries across 11 themes; state-by-state essays grouped by region; and references including primary source documents, bibliography, glossary, and green resources. This timely encyclopedia explores the development of an eco-friendly culture in America, and entries present the debates, viewpoints, and challenges of green living.