May 19, 2026 • 44 mins
Nowadays bicycles are a common sight across the world -- they're efficient, convenient, and a great way to get in some exercise. Yet in the late 1800s they were ground zero for a culture war over women's rights. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max discover how the humble 'safety bike' rocked the status quo, giving female riders newfound freedom... and throwing the patriarchy into a panic.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the Man,
the Myth, the Legend, our own Penny Farthing super producer,
mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Max Penniworth Farthington Williams, Third Esquire.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
That actually isn't too far off from my actual name.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Huh, it's a joke. Hey, stop watches right? How many
times a day? Once? I guess yes.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Twice, technically twice. I am Ben Bullet. You are, mister
Noel Brown.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I'm only just now learning how its out time.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I recently got my first analog watch, and I'm still
struggling with it a little bit.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
But it's a lot of fun, and we are going
to have a lot of fun with you today, hopefully,
Fellow Ridiculous Historians, we are looking at one of our
favorite contraptions ever, the bicycle, and the role it played
in women's rights.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
I like to ride my bikes here. I like to
ride it where I like.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I just got back from a bike ride.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
It was nice. I love a bike. I love a bicycle.
I also love women's rights.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
And you were definitely not on a penny farthing. You
are on something descended from what we call the safety
bicycle or the safeties from L eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
It sounds nerdy when you say like that, but I
was wearing a helmet, I di am a safe by cyclist,
and I was riding on a little thing we here
in Atlanta area called the belt line, and I made
a trader Joe's run, got some snacks, and rode on back.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
It was a good time.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, And the safety bicycle is part of the reason
this is a good time because it did replace the
penny farthing, which, in addition to looking absolutely ridiculous, is
also pretty pretty dangerous.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
So the pity.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Farthing was like an early adopter thing. We'll get to it.
But what you need to know at the offset here, folks,
is that there was a sea change in cycling and
society with the emergence of that safety bicycle. It sparked
what our research associate Maria calls a cycling craze in
the United States and abroad.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, I mean, anyone who's seen someone ride a penny farthing,
also known as the bone a bone shaker if deadwood
is to be believed. It was actually a plot point
in that show, not necessarily because of its danger as
a vehicle, but it caught a chain of events that
led to some tragic plot moving occurrences in the show.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
But if anyone's ever seen.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Someone riding one of those, like one of those muscleman
with the handlebar mustaches, you know, it's kind of more
like a feat like a trick, like riding a unicycle
or using stilts or I'm sure you know there's big
wheel on the front, a little wheel on the back.
There's a reason people don't go to the grocery store
on pogo sticks. It's more of flex of activity. I've actually,
I've had the dubious pleasure of riding Penny Farthing bikes
(03:29):
several times.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
They are difficult, they are not forgiving. But we do
owe a lot of modern society's rights to the advent
of the safety bicycle. As Maria tells us, there were
basically three groups of women in the eighteen nineties who
were who are part of our story here. One, there
(03:53):
are people who happen to be women who just want
to ride bikes because bikes are cool.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Yeah, they want to ride them where they like, it's
very freeing.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It's honestly the invention of the original, the penny farthing.
I mean, that was in and of itself a very
freeing innovation. You know, it allowed people to ambulate without
the use of their legs.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
And this, I like the point about freedom there, noel,
because our second group will be actual activists, women's rights
activist who said, hey, this bicycle is a palpable tool
of independence. This gives us freedom, this gives us agency.
And then the third group, the bad guys of the story,
(04:38):
the baddies, the people who said women on bikes, that's
an abomination. Next thing you know, they'll be wearing.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Pantaloons wanting to vote right God forbid.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
So this this is our story for today, folks. The
safety bike did play a huge role in the women's
rights movement, and it's one that a lot of people
didn't see coming. Kind of like how hat pins became
a tool against assault of mashers.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, just so all those wolf whistling, mashing men out
there on those streets, the ladies wouldn't put up with it.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
They'd give them a jab with their hat pins.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
And now we're entering onto the stage. A group of
people who are very harm for Rump, for Rump, something
must be done. When faced with a female population that
had independent transportation and was wearing pants, they were trying
to react in an ad hominem kind of way. It
(05:42):
reminds me a lot, you guys, of that strange propaganda
we saw during COVID vaccination or wearing masks, where people
would say, oh, if people are wearing masks, you don't
know if their children being trafficked. This is so ridiculous.
The opposition said the reason women shouldn't ride bicycles was
(06:04):
due to something that they called bicycle face.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Is this related to like, why don't you smile more
kind of mentality?
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Okay? Cool? Or RB clocking yeah, RBF.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
The safety bicycle, as you said, men, I, was at
the heart of this epidemic that people were referring to
as bicycle face, and of course replaced the penny farthing,
which had been super popular in the eighteen seventies and
eighteen eighties. Some models included the Aerial in eighteen seventy
one and the very creatively and banally named the Ordinary
in eighteen seventy eight. These types of bikes were typically
(06:38):
associated with young, rich, white dudes, but men of all
kinds were participating in this sort of like I said,
feet of strength. These bikes could go up to a
whopping thirty miles an hour, some say more, and the
design was favored for this ability to pick up speed.
But that's really where it ends. As we talked about,
this is some really odd ball, awkward, unwieldy elements to
(07:01):
the design of this thing, including the fact that the
rider's seat, which you well know, Ben, was nearly five
feet off of the ground.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Oh yeah, it's one of those things where you've got
to get a running start. I've been teaching my girlfriend's
niece how to ride bikes, and I'm just so happy
that the kid is not on a penny farthing. Side
note for our fellow etymology nerds, it's got a weird name,
the penny farthing. It's also been called the high wheel,
but the name comes because of the size difference between
(07:31):
the British penny and the farthing.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Coins.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Wow, penny is way bigger. That's the front wheel, and
the farthing is a lot smaller. That's the rear wheel.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
I think we all learned something new today, Ben. I
did not know that.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Prior to reading Maria's excellent research brief. So as you
can imagine, and as we've already hinted at, it was
super dangerous and considered much more of a thrill seeking
kind of activity, not necessarily known for its practicality. And
many folks, if we're talking about some more etymology, would
take a fall or a header as it was known
(08:07):
and coined from this problem, literally diving headfirst over what
are referred to as mustache handlebars. I guess people were
making their mustaches match the handlebars.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And also, if you please, if you get a chance,
pull up a picture of a penny farthing. We can't
tell you to try it at home because they are dangerous.
