Peddling Bicycles to America: The Rise of an Industry

by Bruce D. Epperson

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786456239
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	01/10/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	302
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Bruce D. Epperson is a retired attorney who has written technical works on urban transportation planning (including bicycles) for the Federal Highway Administration, the Transportation Research Board and the Institute of Transportation Engineers. He lives in Highland, New York.
Bruce D. Epperson is a retired attorney who has written technical works on urban transportation planning (including bicycles) for the Federal Highway Administration, the Transportation Research Board and the Institute of Transportation Engineers. He lives in Highland, New York.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments     
Introduction: A Gala at the Allyn House     

1. I Was Not a Bad Boy, Only Mischievous     
2. Colonel Pope Goes to Hartford     
3. The Great Patent Wars     
4. Building the Mass Market     
5. The Coming of the Safety Bicycle     
6. Reading, ’Riting, ’Rithmetic and Roads     
7. The Great Bicycle Boom     
8. The Motor Carriage     
9. Troubled Times     
10. The Bicycle Trust     
11. Picking Up the Pieces     
12. After Pope     
13. All Gone to Their Account     
14. The Long Road Home     

Chapter Notes     
Bibliography     
Index     

Editorial Reviews

wealth of interesting material”—Technology and Culture.

From the Publisher

wealth of interesting material

Technology and Culture