In this 1898 photo, a group of friends rests beside a road to Danvers during a bicycle trip.
In the late 1880s, so-called safety bicycles became popular among women. Safeties replaced earlier, big-wheeled bikes that were harder to ride. Clergy, who were worried at the time that women would abandon their roles as wives and mothers, discouraged women from riding any kind of bikes.
Boston was America’s cycling capital, with the country’s first bicycle club, magazine and manufacturer — the Albert H. Pope Company. Naturally, nearby Marblehead caught the bicycle bug. The Marblehead Bicycle Club was formed in 1882, which organized races, stunt riding shows and 100-mile rides known as centuries.
The bicycle boom coincided with George Eastman’s Kodak camera, which took photography out of the studio and placed it in the hands of the masses. Photographers like Fred Litchman of Marblehead captured everyday life, with cycling a popular early subject. When Litchman went on bicycle trips, he took photographs at each stop and arranged them in his album to tell a story.
This is one of 140 photos featured in the Marblehead Museum’s new book, “Marblehead Snapshots: The World of Fred Litchman.” Litchman captured Marblehead at a pivotal time in its history, as locals created a seaside vacation destination from the ashes of two devastating fires along Pleasant Street in 1877 and 1888. The photos form a crucial historical record of a town unfiltered. The book is available to order on at MarbleheadMuseum.org and in the museum gift shop, which reopens on March 1.
Jarrett Zeman is the assistant director of the Marblehead Museum. From the Vault is a monthly segment highlighting an item from Marblehead Museum’s collection of over 60,000 artifacts. Learn more and explore at marbleheadmuseum.org.