And I took a few headers myself. You're going to
see that.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
It's such a weird contraption. Because the.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Seat of this vehicle is pretty much parallel to the handlebars,
it is very easy to go too fast or to
lose your balance and have a decent wampwamp. This really
inspired or irritated a guy named John Kemp Starly. We
(08:54):
don't know how many headers Starly took, but our buddy
Johnny around eighteen eighty five said, this is malarkey. I'm
going to invent a new bicycle. It's going to be
straight seahorse teeth, and I'm going to emphasize how safe
it is.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
What if we had two wheels that were the same size.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
What if we had gears, Oh my gosh, what if
we finally tried to fix the brakes?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
For sure, big improvements in all those respects, the brakes
and the pretty farthing.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
I think we're very, very rudimentary.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
In eighteen ninety, what was deemed, you know, in the
zeitgeist as safeties were upgraded with pneumatic tires, which are
very similar to the ones we know today, tires made
of rubber that are filled with air.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Lesson not very less.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Boneek has another reason that that was called that for
sure a new invention that made for a much more
comfortable ride just in terms of traversing various types of terrain.
It soaked up a lot of the impact, Like you're saying,
ben So by the mid decade, bikes dropped in weight too.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
You know, you don't want to clunky bike.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Anyone who's ridden one of those new New York City
city bikes knows that that can be a real scary
proposition and definitely makes it a lot less fun and zippy.
So they dropped from about fifty pounds to twenty three,
which was a serious glow up considering the previous bikes
and bike like vehicles, which I honestly, I mean they
call it the penny farthing and not the bicycle because
(10:20):
it really is more of a bike like vehicle. We would, really,
I I would argue that it is not particularly a bicycle.
It's not till we see the safeties that we really
start seeing what became the bicycle. Didn't Some penny farthings
also have like two wheels in the back, I want
to say, they were.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Like, Yeah, there were also tripod designs, so you'd have
two big wheels on either side of the seat and
then you have a little wheel in the back. And
there was there was so much research going into this
idea of the you know, from between eighteen ninety two
to eighteen ninety six, the industry was kind of acting
(11:01):
like your favorite corporations act about AI today. There were
so many patents going out for these bicycles. Yeah, feeding
frenzy is not a bad way to put it. The
two designs of what we call the safety bicycle were
the following the original had a crossbar. In eighteen eighty eight,
they marketed a what they called a quote unquote women's version,
(11:25):
and the one for women offered a drop frame to
accommodate skirts, because we can't have people wearing pants, right.
And you can still see this today in very popular
bike designs from very popular companies like Shwin.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
And it should be noted too that even today, I mean,
there are differentiations between what would be considered a women's
bike and a men's bike. Sometimes it has to do
with size, but sometimes it does have to do with
certain features like the frame design and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
That drop r.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Yeah, and when the first Safeties came out, similar to
the Penny Farthing, they were pretty expensive. They cost an
average of one hundred and fifty US bucks per product.
And this is a time, Maria points out, when the
average US worker was earning maybe twelve dollars a week.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah, that's a pretty serious investment for what at the
time was probably still is kind of considered a curiosity.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
It hadn't fully taken off yet.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeahs a novelty, right, and it's still the idea of
the bicycle still sort of has its training wheels.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Hey, So as we mentioned that the main customer at
this point.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Was rich white dudes.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But there were also, of course counterparts to these rich
and white dudes who were rich white women and they
wanted to get on the fun too.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, and because there was higher demand, the economy of
gale kicks in and all these manufacturers who have their
proliferation of patents and their own special spin on the
velociped they.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
What they call it in Deadwood as well.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
They say, look, we're going to compete with each other,
so they start reducing their prices. That's a very strange
thing to a lot of us in the United States today,
but companies did used to do that. They made bikes
more affordable for what they called all the riders, which
was again, as you pointed out, bro, it's a very
(13:36):
small percentage of the overall population.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
It is a good little view into just a basic
economic microcosm of like supply and demand and how it's
supposed to work. They're supposed to be competition in these
types of spaces rather than you know, monopolies, which can
lead to prices lowering and or quality raising in order
for the different manufacturers to differentiate themselves, like in the
watch game. For example, you've got these really unattainably high
(14:02):
priced watch protects FP grange, what is it, Automorpga those
ones that are like you know, the price of a
car or more. But they're also like decades and decades
of development and you know, super super super refined processes
and features, et cetera. And the more mid tier ones,
(14:23):
you've got them a ton of competition because they really
have to differentiate themselves from each other.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah, So first off, yet to think about the complications, folks,
which is the word for the mechanisms, which is.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Becomes true with bikes too.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
I mean, we're talking about like it is a relatively
clockwork esque system when we're talking about gear shifts and
how many speeds does it have? And you know, what
are the components, Like how well manufactured and machined and
engineered they are.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
We're going to start seeing more of that.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, And so we're still in the late eighteen eighties,
so it's let's say it's eighteen eighty nine to eighteen
ninety nine. So in that decade, the number of bicycles
that are being purchased and used has shot up from
something like two hundred thousand to one million in the
(15:14):
US alone. By eighteen ninety five, the United States has
no less than three hundred separate bicycle companies, and if
you average out what they were doing right during this decade,
their safety bikes or safeties probably cost about seventy five
(15:35):
dollars instead of one hundred and fifty. So the market
was working at that time in yeah some way.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Well, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
And as we mentioned earlier, you know women who likely
had a bit more free time on their hands, at
least to the wealthy you know, spouses of wealthy businessmen
and you know people that were working ninety fives in
the offices or whatever the hell they were doing in
those days. They often the women would not work, and
so they had a lot more free time, and so
(16:03):
of course it made sense that they would want some
options of how to fill that free time, and biking
offered a pretty great and active you know answer to that.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
One hundred percent. Yeah, And this is mobility, right, this
is freedom. This doesn't mean you have to keep a
horse all the time.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
And to this day, I think people really love biking
because of some of those very same things. It's functional,
it's functional exercise that gives you a sense of freedom
and a lot of reasons. It turns out that motorists
are kind of pills to bicyclists, is because they're sort
of like, man, who does that person think he is
being all free out there not stuck in traffic.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
I'm gonna I'm gonna be a jerk.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
I'm very pro bike and I have serious problems with
our fair metropolis of Atlanta. You know what I'm talking about, Yeah,
is approaching bicycles.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
So we have we know.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
That there are still improvements to be made, but we
also know that there was a culture war about bicycles
and women riding them, especially this period of history in
the eighteen hundreds. You would see names in the press
in real muck raking journalism or real tabloid style breathless headlines,
(17:21):
stuff like weeld woman, lady Cyclist, or our favorite bloomert Right,
because if you're picturing illustrations from the news rags of
the day, you're probably picturing ladies on bicycles wearing these.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Big, old, fluffy pantaloon esque things that weren't quite pants,
weren't quite dresses.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
They were bloomers.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah, that reminds me of this is like our cravat
conversation we've been having. It reminds me of the phrase
harem pants. Things that look like a skirt while you're standing,
but they move like pants because they have that division.
