Maria E. Ward - Bicycling for Ladies: The Classic 1896 Guide to Skills, Exercise, Mechanics, and Dress

Preface

O riginally published in 1896, Maria (Violet) Wards spectacular volume Bicycling for Ladies shocked and delighted a Victorian culture and gave women the tools they needed to master the art of bicycling, and thus have a road to autonomy. Today it remains comprehensive in explaining the basic components of the bicycle and how to ride one, as well as a delightful look back. This new edition, published more than a century after the first, maintains the original text and illustrations produced from photographs by the acclaimed photographer Alice Austen, as well as insightful and contextualizing forewords by Victoria Munro, executive director of the Alice Austen House, and Maxine Friedman, chief curator of Historic Richmond Town in Staten Island, New York. Both the Alice Austen House and Historic Richmond Town own photographs and memorabilia related to Violet Ward and her family, Alice Austen, and Daisy Elliott.

Foreword by Victoria Munro, Executive Director, Alice Austen House

M aria E. Ward, known as Violet, and her circle of women friends who contributed to Bicycling for Ladies were in a league all of their own. They were trailblazers, breaking away from the constraints of their Victorian environment to forge independent lives that broke boundaries of acceptable female behavior and social rules.

The cover of the first edition of Bicycling for Ladies , published in 1896, is a rich blue with golden highlights depicting a woman at its center, wearing bloomers, kicking her feet forward with her hat flying off as she revels in cycling alone down a country road. This representation of independence and athleticism suggested the possibilities of new freedoms and exciting adventures for women in the Victorian era.