Wheels of Change - How women rode the bicycle to freedom

Sue Macy

National Geographic

2011

96 páginas

3h 12m

ISBN-13: 9781426328558

"Macy revisits a topic she touched on in her excellent Winning Ways: A Photohistory of American Women in Sports (1996) in this engaging look at the emancipating impact that bikes had on late-nineteenth-century U.S. women. The eye-catching chapters, filled with archival images of women perched sidesaddle on their �steel steeds� and racing furiously in bloomers on velocipedes, zero in on the profound ways that bicycles subverted traditional notions of femininity; according to one wary social commentator, �The bicycle is the devil�s advance agent morally and physically in thousands of instances.� A veteran nonfiction writer, Macy seamlessly weaves together research, direct quotes (sourced in an appendix that includes a time line and resource list), and historical overviews that put the facts into context, while sidebars expand on related topics, from �cycling songs� to standout female cyclists, including trailblazers Marie Curie and Annie Oakley. The narrow focus on cycling will open up broader thought and discussion about women�s history, making this a strong, high-interest choice for both classroom and personal reading�for adults, too. Grades 6-9. --Gillian Engberg
Take a lively look at women's history from aboard a bicycle, which granted females the freedom of mobility and helped empower women's liberation. Through vintage photographs, advertisements, cartoons, and songs, Wheels of Change transports young readers to bygone eras to see how women used the bicycle to improve their lives. Witty in tone and scrapbook-like in presentation, the book deftly covers early (and comical) objections, influence on fashion, and impact on social change inspired by the bicycle, which, according to Susan B. Anthony, "has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.""