We know that this is occurring in a greater context,
a greater milieu. In eighteen seventy eight, there was a
(18:07):
woman suffrage amendment proposed in US Congress. It's just what
it sounds like. It said, Hey, should this other fifty
percent of the population be allowed to vote? It failed,
It did not pass until nineteen twenty. It is the
nineteenth Amendment. And didn't think we would say this in
(18:28):
this episode, but guys, shout out to Wyoming. Wyoming in
eighteen sixty nine is the first state that allows women
the right to vote. And you know here in twenty
twenty six, Wyoming has a relatively conservative reputation, you know.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Real quick.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Shout out to the inventor of the Bloomers, by the way,
which I think is an interesting tie in here. A
woman named Amelia Bloomer, who was a women's rights advocate
in the mid nineteenth century. He actually promoted the Bloomers
as a practical alternative to the restrictive corsets and skirts
that women were more or less required to wear, and
(19:09):
it became a symbol of early reform for women's dress
and kind of dovetailed with the women's suffrage and rights movements.
They were used often by activists for there again for comfort,
but also they had a symbolic aspect to them, and
of course cyclists as well as some early nineteenth and
twentieth century athletes.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yeah, so we're seeing freedom of movement on multiple levels,
exactly on the are the literal level and on the
figurative larger level. In eighteen seventy five, Scotis again fumbles
the bag. This will be very familiar to a lot
of our listeners in the US right now. The Supreme
(19:51):
Court of the United States said, Look, the matter of
women voting, that's really a matter for the states. If
the if a given state wants to say women can't vote,
then that's fine. Because women are people. We'll give you
that as they are citizens. But they are there is
a quote a special category of non voting.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Aka sub human right some degree, he's animal farm.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Everybody's equal, but some are more equal than others.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Speaking of which, bend, are you aware of this?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Apparently quite awful animated Animal Farm that has just been
getting shredded. It's like a CGI animated version of Animal Farm,
weirdly helmed by Andy Serkis, who I think we're all
fans of, but apparently it is just absolutely misses the
mark on every aspect of what Animal Farm is about
(20:48):
and is just like gross out humor and completely a travist.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Just antithetical. Or Well, just read the book, folks, take
a you know it's it's such a short read because
especially because Orwell comes from a journalism background, so he
writes with density and a clarity.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
And truer now than ever, more valid and interesting. Now,
you know, Parrot with nineteen eighty four if you really
want to.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Get on that. I don't want to hang out with George.
I love him as a writer, uh and I never
really spent a lot of time with him, but man,
he's going to be too smug. If he came back
to life here, he would be insufferable. He'd be Kanye
West level smug and Max, we got to go to you.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
You got something here? Yeah, And I just want to know.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Andy Serkis of Claribscure Expedition thirty three fame, along with
other things like being dollom and whatnot. But yeah, clareupscare
shoutout Tonel Farms great, great.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
And shout out to uh Klang or whatever his name
was Kran And you know in the Black Panther uh series,
Uh Andy.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah right yeah. Andy Circus also my favorite role that
he ever played. Well, he's not a handful of things
that I really enjoyed. In the film twenty four Hour
Party People, he plays the genius and irasble, the irascible
genius producer of a lot of the Factory Records bands
there in Manchester, bands like Joy Division, and he plays
(22:13):
them great. He's a total grumpy curmudgeon. It's really really
great film. If you're into the history of indie music.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
And while we're taking a slight diversion, folks, please give
Andy Serkis the actor his recognition because he always reminded
me so his come up always reminded me of te Pain.
So a lot of people looked at Tee Paid and
didn't know the guy could really sing because he made
the artistic choice to use auto tune. A lot of
(22:42):
people say that Andy Circus uh wasn't was somehow less
than of an actor because he became so famous doing
motion capture stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
But goes into that man, I mean, yeah, for sure,
really good, much like that Doug Jones, you know, got
famous for playing you know, monsters and wearing heavy makeup.
It's all about his movements and his you know, the
nuance that he brings to that. And you know, I
think Andy serkis as King Kong quite moving and it
all has to do with the performance.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
So yes, credit where credit is.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Due, Credit where credit is due. Shout out to you
if you shout out to you, especially Tea Pain. If
anybody hasn't seen Tea Pain's Tiny Desk concert, please do
check it out. No auto tune. The man has the
voice of a spirit, it does.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Yeah, check out that Tiny Desk. It's fantastic. But back
to Velocipedes.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah, not all women are in the country of the
United States are lining up to buy a bike, and
not all women who wanted to bike considered themselves activist.
You know this this is strange because history always always
(23:55):
tends to forget nuance. We have to remember that people
are just people, and some people just wanted to have
a great ride around that was faster than walking. That
to them, it didn't necessarily indicate some greater social shift,
but they were all these people were existing under patriarchal society,
(24:17):
descended from the Victorian era, which had a lot of misogyny,
anti feminism stuff. They hated when women could do anything.
They're riding a bike, what's next voting? They probably said,
we should never have given this part of the population shoes.
That's how they started walking around outside. That's where the
(24:40):
problem began.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
No, it's that same attitude that went into like, you know,
keeping slaves from learning how to read. I mean not
to be too aggressive about it, but it comes from
the same place of you don't want to give them
a taste of freedom. And as we mentioned, cycling represents
and represented a certain kind of freedom.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Yeah, and a simple bicycle therefore becomes this huge ingredient
in a bubbling cauldron of what this population wants and
what they're told they cannot do. So no voting, no
higher education. Let's keep in mind that it wasn't until
the nineteen seventies or so that women in the United
(25:22):
States were allowed to have credit cards, which is weird.
