Sagamore Bicycle Pin
notes: label: Description
content: This stickpin is topped by the Porter & Gilmour’s horseshoe logo that is engraved “Porter & Gilmour Incpd. New York/ Sagamore.” Porter & Gilmour of New York City produced this souvenir pin to advertise their Sagamore bicycles and bicycle wheels around 1896. The company began in 1892 as a retailer for other cycles and wheels before beginning production on their own wheels and bicycles around 1896. Luther H. Porter was heavily involved in the bicycle boom, writing “Cycling for health and pleasure: an indispensable guide to the successful use of the wheel” and “Wheels and Wheeling” in 1892.
label: Description
content: Bicycling boomed in popularity in the United States during the 1890s when the invention of the “safety” bicycle replaced the dangerous high-wheeler. The National Cycle Board of Trade held the largest annual exhibitions in New York and Chicago between 1893 and 1897. At these cycle shows manufacturers attempted to capitalize on the bicycle boom with exhibitions of their products to both the public and bicycle agents from other cities. At shows like these, manufacturers advertised their wares with pins and buttons made of tin and celluloid—cheap materials easily mass manufactured into trinkets and souvenirs. The Chicago Tribune’s account of the 1896 Chicago show speaks to the ubiquity of these kind of souvenirs. “Every visitor seems to have a desire to cherish its memory through some kind of a souvenir . . . anyone who does not look like a walking sign board is a rarity and every exhibiter goes after him and every available buttonhole has some kind of button in it, and stick pins are thrust at him from all sides.”
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Transportation, Road
label: See more items in
content: Bicycle Pins
label: See more items in
content: Transportation
label: Exhibition
content: Object Project
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1990.0294.31
label: catalog number
content: 1990.0294.31
label: accession number
content: 1990.0294
objectType: label: Object Name
content: pin, lapel
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: celluloid (overall material)