The Mechanical Horse: How the Bicycle Reshaped American Life

Discovering America

by Margaret Guroff

With cities across the country adding miles of bike lanes and building bike-share stations, bicycling is enjoying a new surge of popularity in America. It seems that every generation or two, Americans rediscover the freedom of movement, convenience, and relative affordability of the bicycle. The earliest two-wheeler, the draisine, arrived in Philadelphia in 1819 and astonished onlookers with the possibility of propelling themselves "like lightning." Two centuries later, the bicycle is still the fastest way to cover ground on gridlocked city streets.

Filled with lively stories, The Mechanical Horse reveals how the bicycle transformed American life. As bicycling caught on in the nineteenth century, many of the country's rough, rutted roads were paved for the first time, laying a foundation for the interstate highway system. Cyclists were among the first to see the possibilities of self-directed, long-distance travel, and some of them (including a fellow named Henry Ford) went on to develop the automobile. Women shed their cumbersome Victorian dresses—as well as their restricted gender roles—so they could ride. And doctors recognized that aerobic exercise actually benefits the body, which helped to modernize medicine. Margaret Guroff demonstrates that the bicycle's story is really the story of a more mobile America—one in which physical mobility has opened wider horizons of thought and new opportunities for people in all avenues of life.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Sports, Cycling, Bicycles, Technology, Cultural

296 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 5, 2016

Reviews

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating account of the history of the bicycle and its role in society. Entertaining and Informative. Highly recommended.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Several times recently I have written Goodreads reviews for books and commented that I was not part of the target audience for the book. When I got this from the public library, I thought to myself, "aha - here is a book where I certainly am part of the target audience!" After all, I read books about cycling history whenever I find them and I even have a bicycle history oriented blog (although I have not published so much in recent times). Once I had read partway through this, I decided I apparently was not really the target audience for this book, either, which I will explain below.

First, I should note that I was a little confused by the title, subtitle, and dust cover illustration of this book. I added up "mechanical horse" and "how the bicycle reshaped American life" (in the past, mind you) with the drawing of a couple in the 1890s riding their then-new safety bicycles and took this to be a book about the early days of cycling. It turns out it covers the entire span of bicycle history, from the earliest days up through now, all in only about 165 pages of text. (Extensive notes and an in-depth bibliography add another 120 pages, which is unusual. Oddly Goodreads says the book is 216 pages, but the copy I have has 287 including the index.)

165 pages isn't much to cover the entire history of cycling in America, certainly not in any kind of depth. That's why this wasn't, I think, a book for an enthusiast like me - there just isn't much depth to what is here. Which is too bad, because in looking through the above-mentioned extensive bibliography and notes, I was able to appreciate how much research went into this book - a lot! I sensed that the author chose not to share much of what she learned with her readers in this book, for whatever reason.

I thought the author made several surprising detours in her discussion of how bicycles reshaped American life. One of the eleven chapters talks about the connection between the development of flight, most notably the Wright brothers, and cycling in general. And another (The Cycles of War) talks about use of bicycles by different armies, with what for this book is a long digression into a discussion of the use of bicycles in the Vietnam War (by the North Vietnamese). I thought the direct connection between these topics and "reshaping American life" was pretty thin.

The book has a few illustrations, but some concepts that would have been helpful to who with illustrations or photographs are not included - for example, the simple difference between a so-called "ordinary" bicycle and a "safety" bicycle.

Although the book has (as noted) page after page of notes on what is in the text, these are not referenced in the text itself. If you wonder what the source was for something, you look to the back of the book and maybe there is relevant note and maybe not. I guess having endnote numbers in the text would be a distraction? Or not appropriate for this popular treatment?

The final chapter tries to briefly summarize the many different cycling tendencies out there now and to argue that the influence of cycling is likely to grow. Sure, maybe. But there isn't much that is persuasive provided here.

If one is interested in the topic and not too familiar with it, this is a reasonably short and certainly quite readable way to learn about some of the ways American society has been influenced by cycling. I was disappointed because for all the effort that seems to have gone into it, it could have been better.

[Carlosfelipe Pardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great historical description of the bicycle’s different uses and how it related to world events and later American life. It documents thoroughly things that are generally heard of only at passing and unearths beautiful (and sad) anecdotes of cycling history. It is useful to understand what happens when a new vehicle arrives in the world (something very useful today)

[Sarah Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will never look at bicycles the same. Guroff explores how bicycles changed almost everything. They liberated women, popularized exercise, mobilized working people, inspired auto and airplane inventors. . . the lists goes on. Quite fascinating.