Check out our episode on that from a few months
or years back. We've been at this for a while.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Which is kind of funny.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
It's sort of a funny concession too, because it's not
like credit cards are like the best thing for anybody
to have, especially you know, folks who are using them
to achieve spending power above their means.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Shout out to Edward Burnees, also involved in women's suffrage
as a way to sell cigarettes.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
That's what I'm saying. It's sort of like a little
bit of a self serving concession.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
One hundred percent. And so at this time in the
eighteen nineties, of course, women were not allowed the same
privileges as dudes. So you couldn't vote, you could have
very difficult time gain the higher education, your job opportunities
are quite limited.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
At the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
American law enshrine, like the legal decision of this country
was that if you were a woman and you were married,
which of course they wanted you to be married, then
you would have no legal identity distinct from your husband.
You had to do the child and household stuff. The
(26:36):
UK tried some soft propaganda with this by calling women
the angel of the house, So why would she ever
go outside? This is where we enter what we call.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
The new woman. Yeah, we don't want her to think
that she can have it all.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
A feminist ideal in the eighteen nineties was really represented
as an educated, social, active, very independent woman that was
dubbed coined by feminists Sarah Grand The New Woman in
eighteen ninety four and the safety bike really hit the
(27:13):
scene at an important moment for the new woman where
this concept challenged current cultural and gender norms along with
a lot of other things that were happening kind of
in lockstep like the Bloomers. The new woman had economic independence,
held a job, professional roles, could be highly educated, had
personal freedom, was physically fit and active, enjoyed playing sports
(27:37):
right alongside the men. All of these things that were
supported and cultivated by the bicycle and having access.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
To yeah yeah, And this idea of the new woman
goes across socioeconomic Boundarieseople who are working on the factory floor,
people who are doing what they called pink collar work
(28:06):
office jobs, the feminine equivalent of a white collar job.
These folks could all be the new woman and safeties.
The bikes were designed with a lady's full dress at
the time in mind, so we said, look, the skirts
are going to get tangled. People are going to catch
(28:27):
a header. This is non ideal. Cycling didn't just encourage
social freedom, it encouraged physical freedom through changes in women's fashion.
This is where we talked about Bloomers. We mentioned that
corsets were cartoonishly restricting, and a lot of skirts had
these long trains like what you might see in a
(28:50):
wedding today, and dresses with petticoats were heavy as heck.
A person's daily dress, not even the fancy one at
this time, could weigh twenty five pounds, so you know,
you know, these people had to wear that stuff. Their
hamstrings were jacked. Man, my hammies, Yeah they were barking.
(29:12):
Can your hammies bark your dogs? Whichever, but yeah, twenty
five pounds. A lot of the wire or the frames.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Of these these dresses, the hoop type skirts, they were
made of iron and were incredibly heavy. Just the actual
kind of undercarriage, I think is what they would call it.
In eighteen fifty one, Amelia Bloomer, who I mentioned previously,
from New York, along with Elizabeth Katie Stanton, incredibly important
feminist activists, popularize this new fashion, the short dress over
(29:40):
loose trousers similar to pants, but they were meant to
be worn underneath dresses. Of course, the bloomer not to
be too redundant, but they were. I don't think we
quite got to this incredibly controversial because they were just
too much like pants.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Ben They're too much like pants.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
And while all this conversation is happening, more and more
people are picking up Bloomers. Maybe it is for a
larger goal, maybe it's activism, but as Maria points out,
and I agree with her here, they probably just wanted
to get out of those heavy, those cartoonishly heavy skirts.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
And years later, and also just to add, they were
initially kind of more designed as undergarments, and so there
was a modesty concern here, you know, from the patriarchy,
I guess, saying that they're, oh, you're wearing underwear out
in public.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Yeah, in eighteen This all happened in eighteen fifty one.
As we said, So if we returned back to the
eighteen nineties, what we see is that a lot of
women who were fans of bicycling, again, most of them
at that point are going to be pretty wealthy and
pretty white. They adopted the Bloomers because it was just
(30:55):
more practical, but it was still highly controversial. This is
the thing, partially, this is a big part of why
bicycles advanced women's rights in the United States. It meant
that you could move without a chaperone. It meant that
you could travel by yourself, You could decide where you
(31:19):
wanted to go. If you look at a suffragist like
Francis Willard, you'll see quotes that read the following quote.
I begin to feel that myself plus the bicycle equaled
myself plus the world. And there's a poetry to that.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
No question, And it's something that I think we've been
describing all along the way, even in our own.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Relationships with bicycles, and how they can still be a
little bit of a sticking point to people today who
are like, who do you think you are out there
and enjoying the world, you know, moving around without having
to be stuck in gridlock traffic. So the safety bike
afford a woman a socially acceptable way to Also to
our earlier point, b outside the home in what had
(32:03):
been a male dominated space. Now they're out there, we're
out here, and they were doing it on two wheels.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Enter the bad guys. Okay, the culture war begins. Why
they said happy holidays. These people basically yelled, what about Christmas?
There was no shortage of tin plate propped up experts
quote unquote who would who would vociferously oppose the idea
(32:35):
of women on bikes? And they said, there are two
reasons these are so dumb. There are two reasons are one,
what if she takes aheader, she's going to be permanently disfigured.
No one's going to marry her. And then two, which
I think is the most ridiculous one. They were like, guys,
look at the seats. These women may be having Orgasmsay right, bikes.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Oh dear heavens, how dare.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
How a lady have a good time in the United States?
Speaker 2 (33:05):
I mean, you know, given the puritanical kind of bent
of the time, I could see how ladies straddling a
thing in public could be a victim of something like
the male gaze, This idea of like, oh my gosh,
this is scandalous, but it's not.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
Really.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Most of these issues are not women's problems. It's problems
men have with women, and it's oftentimes because of how
much it threatens them, either you know, financially in terms
of their level of power and control, or oftentimes sexually.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah, sorry, bro, it turns out your wife's bike is
better than you are at police here. That was like
the hidden concern there, and it was such a trumped
up malarchy thing for people to pretend to be worried about.
And doctors at the time were in hot debate in
public media about whether there are health benefits or harm
(34:05):
from bicycling. Some said it cured all manner of things,
and they were probably they were right ish. They were
wrong about some of it. They were right ish about
a lot. It's great for it's great for staying in
shape in a low impact way. But they said, look
(34:26):
like that means it helps with obesity, heart disease, vericose veins.
