Transportation
The Great Leveler
In its early history, the bicycle was celebrated—and condemned—for disrupting social barriers and bringing the classes together.
The doctor was appalled. Two young women “of irreproachable character and social standing” had befriended two “well-dressed damsels” while out riding bikes. The four friends met up for rides for a few weeks, until it was discovered that the well-dressed damsels “were none other than a pair of nymphs de pave”—streetwalkers.
The clear lesson, according to this Louisville physician, writing in an 1897 medical journal: Women should never ride bikes.