WILLARD, Frances Elizabeth.

£400 · Offered by Peter Harrington

A Wheel within a Wheel. How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle with Some Reflections by the Way. First edition of the social campaigner's account of learning to ride a bicycle at age 53. Written at the height of the women's bicycle craze, Willard advocates for greater women's emancipation through cycling, promoting the sport as a benefit to women's health and self-reliance. In the dedication, Willard calls her bicycle "a harbinger of health and happiness" and names it "Gladys".An activist for temperance and labour reforms, Willard (1838-1898) became president of the National Women's Christian Temperance Union in 1879, a post she held for the rest of her life. In that role she successfully lobbied for compulsory temperance education and the raising of the age of consent. "As leader of the first mass organization of American women, Frances Willard made an unrivalled contribution toward the movement of women into public life" (ANB). In 1883 she helped lay the permanent foundations of the National Council of Women of the United States.

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