The dawn of the modern bicycle age at the end of the 19th century ushered in a moral panic among the guardians of public virtue. Some doctors warned that using the contraption could lead to a medical condition they dubbed ‘bicycle face’.
‘Over-exertion, the upright [and immodest] position on the wheel, and the unconscious effort to maintain one’s balance tend to produce a wearied and exhausted “bicycle face”,’ reported the Literary Digest in 1895.
It went on to describe the condition: ‘usually flushed, but sometimes pale, often with lips more or less drawn, and the beginning of dark shadows under the eyes, and always with an expression of weariness'.
Elsewhere, others said the condition was ‘characterised by a hard, clenched jaw and bulging eyes’, which was of course most unfeminine. In 1895, the New York World published an exhaustive list of don’ts for women riders: ‘Don’t imagine everybody is looking at you’, ‘Don’t use bicycle slang. Leave that to the boys’ and ‘Don’t cultivate a “bicycle face”.’
In an 1897 article in London’s National Review, British doctor A Shadwell claimed to have coined the phrase. He described the dangers of bicycling, especially for women, saying ‘cycling as a fashionable craze has been attempted by people unfit for any exertion’.
So what was really going on? Threatened by the speed with which cycling was taking off, and what it could mean for society and women’s role in it, the Establishment attempted to ridicule, or even medicalise, a perfectly normal activity.
If women decided to hop on their bikes, what might they do next?
Developing ‘bicycle face’ was the least of the female cyclists’ concerns, especially for America’s
Annie Londonderry, who cycled around the world between 1894 and 1895. She made the move from skirts to bloomers to a man’s suit during the course of her journey, slowly becoming more and more of an affront to those who thought women cycling was uncouth.
The press said, ‘Miss Londonderry expressed the opinion that the advent of the bicycle will create a reform in female dress that will be beneficial. She believes that in the near future all women, whether of high or low degree, will bestride the wheel.’ Although she was a bit of a fabulist when it came to her own adventures, Londonderry wasn’t wrong about both the change in dress – out went the whalebone corsets and in came shorter dresses, split skirts and even bloomers – and women’s push for freedom.
The silent steed has been the choice and symbol of suffragettes and feminists the world over, promising its riders the pleasures and advantages of speed, good health and greater freedoms. Sonia Zhuravlyova
