‘Does the bicycle make women cruel?’ — American cartoon published in the Los Angeles Herald newspaper (13 June, 1897) showing a woman callously cycling over another. The cartoon illustrated an article about an alleged ‘new mania which is afflicting women who ride bicycles’, with the author reporting on several cases of the mania developing in France: ‘physicians found that the first known case of the mania developed last January … That it was cycling that brought the mania on there seems no question. Only wheelwomen have been afflicted with it, and oddly enough, in every instance, they have been over 30 years of age.’ The article concludes that the mania may be the ‘result of the effect upon the nervous system of the intense exhilaration rapid riding brings about’.
Via Propagandopolis


