But they also said bikey will cure your anemia and
your asthma and your melancholia.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Well, I would agree with melancholia frankly. I mean, this
is this idea of it just being a cure for
the blues. Sometimes getting out there and feeling the wind
in your hair and all that and having that sense
of freedom can remedy those kinds of feelings. Melancholia was
of course, kind of a catch all term for just
the sads back in a time where they really truly
didn't have much understanding of men health. But I would
(35:01):
argue that that's true. Maybe some of the more specific
quote nut doesn't make sense there. And when we say
the medical community was divided, I think we can say
it was divided between those members who had their hearts
in the right place and then the quack sector who
seems to be on board with big Man.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yes, yeah, the the other bad guys.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Right, these are our.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Technically qualified doctors or their pundits, the Tucker Carlson's of
the day. They would say this is not a healthy
exercise for women, for the angels of the house. Bicycle
face is a medical condition that happens to women who
bit too much because when they are when they are
(35:50):
biking they're exercising, their faces wrinkle up and it makes
them nervous and exhausted, and it makes them look ugly
a kages aka smile more. It's a totally made up condition,
but the symptoms were described in detail. Those symptoms being
(36:13):
stuff like permanent facial disfigurement, similar to when your parents
may have said, don't make that face. Your face might
stay that way forever. That comes from this bicycle face thing. Yeah,
Maria titled the document today. I like to call it
resting bicycle face, a precursor to the other RBF resting
(36:33):
bitch face, which is a very pejorative thing. That is
the root of that whole smile more thing. It's this
idea that women owe you some sign of affection or
positive whatever.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
It's just it's dumb and it persists.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
M and then other symptoms would include flushed faces, you know,
like the faces you make when you're exercising, bulgie eyes,
clinched jaws, a general expression of weariness.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Yeah, to get from exertion, right.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, And they never applied this bicycle face idea to
the dudes.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Oh, there's so many examples of this stuff, and check
out episodes of stuff man've never told you about some
of these topics as well. They've they've covered this over
the years, the idea of like the wandering womb and
like all of these you know, hysterical women and all
of this. There's a lot of smear campaigns specifically directed
by the health community at women over the years to
(37:34):
justify some pretty gnarly treatment of it.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
This ultimately ends up being a moral panic, an outbreak
of again, a culture war time tale as old as time.
It's an example of fake health scares that were used
to fight against social change by people who were happy
with the status quo because they were at the top.
(37:57):
There were other imaginary diseases when bicycle face obviously seemed malarchy,
there were things like what they called cayphosis bicyclarum by
by one more type cayphosis bicyclis sterum cyclist spine.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
They did warn that cycling often left women vulnerable to
other general health problems such as graves disease and appendicitis. Yeah,
there was a publication on the BMJ that published an
article describing how bicycling could worsen chess problems because of
the position that you had to ride in, cause urethritis
and should be avoided by any woman suffering from pelvic mischief.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
That's my favorite term of the day, pelvic mischief.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
And again we already mentioned this notion that it could
be a way that a woman could pleasure herself, which
you know, a God forbid and be ridiculous, that's very
inconvenient for the purposes of riding a bike. I don't
think anyone's out there you know, trying to get frisky
on a bicycle scene.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Right. I want to be very diplomatic, folks, because we
are a family show. But I'm we're going to share
this quotation with you about the orgasm concern and Noel Max,
I just cannot think that whoever was writing this was
(39:27):
having a little pervy time in their own mind. Here's
the quote. So off, Mike, I did a reading of
this that was too controversial.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
So we're just going to give.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
You the words is written. But I hold to what
I'm saying without any acting or interpretation or intonation. This
is a really creepy thing for these guys to write,
they said, quote. The saddle can be tilted in every
bicycle as desired. In this way, a girl could by
carrying the front peak or pommel high, or by relaxing
(39:57):
the stretched leather in order to let it form a
deep like concavity which would fit itself snugly over the
entire volva and reach up in front, bring about constant
friction over the glytorus and labia.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Yo. Yeah, I don't know I wrote that.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
I don't know wrote well, and thankfully you know the
the snowflake men of the day were ultimately sort of
calmed down a bit with the release of something called
the anatomical saddle, which I can only imagine is something
like a banana seat or just like a broader seat.
That seemed to allay some of these fears that the
(40:34):
patriarchy had and make them settle down a little bit.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
And we are more than happy to report that, thankfully
this moral panic of the bicycle face was debunked as
it should have been. It shouldn't have started, but it
was revealed to be or understood to be ultimately a
self limiting fake condition. And again, thankfully, by the Earth
(41:00):
nineteen hundreds, it wasn't something that people were worried about.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Nah.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Doctor Sarah Hackett Stevenson, a prominent Chicago doctor, was among
the group who finally, you know, put the nail in
this particular coffin dismissing the condition. She wrote in the uh, well,
to be fair, the phrenological journal, right, which is its
own thing, of course, Yeah, phrenology, not quoit and also quackery.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
But you know, her heart was in the right place.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
And maybe this was just a popular journal at the time,
because this was something that was very widely studied, you know,
in eighteen ninety seven that any trace of such a
quote face would be temporary, okay and completely gone once
a woman was proficient in riding her bike. Okay, well,
yeah she got there, but a little circuitous route right
(41:53):
ish mm hmm yep. She also wrote that cycling was,
in fact an excellent exercise for women, and the lost
beauty of many delicate women may be recovered if they ride.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
They get out and exercise.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I guess that's true, the lost beauty of many delicate women.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Yeah, I may be recovered. I don't agree with the framing.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Great everybody loves a glow up and we also, uh,
we love this story because we are all three big
fans of bikes and cycling. Thank you again for joining
us today, folks. We can't wait for you to hit
the road or the belt line or the trail with
us on some future episodes. Also, big, big thanks to
(42:35):
mister Max Williams. Max, do you have a bicycle? I
don't want to put you on blast, but I'm curious.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
I actually do not right now?
Speaker 3 (42:42):
I am. I'm not the big bike guy, which is funny,
Zs is a very big bike guy himself. Okay, all right,
id of want to petting farthing after this episode, I can.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
See you rocking a bone shaker here, elies Max he
tried to petting farthing.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Big fakes, of.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Course, to Jonathan Strickland, aka the Quizter, who is probably
the guy who will sell you a gently used penny Farley.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
M m yeah, he's got a garage full of them.
