Columbia High-Wheel Bicycle, 1886
date: label: date made
content: 1886
name: label: maker
content: Pope Manufacturing Company
notes: label: Description
content: High-wheel bicycles were the first common type of personal, mechanized transportation. Equipped with pedals but no chain, the diameter of the front wheel and the rider’s strength provided rapid speed for the first time in cycling history. The Pope Manufacturing Company dominated the bicycle market in the 1880s with its Columbia brand of high-wheel bicycles, and later with Columbia safety bicycles in the 1890s. Albert A. Pope, the nation’s leading mass producer of bicycles, introduced thousands of Americans to the benefits and pleasures of personal mobility. His factories in Hartford, Connecticut excelled at producing lightweight tubular steel frames, pneumatic tires, and other bicycle parts in vast quantities. Pope also was adept at influencing the social and political landscape; he was instrumental in promoting bicycle touring, starting the good roads movement, and defining the concept of personal mobility independent of trains.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Transportation, Road
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content: Bicycling
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content: America on the Move
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content: Transportation
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content: Road Transportation
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Margaret Alduk in memory of Frank P. Alduk
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1994.0279.02
label: accession number
content: 1994.0279
label: serial number
content: 13676
label: catalog number
content: 1994.0279.02
objectType: label: Object Name
content: bicycle
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 148 cm x 67 cm x 167 cm; 58 1/4 in x 26 3/8 in x 65 3/4 in
label: Measurements
content: front wheel: 52 in; 132.08 cm