Carl Sandburg's Bicycle
By Barbara Schock
By the
time Carl Sandburg bought a bicycle to travel from
his Lombard University classes to fight daytime
fires in Galesburg, the vehicle had changed a
great deal from its original conception.
In the early 1800s,
British, French and German inventors had developed
a two-wheeled contraption pushed by the rider’s
feet. It was heavy; didn’t steer well and was
slow. Only sporting young men were interested in
the conveyance.
Several decades passed
before pedals were added, steering improved and
pneumatic tires assured the rider’s comfort. By
the 1890s the safety bicycle had appeared and the
craze of bicycle riding swept around the world.
The advertisement above
from The Daily Republican-Register of April, 1893,
shows the style of bikes that were common at the
time. Avery Brothers & Brooks sold several
excellent lines of bicycles. A new bike cost more
than a hundred dollars, so renting was probably a
profitable sideline for the company.
After serving in the
Spanish-American War, Carl Sandburg was offered a
year’s free tuition at Lombard University. With
help from one of his buddies in Company C,
Illinois National Guard,, he was appointed as a
call man at the fire station on South Prairie
Street. He slept at the fire house, ate breakfast
at home prepared by his mother and went to classes
in Latin, English and other subjects.
If the fire whistle blew
during class, he called the fire station by
telephone to find out the location of the fire,
then jumped on his bike to go help at the
emergency. It didn’t happen often enough to bother
his professors or classmates.
The bicycles of the 1890s
gave every rider a freedom they had never known
before. Men and women could travel longer
distances even though the roads were poor. People
thought of ways to use the vehicles: to race, to
go on picnics, to go sightseeing, to visit friends
who lived some distance away.
For women, the bicycle
meant wearing fewer clothes. Their long skirts
could become entangled in the spokes of the
wheels, so shorter skirts came into vogue. Some
young women buckled their skirts around their
ankles. The bloomer (loose pantaloons) were worn
by some young women. They may have looked silly,
but they were safer.
The best part for women
cyclists was that they could travel on their own.
They didn’t have to be escorted by a man. Francis
Willard, President of the Women’s Christian
Temperance Union (WCTU), even wrote a book about
learning to ride. She considered the bicycle a
metaphor for increased self-control by women.