Huge thanks to research associate Maria for knocking out this
banger research brief for us A J Mohammad Jacobs, the Puzzler,
Chris Frosciotis Anddie's Jeff Co's here in spirit, the aforementioned
cycling enthusiast Alex Williams who composed.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Arthy Beautiful Yes, big big thanks also to doctor Rachel
Big Spinach Lance, as well as the rude dudes of
Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us, especially our recent Dalli episode,
then you will love them. So hie thee to Thy
podcast platform of choice and check out some amazing stories
(43:49):
they have to share as well. Most importantly, thank you
to Noel.
Speaker 4 (43:53):
Hey to you as well, Ben. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the Man,
the Myth, the Legend, our own Penny Farthing super producer,
mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Max Penniworth Farthington Williams, Third Esquire.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
That actually isn't too far off from my actual name.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Huh, it's a joke. Hey, stop watches right? How many
times a day? Once? I guess yes.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Twice, technically twice. I am Ben Bullet. You are, mister
Noel Brown.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I'm only just now learning how its out time.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I recently got my first analog watch, and I'm still
struggling with it a little bit.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
But it's a lot of fun, and we are going
to have a lot of fun with you today, hopefully,
Fellow Ridiculous Historians, we are looking at one of our
favorite contraptions ever, the bicycle, and the role it played
in women's rights.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
I like to ride my bikes here. I like to
ride it where I like.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I just got back from a bike ride.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
It was nice. I love a bike. I love a bicycle.
I also love women's rights.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
And you were definitely not on a penny farthing. You
are on something descended from what we call the safety
bicycle or the safeties from L eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
It sounds nerdy when you say like that, but I
was wearing a helmet, I di am a safe by cyclist,
and I was riding on a little thing we here
in Atlanta area called the belt line, and I made
a trader Joe's run, got some snacks, and rode on back.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
It was a good time.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, And the safety bicycle is part of the reason
this is a good time because it did replace the
penny farthing, which, in addition to looking absolutely ridiculous, is
also pretty pretty dangerous.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
So the pity.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Farthing was like an early adopter thing. We'll get to it.
But what you need to know at the offset here, folks,
is that there was a sea change in cycling and
society with the emergence of that safety bicycle. It sparked
what our research associate Maria calls a cycling craze in
the United States and abroad.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, I mean, anyone who's seen someone ride a penny farthing,
also known as the bone a bone shaker if deadwood
is to be believed. It was actually a plot point
in that show, not necessarily because of its danger as
a vehicle, but it caught a chain of events that
led to some tragic plot moving occurrences in the show.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
But if anyone's ever seen.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Someone riding one of those, like one of those muscleman
with the handlebar mustaches, you know, it's kind of more
like a feat like a trick, like riding a unicycle
or using stilts or I'm sure you know there's big
wheel on the front, a little wheel on the back.
There's a reason people don't go to the grocery store
on pogo sticks. It's more of flex of activity. I've actually,
I've had the dubious pleasure of riding Penny Farthing bikes
(03:29):
several times.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
They are difficult, they are not forgiving. But we do
owe a lot of modern society's rights to the advent
of the safety bicycle. As Maria tells us, there were
basically three groups of women in the eighteen nineties who
were who are part of our story here. One, there
(03:53):
are people who happen to be women who just want
to ride bikes because bikes are cool.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Yeah, they want to ride them where they like, it's
very freeing.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It's honestly the invention of the original, the penny farthing.
I mean, that was in and of itself a very
freeing innovation. You know, it allowed people to ambulate without
the use of their legs.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
And this, I like the point about freedom there, noel,
because our second group will be actual activists, women's rights
activist who said, hey, this bicycle is a palpable tool
of independence. This gives us freedom, this gives us agency.
And then the third group, the bad guys of the story,
(04:38):
the baddies, the people who said women on bikes, that's
an abomination. Next thing you know, they'll be wearing.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Pantaloons wanting to vote right God forbid.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
So this this is our story for today, folks. The
safety bike did play a huge role in the women's
rights movement, and it's one that a lot of people
didn't see coming. Kind of like how hat pins became
a tool against assault of mashers.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, just so all those wolf whistling, mashing men out
there on those streets, the ladies wouldn't put up with it.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
They'd give them a jab with their hat pins.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
And now we're entering onto the stage. A group of
people who are very harm for Rump, for Rump, something
must be done. When faced with a female population that
had independent transportation and was wearing pants, they were trying
to react in an ad hominem kind of way. It
(05:42):
reminds me a lot, you guys, of that strange propaganda
we saw during COVID vaccination or wearing masks, where people
would say, oh, if people are wearing masks, you don't
know if their children being trafficked. This is so ridiculous.
The opposition said the reason women shouldn't ride bicycles was
(06:04):
due to something that they called bicycle face.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Is this related to like, why don't you smile more
kind of mentality?
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Okay? Cool? Or RB clocking yeah, RBF.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
The safety bicycle, as you said, men, I, was at
the heart of this epidemic that people were referring to
as bicycle face, and of course replaced the penny farthing,
which had been super popular in the eighteen seventies and
eighteen eighties. Some models included the Aerial in eighteen seventy
one and the very creatively and banally named the Ordinary
in eighteen seventy eight. These types of bikes were typically
(06:38):
associated with young, rich, white dudes, but men of all
kinds were participating in this sort of like I said,
feet of strength. These bikes could go up to a
whopping thirty miles an hour, some say more, and the
design was favored for this ability to pick up speed.
But that's really where it ends. As we talked about,
this is some really odd ball, awkward, unwieldy elements to
(07:01):
the design of this thing, including the fact that the
rider's seat, which you well know, Ben, was nearly five
feet off of the ground.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Oh yeah, it's one of those things where you've got
to get a running start. I've been teaching my girlfriend's
niece how to ride bikes, and I'm just so happy
that the kid is not on a penny farthing. Side
note for our fellow etymology nerds, it's got a weird name,
the penny farthing. It's also been called the high wheel,
but the name comes because of the size difference between
(07:31):
the British penny and the farthing.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Coins.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Wow, penny is way bigger. That's the front wheel, and
the farthing is a lot smaller. That's the rear wheel.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
I think we all learned something new today, Ben. I
did not know that.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Prior to reading Maria's excellent research brief. So as you
can imagine, and as we've already hinted at, it was
super dangerous and considered much more of a thrill seeking
kind of activity, not necessarily known for its practicality. And
many folks, if we're talking about some more etymology, would
take a fall or a header as it was known
(08:07):
and coined from this problem, literally diving headfirst over what
are referred to as mustache handlebars. I guess people were
making their mustaches match the handlebars.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And also, if you please, if you get a chance,
pull up a picture of a penny farthing. We can't
tell you to try it at home because they are dangerous.