[Douglas Summers-Stay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Velocipedes were so heavy they were a big pain to ride uphill. There is a funny story here about a Frenchman riding in Boston, I think, one of the first velocipedes in the US. He's about to crash into the back of a wagon as he's going downhill, so he starts yelling. The wagon drivers look back and they see this man flying towards them, standing up but his feet not touching the ground, screaming at them in a foreign language, and from the front a bike is almost invisible if you don't know what you're looking at. They thought they were seeing the devil coming for them.
Cyclists wanted Congress to improve the roads, so got 150000 signatures and put the scroll of names on a seven foot tall scrolling contraption. I had never really understood how penny farthings (penny=big coin, farthing=small coin, get it?) fit in to the story-- they were an advance over velocipedes which had both wheels the same size but no pedals. Penny farthings were very dangerous to ride, and were almost a daredevil sport, like snowboarding today. Like Segways, bikes got prohibited from sidewalks, and the roads were too bad to use them on, so the fad quickly ended (before coming back). Also, in America, bikes got so marketed to kids that teens wouldn't ride them in the 1960s and 1970s. Ten speeds really didn't get introduced until the 1970s. Bikes were used for fast "marches" in WWI, but by the end of the war transport was mostly mechanized. Lots of facts like that.
Here's a penny farthing crash from 2015 here in Frederick:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSyQy...

[Cassandra]

Started off fairly strong but then kind of petered out a bit. It would have been nice to get more about mountain biking and e-biking and modern history. The impact of cycling on society or spaces was a big part of the beginning of the book but felt a bit forgotten by the end.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable! Following the history and influence of the bike was like a time-lapse at different points of (primarily) United States’ history—the overlap strengthened my understanding. I think I found this book due to a podcast: 50 Things that Changed the Modern Economy. Well done.

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last night I finished the Mechanical Horse by Margaret Guroff. It's a pretty great journey through the history of the bicycle in America. The info was sometimes surprising and sometimes more detail on bicycle history that I already knew about. 

It's fairly even-handed in its assessment--e.g I personally find it depressing that the bicycle made modern advertising possible, and if I'd written this book, maybe I would have left that chapter out. But she didn't, and even in the last chapter, where there's room to make a call on whether bicycles will boom or bust over the next few years, she offers statistics that fall on both sides and doesn't get overly booster-y about it. 

Great details abound--including a poem about how embarrassing it is to have children laugh at you on your safety bike.  There's also a great passage about "bicycle face", said to "result from the stress of incessant balancing".

After reading, I have a substantially better understanding of the Europe vs. America bicycle divide--why bikes are more popular there, why they have better infrastructure, etc. I can see the boom and bust cycles of bicycling in America as part of the greater national conversation--why bicycles could be so popular during WW2 and then turn into a child's toy immediately afterward. As a bike lover/advocate/activist, this book provided invaluable context on my favorite machine. 

The only reason it gets 4/5 is because I'm not sure non-bicyclists would love it quite as much as I do.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Mechanical Horse" is a good overview of the positive influence cycling has had on health, women's emancipation and environmental movement. I bike commute regularly and find it a wonderful way to clear my head and boost my mood on the way to and from work. I'm still surprised that cycling, and in particular bike commuting is still relatively unknown. I am the sole regular cyclist amongst a staff of 50+ teachers at my workplace.
Gurloff points to the worrisome trend of fewer kids interested in cycling than in times past, primarily due to overprotective, risk averse parents and the stifling of outside play by social media and the internet.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

From the cover and the reading the description, I thought this book would have more detail about the bicycle boom of the 1890's but the author actually spent very little of her narrative on this important time period. She did spend time talking about the use of bicycles in various foreign wars, even their use in Vietnam which I think had a rather tenuous connection to "How the bicycle reshaped American Life" Also the pages and pages of references in the last third of the book seemed wasted on me. I basically tossed the book aside once I reached that point.

All in all I found the text rather too dry and factual. It raised no depths of emotions in this reader at all.

[crjdoc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

Informative, articulate, and chock - full of facts about the bicycle's impact on our world. Impeccably researched and written in an easy to read style, Guroff's book is a must- read for the cycling aficionado, or any student of history. I highly recommend this book!

[Cary Ussery · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent and thoughtful perspective on how the introduction of devices into our culture can have broader implications.

[David Schumacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book if you are into biking.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best part of this book is all the stories the author found in old newspapers that mention bikes (and their relatives) and old photographs. I imagine this research project was a lot of fun. I also learned a lot about bicycles used for war: transporting soldiers and goods. You’d think with all these War movies available, there’d be one about bicycling troops, since bikes did play a big role in strategy. Part of me feels like there’s been enough war movies, but I’d watch a bike-focused war movie for sure.

Is shorter than it looks- about half the book is notes and that’s always a fun thing to discover. Because the book is short, it can’t cover everything and I imagine it skipped a lot, considering it barely covered the current bike topics of nowadays in the day chapter.

If you like bikes and history, you’ll probably like this one.

[Ms. Yingling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Public library copy

This had a lot of good information, but like many adult nonfiction books, is a bit more academic and stuffed with facts. For a quicker and more engaging treatment of bicycles in history, I highly recommend Sue Macy's Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom. Doesn't cover as much of what The Mechanical Horse covers, but has more pictures and amusing anecdotes for the more cursory biking enthusiast.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great, well-researched look at the bicycle from invention to today. I read it for its look at how it liberated women (freedom of movement and dress) but enjoyed Guroff’s look at biking during war time as well as in the 1970s (the 10-speed craze). Also the bikecentennial ride across America. Lots of fun info.

