Boston’s Cycling Craze: 1880-1900

Sometimes in our fast paced world it’s difficult to imagine our communities of the past.  Historian Rui Santos detailed an average trip by horse and carriage from Boston to Plymouth in the 1830s lasting some 10 hours.  Fifty years later a new form of transportation would take center stage: the bicycle.  

And it was during that time period between 1880 and 1900 that the intersection of race, athleticism and cycling came to mean new forms of freedom and expression.

Lorenz Finison’s remarkable new book, Boston’s Cycling Craze paints the landscape of how a host of visionaries took to the streets and byways … all for the glory of the bicycle. Black, White, Asian and Biracial…they are all in the book and all chronicled in detail during these pioneer years of cycling.  

Come explore with us as we turn back the clocks to the golden age of bicycles during and era worth noting in the annuls of American history.