And I took a few headers myself. You're going to
see that.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
It's such a weird contraption. Because the.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Seat of this vehicle is pretty much parallel to the handlebars,
it is very easy to go too fast or to
lose your balance and have a decent wampwamp. This really
inspired or irritated a guy named John Kemp Starly. We
(08:54):
don't know how many headers Starly took, but our buddy
Johnny around eighteen eighty five said, this is malarkey. I'm
going to invent a new bicycle. It's going to be
straight seahorse teeth, and I'm going to emphasize how safe
it is.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
What if we had two wheels that were the same size.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
What if we had gears, Oh my gosh, what if
we finally tried to fix the brakes?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
For sure, big improvements in all those respects, the brakes
and the pretty farthing.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
I think we're very, very rudimentary.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
In eighteen ninety, what was deemed, you know, in the
zeitgeist as safeties were upgraded with pneumatic tires, which are
very similar to the ones we know today, tires made
of rubber that are filled with air.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Lesson not very less.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Boneek has another reason that that was called that for
sure a new invention that made for a much more
comfortable ride just in terms of traversing various types of terrain.
It soaked up a lot of the impact, Like you're saying,
ben So by the mid decade, bikes dropped in weight too.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
You know, you don't want to clunky bike.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Anyone who's ridden one of those new New York City
city bikes knows that that can be a real scary
proposition and definitely makes it a lot less fun and zippy.
So they dropped from about fifty pounds to twenty three,
which was a serious glow up considering the previous bikes
and bike like vehicles, which I honestly, I mean they
call it the penny farthing and not the bicycle because
(10:20):
it really is more of a bike like vehicle. We would, really,
I I would argue that it is not particularly a bicycle.
It's not till we see the safeties that we really
start seeing what became the bicycle. Didn't Some penny farthings
also have like two wheels in the back, I want
to say, they were.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Like, Yeah, there were also tripod designs, so you'd have
two big wheels on either side of the seat and
then you have a little wheel in the back. And
there was there was so much research going into this
idea of the you know, from between eighteen ninety two
to eighteen ninety six, the industry was kind of acting
(11:01):
like your favorite corporations act about AI today. There were
so many patents going out for these bicycles. Yeah, feeding
frenzy is not a bad way to put it. The
two designs of what we call the safety bicycle were
the following the original had a crossbar. In eighteen eighty eight,
they marketed a what they called a quote unquote women's version,
(11:25):
and the one for women offered a drop frame to
accommodate skirts, because we can't have people wearing pants, right.
And you can still see this today in very popular
bike designs from very popular companies like Shwin.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
And it should be noted too that even today, I mean,
there are differentiations between what would be considered a women's
bike and a men's bike. Sometimes it has to do
with size, but sometimes it does have to do with
certain features like the frame design and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
That drop r.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Yeah, and when the first Safeties came out, similar to
the Penny Farthing, they were pretty expensive. They cost an
average of one hundred and fifty US bucks per product.
And this is a time, Maria points out, when the
average US worker was earning maybe twelve dollars a week.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah, that's a pretty serious investment for what at the
time was probably still is kind of considered a curiosity.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
It hadn't fully taken off yet.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeahs a novelty, right, and it's still the idea of
the bicycle still sort of has its training wheels.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Hey, So as we mentioned that the main customer at
this point.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Was rich white dudes.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But there were also, of course counterparts to these rich
and white dudes who were rich white women and they
wanted to get on the fun too.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, and because there was higher demand, the economy of
gale kicks in and all these manufacturers who have their
proliferation of patents and their own special spin on the
velociped they.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
What they call it in Deadwood as well.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
They say, look, we're going to compete with each other,
so they start reducing their prices. That's a very strange
thing to a lot of us in the United States today,
but companies did used to do that. They made bikes
more affordable for what they called all the riders, which
was again, as you pointed out, bro, it's a very
(13:36):
small percentage of the overall population.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
It is a good little view into just a basic
economic microcosm of like supply and demand and how it's
supposed to work. They're supposed to be competition in these
types of spaces rather than you know, monopolies, which can
lead to prices lowering and or quality raising in order
for the different manufacturers to differentiate themselves, like in the
watch game. For example, you've got these really unattainably high
(14:02):
priced watch protects FP grange, what is it, Automorpga those
ones that are like you know, the price of a
car or more. But they're also like decades and decades
of development and you know, super super super refined processes
and features, et cetera. And the more mid tier ones,
(14:23):
you've got them a ton of competition because they really
have to differentiate themselves from each other.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah, So first off, yet to think about the complications, folks,
which is the word for the mechanisms, which is.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Becomes true with bikes too.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
I mean, we're talking about like it is a relatively
clockwork esque system when we're talking about gear shifts and
how many speeds does it have? And you know, what
are the components, Like how well manufactured and machined and
engineered they are.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
We're going to start seeing more of that.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, And so we're still in the late eighteen eighties,
so it's let's say it's eighteen eighty nine to eighteen
ninety nine. So in that decade, the number of bicycles
that are being purchased and used has shot up from
something like two hundred thousand to one million in the
(15:14):
US alone. By eighteen ninety five, the United States has
no less than three hundred separate bicycle companies, and if
you average out what they were doing right during this decade,
their safety bikes or safeties probably cost about seventy five
(15:35):
dollars instead of one hundred and fifty. So the market
was working at that time in yeah some way.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Well, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
And as we mentioned earlier, you know women who likely
had a bit more free time on their hands, at
least to the wealthy you know, spouses of wealthy businessmen
and you know people that were working ninety fives in
the offices or whatever the hell they were doing in
those days. They often the women would not work, and
so they had a lot more free time, and so
(16:03):
of course it made sense that they would want some
options of how to fill that free time, and biking
offered a pretty great and active you know answer to that.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
One hundred percent. Yeah, And this is mobility, right, this
is freedom. This doesn't mean you have to keep a
horse all the time.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
And to this day, I think people really love biking
because of some of those very same things. It's functional,
it's functional exercise that gives you a sense of freedom
and a lot of reasons. It turns out that motorists
are kind of pills to bicyclists, is because they're sort
of like, man, who does that person think he is
being all free out there not stuck in traffic.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
I'm gonna I'm gonna be a jerk.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
I'm very pro bike and I have serious problems with
our fair metropolis of Atlanta. You know what I'm talking about, Yeah,
is approaching bicycles.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
So we have we know.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
That there are still improvements to be made, but we
also know that there was a culture war about bicycles
and women riding them, especially this period of history in
the eighteen hundreds. You would see names in the press
in real muck raking journalism or real tabloid style breathless headlines,
(17:21):
stuff like weeld woman, lady Cyclist, or our favorite bloomert Right,
because if you're picturing illustrations from the news rags of
the day, you're probably picturing ladies on bicycles wearing these.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Big, old, fluffy pantaloon esque things that weren't quite pants,
weren't quite dresses.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
They were bloomers.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah, that reminds me of this is like our cravat
conversation we've been having. It reminds me of the phrase
harem pants. Things that look like a skirt while you're standing,
but they move like pants because they have that division.