[T.R. Ormond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good contribution to the history of the bicycle in the US. For me, the best parts were the chapters that focused on the 1880s and 1890s, chapters 2, 3, 4, and especially 5. Chapter five was great because it looked at the roles of magazines and illustration in driving the demand for bicycles in the 1890s.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meets my expectations and was written from an enjoyable point of view.

Notably, the text (pp 1-166) is followed by endnotes (pp 169-238) and a bibliography (pp 239-280). I am entering this review based upon the main text.

[Janta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, breezy read about the history of bicycles in the United States. Quite enjoyable; I recommend it for anyone interested in the "microhistory of random or everyday things". I should note: the text ended on page 166 in my hardcover copy of this book. The remainder is notes, etc.

[Lauryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Been on a bit of a bike kick lately and found this one at the university in town. I’m glad I borrowed it because this one just felt…unsatisfying. It was short and quick but the war section felt very long. There were quite a few interesting facts in here, though, and some really cool pictures!

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a history of the bicycle but it moves along more like a novel. There are so many interesting facets of how the bicycle impacted society and was impacted by it and how it went in and out of fashion since its inception in the late 18th century. I loved it.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Mechanical Horse is an interesting history of the bicycle as well as recollection of American history. I highly recommend this book.

[Mootika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly captivating, the author shares intriguing insights throughout. Not just for cycling enthusiasts, this is interesting & thought-provoking history for everyone.

[Gwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a light read about the history of bicycles and bicycling in the United States, with a few forays into Vietnam and other countries. Guroff's aim is partly to demonstrate how bicycling precipitated road improvements and was instrumental in the development of motor vehicles and aircraft. Along the way, she weaves in anecdotes about how doctors once viewed bicycling (deleterious to your health!) and how mountain biking got its start in California on the Repack Trail. If you're a bicyclist, this book will show you where you came from.

[Ngaire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun and informative look at the evolution of the bicycle and its impact on American Life. Far from being a natural development, bicycles made their way into American hearts after several false starts. The early models were huge, heavy, and used mostly by risk-taking young men, who knew that hitting a bump meant a high speed meeting of their faces with the road.Initial sales were slow.

As bicycle design became more stream-lined, the bike became lighter, cheaper and more available to other people, most notably women. Of course, cycling in voluminous floor-length skirts was pretty impractical, so women starting donning shorter styles and, scandalously, even trousers. At the same time, people who biked regularly noticed that their fitness and general health improved, leading to a decades long American interest in the benefits of exercise.

Bikes were so useful and liberating that hundreds of manufacturers and repair shops sprouted up around the USA. Several bicycle engineer and designers, including the Wright Brothers, were inspired to extend the feelings of lightness the bicycle inspired by working on human-powered flight.

After the 1920s, as more people moved to car-centric suburbs, bicycles fell somewhat out of fashion for adults, with children's bikes making up most of the market. However the 1970s saw a resurgence in interest adult cycling that has continued into the 21st Century. Daredevils in California modified heavy 1920s bikes to charge downhill at high speed, while elsewhere people rediscovered the pleasure of biking to work or for fun at the weekend. unfortunately the cycle has never really competed with the car in popularity in America which is a shame given that they are a healthy and low-emission way to get around.

[Hal · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nicely done history on the advent of the bicycle up to modern times. It leans toward explaining and projecting how the bike not only changed transportation and the lives of people but led the way in so many radical innovations we now take for granted.

One such leadership role was interestingly enough in the pioneering of air flight. The Wright brothers of course come to mind and were in fact bicycle mechanics from Ohio who engineered that first airplane from ideas honed in the making of bicycles of that time.

The book wraps up with how in todays market the bicycle continues its boom and bust cycle and reinvents itself every so many years to adapt to changing trends and desires in society. Anyone who rides can see however that despite changes the core of the bicycle remains and that is maybe what makes it so appealing in the overly high tech world of ours

[Frank Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, well-written history of the bicycle in the USA. She describes the impact of the bicycle on the women's rights movement. Susan B. Anthony is quoted as saying "I think it has done more to emancipate woman than any one thing in the world". Then she describes the connection of the bicycle to the car and to the airplane. One chapter talks about the use of the bicycle in wartime, including how the bicycle was crucial to the North Vietnamese war effort - being an extremely important component of the Ho Chi Minh trail bringing supplies into the south. She ends by talking about the various types of bicycles and fads that have sprung up over the last few decades.

All in all, a very enlightening and entertaining read.

[Monical · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually a fairly short book-- over half the pages are the references. An interesting read, pointing out the social and political impact of the bicycle. The history is older than I thought, and the author even gets into Wilbur and Orville Wright (who were bicycle mechanics) and additional connections between air flight and bicycling.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually a short book, only 166 pages; almost as many pages of references as text. A readable short history linking the first attempt at moving faster than a horse with the drasine to cars, plants, and then back to bikes for convenience in getting around.

[Darlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though short, I was surprised how thorough the book covered the history of the bicycle. I found it an interesting perspective on the bicycles role in helping bring change, from the way women dressed, improving roads, helping in war and inspiring new technology.