BICYCLING.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Wheel Talk. A substantial run of this scarce bicycling trade paper, published at the height of the women's cycling craze in Europe and America. Each chatty issue, published by the world's largest bicycle tire manufacturer, offers reader-submitted tips on bicycle maintenance and repair, as well as poetry, articles of interest, and plugs for the company's products.Late 19th-century campaigners such as Susan B. Anthony saw cycling as offering women empowerment, mobility, and freedom from sartorial proscriptions, and in the mid-1890s, around a third of America's four million cyclists were women. Issues of Wheel Talk are emblematic of the commercial and cultural importance attached to female riders, showing cycling for leisure and sport to be a pursuit for both sexes. Women appear regularly in front cover and vignette illustrations, and reference is made to the exploits of women riders. For example, readers of the early December 1895 issue are told of one Sue Zimmerman, of Rock Island Illinois, who "has ridden 9 1/2 miles in 32 minutes on M. & W. tires" (Vol. II, No. 7).In May 1896, the journal expanded in length and switched from weekly to fortnightly publication, but it appears not to have continued much beyond 1897. In 1906, Morgan & Wright relocated its factory from Chicago to Detroit and turned its attention to the burgeoning demand for automobile tyres.WorldCat shows five institutions holding one or more issues of Wheel Talk. Only the University of Michigan has copies of num

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