Wheels of Change
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Inventing the bicycle -- "The devil's advance agent" -- Fashion forward -- Fast and fearless -- New freedoms -- Highlights in cycling and women's history
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Add a SummaryMacy begins her book with a short essay by Leah Missbach Day, co-founder of World Bicycle Relief, which vows to provide bikes to those in need. Through her eyes we see women around the globe coming into their own all thanks to the power of the bike. With this idea fresh in our minds, we watch the rise of the bicycle itself. Its history, its influence, the changes it went through, etc. Slowly, we also see how its very appearance affected women. Suddenly girls had a mobility they’d never encountered before. The new invention caught on like wildfire amongst women as diverse as Annie Oakley and Marie Curie. There was some resistance to the idea of girls on bikes, sure, but Ms. Macy takes care to show how bicycles inspired everything from new fashions to daredevil races. Her story stops in the early twentieth century (in tandem with the slow rise of the automobile) and she includes in the back of the book a hugely helpful timeline of “Highlights in cycling and women’s history”, a list of Resources (including books, web sites, and places to visit like the Bicycle Museum of America and the Metz Bicycle Museum), Sources, and an Index.
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Add a CommentThis was the second book I read for the 2012 YALSA Best of the Best Reading Challenge. Last year our library system’s Youth Services staff had a Mock Sibert Award program and this book was one of the nominees. I never had the chance to read it at the time. But I am glad I took the time to go back and read it now. I had never really thought about how something as simple as the development of the bicycle could have a big impact on our culture. Susan B. Anthony said about bicycling that “I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.” (in “Champion of Her Sex,” by Nellie Bly, New York World, Feb. 2, 1896 as quote in Wheels of Change.) Well-written and entertaining, definitely worth reading!
Out of curiosity, I checked to see how the Library of Congress categorized this particular book. I found that they prefer to place the book under the subject “1. Cycling for women–United States–History.” Well, luck to you if you hope to find a companion novel in your children’s section under that subject heading. Macy herself provides many a fine title in her Resources section at the back of the book, but you will find all the titles there are for adults. To find such a book for kids is rare and wonderful. To find that the book itself is ALSO rare and wonderful is just a nice plus. A great idea, a fine follow through, and a subject that has been too little considered until now. It’s enough to make you want to grab a helmet and a bike and to try it out for yourself.