02/01/2026
Had to share this!
Cycling always gives me a sense of freedom, but this post shines a light on just how freeing it must have been for our female ancestors…
They called it the "freedom machine," and it terrified Victorian society more than any protest march ever could.
In 1896, Susan B. Anthony made a bold declaration. At 76 years old, the legendary suffragist told reporters that the bicycle had "done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world."
She wasn't exaggerating.
The bicycle didn't just change how women moved. It changed how they organized, how they dressed, and ultimately, how they fought for the right to vote.
But here's what made the 1890s bicycle revolutionary: it was the first truly accessible machine that didn't require male assistance.
Before the safety bicycle emerged in the late 1880s, women were trapped in a system of chaperoned transportation. Horse-drawn carriages required money and servants. The earlier penny-farthing bicycles, with their massive 50 to 60 inch front wheels and seats perched over four feet high, were practically impossible for women to ride.
Then came the game-changer.
The safety bicycle featured equal-sized wheels, typically 26 to 28 inches, with a chain-driven rear wheel and gears. This design dropped the center of gravity dramatically, reducing the potential fall height from over five feet to just two feet.
The diamond-shaped frame made mounting and dismounting manageable. Pneumatic tires, introduced in 1888, smoothed out rough roads that would have rattled riders on solid rubber. Most importantly, the whole machine cost the equivalent of $100 to $200 in today's money.
Suddenly, women could travel alone. Unchaperoned. To meetings, workplaces, and political organizing events.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anthony's fellow suffrage leader, saw the implications immediately. In 1895, at age 80, she wrote: "Woman is riding to suffrage on a bicycle."
And ride they did.
Suffragettes transformed the bicycle from a transportation tool into a campaign weapon. They rode through towns with "Votes for Women" banners streaming from their handlebars, turning heads and sparking conversations everywhere they went.
The Women's Social and Political Union established Cycling Scouts in 1907. These brigades scouted routes for demonstrations, distributed pamphlets across wide territories, and announced meetings in multiple communities in a single day, covering ground that would have been impossible on foot.
In London, organized bicycle brigades took direct action. They deliberately blocked Winston Churchill's motorcade, forcing a public confrontation that generated newspaper headlines and drew attention to their cause.
But the bicycle's most shocking impact might have been on fashion.
Victorian women were expected to wear corsets, heavy petticoats, and floor-length skirts. This clothing was not just uncomfortable, it was dangerous on a bicycle. Fabric could tangle in chains and spokes. The weight and restriction made riding nearly impossible.
So women changed.
They adopted bloomers, shorter skirts, and looser garments. They shed the corsets that had symbolized their physical constraint. Every woman pedaling down a public street in practical clothing was making a visual argument: women's bodies didn't have to be decorative and fragile.
The sight scandalized critics who called these women "unwomanly" and "revolting." Newspapers ran cartoons mocking women cyclists. Moralists warned that bicycles would destroy femininity itself.
The suffragettes didn't care. They understood something profound.
The bicycle gave women control. They mastered a new technology. They navigated public streets. They maintained their own machines. They chose their own routes and destinations.
That feeling of self-propulsion, that physical sensation of moving through the world by your own power, fed directly into the suffrage movement's core argument: women were capable of self-governance and deserved political agency.
Susan B. Anthony's full quote captures this perfectly: "Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance... the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood."
The bicycle didn't win women the vote by itself. But it materially supported the organizing that made victory possible, and it gave the movement a striking, modern symbol that embodied exactly what suffragists were demanding.
A shift from domestic dependence to public citizenship. From being transported to self-propulsion. From asking permission to claiming freedom.
All on two equal-sized wheels, a chain drive, and the courage to ride.