We know that this is occurring in a greater context,
a greater milieu. In eighteen seventy eight, there was a
(18:07):
woman suffrage amendment proposed in US Congress. It's just what
it sounds like. It said, Hey, should this other fifty
percent of the population be allowed to vote? It failed,
It did not pass until nineteen twenty. It is the
nineteenth Amendment. And didn't think we would say this in
(18:28):
this episode, but guys, shout out to Wyoming. Wyoming in
eighteen sixty nine is the first state that allows women
the right to vote. And you know here in twenty
twenty six, Wyoming has a relatively conservative reputation, you know.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Real quick.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Shout out to the inventor of the Bloomers, by the way,
which I think is an interesting tie in here. A
woman named Amelia Bloomer, who was a women's rights advocate
in the mid nineteenth century. He actually promoted the Bloomers
as a practical alternative to the restrictive corsets and skirts
that women were more or less required to wear, and
(19:09):
it became a symbol of early reform for women's dress
and kind of dovetailed with the women's suffrage and rights movements.
They were used often by activists for there again for comfort,
but also they had a symbolic aspect to them, and
of course cyclists as well as some early nineteenth and
twentieth century athletes.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yeah, so we're seeing freedom of movement on multiple levels,
exactly on the are the literal level and on the
figurative larger level. In eighteen seventy five, Scotis again fumbles
the bag. This will be very familiar to a lot
of our listeners in the US right now. The Supreme
(19:51):
Court of the United States said, Look, the matter of
women voting, that's really a matter for the states. If
the if a given state wants to say women can't vote,
then that's fine. Because women are people. We'll give you
that as they are citizens. But they are there is
a quote a special category of non voting.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Aka sub human right some degree, he's animal farm.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Everybody's equal, but some are more equal than others.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Speaking of which, bend, are you aware of this?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Apparently quite awful animated Animal Farm that has just been
getting shredded. It's like a CGI animated version of Animal Farm,
weirdly helmed by Andy Serkis, who I think we're all
fans of, but apparently it is just absolutely misses the
mark on every aspect of what Animal Farm is about
(20:48):
and is just like gross out humor and completely a travist.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Just antithetical. Or Well, just read the book, folks, take
a you know it's it's such a short read because
especially because Orwell comes from a journalism background, so he
writes with density and a clarity.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
And truer now than ever, more valid and interesting. Now,
you know, Parrot with nineteen eighty four if you really
want to.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Get on that. I don't want to hang out with George.
I love him as a writer, uh and I never
really spent a lot of time with him, but man,
he's going to be too smug. If he came back
to life here, he would be insufferable. He'd be Kanye
West level smug and Max, we got to go to you.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
You got something here? Yeah, And I just want to know.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Andy Serkis of Claribscure Expedition thirty three fame, along with
other things like being dollom and whatnot. But yeah, clareupscare
shoutout Tonel Farms great, great.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
And shout out to uh Klang or whatever his name
was Kran And you know in the Black Panther uh series,
Uh Andy.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah right yeah. Andy Circus also my favorite role that
he ever played. Well, he's not a handful of things
that I really enjoyed. In the film twenty four Hour
Party People, he plays the genius and irasble, the irascible
genius producer of a lot of the Factory Records bands
there in Manchester, bands like Joy Division, and he plays
(22:13):
them great. He's a total grumpy curmudgeon. It's really really
great film. If you're into the history of indie music.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
And while we're taking a slight diversion, folks, please give
Andy Serkis the actor his recognition because he always reminded
me so his come up always reminded me of te Pain.
So a lot of people looked at Tee Paid and
didn't know the guy could really sing because he made
the artistic choice to use auto tune. A lot of
(22:42):
people say that Andy Circus uh wasn't was somehow less
than of an actor because he became so famous doing
motion capture stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
But goes into that man, I mean, yeah, for sure,
really good, much like that Doug Jones, you know, got
famous for playing you know, monsters and wearing heavy makeup.
It's all about his movements and his you know, the
nuance that he brings to that. And you know, I
think Andy serkis as King Kong quite moving and it
all has to do with the performance.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
So yes, credit where credit is.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Due, Credit where credit is due. Shout out to you
if you shout out to you, especially Tea Pain. If
anybody hasn't seen Tea Pain's Tiny Desk concert, please do
check it out. No auto tune. The man has the
voice of a spirit, it does.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Yeah, check out that Tiny Desk. It's fantastic. But back
to Velocipedes.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah, not all women are in the country of the
United States are lining up to buy a bike, and
not all women who wanted to bike considered themselves activist.
You know this this is strange because history always always
(23:55):
tends to forget nuance. We have to remember that people
are just people, and some people just wanted to have
a great ride around that was faster than walking. That
to them, it didn't necessarily indicate some greater social shift,
but they were all these people were existing under patriarchal society,
(24:17):
descended from the Victorian era, which had a lot of misogyny,
anti feminism stuff. They hated when women could do anything.
They're riding a bike, what's next voting? They probably said,
we should never have given this part of the population shoes.
That's how they started walking around outside. That's where the
(24:40):
problem began.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
No, it's that same attitude that went into like, you know,
keeping slaves from learning how to read. I mean not
to be too aggressive about it, but it comes from
the same place of you don't want to give them
a taste of freedom. And as we mentioned, cycling represents
and represented a certain kind of freedom.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Yeah, and a simple bicycle therefore becomes this huge ingredient
in a bubbling cauldron of what this population wants and
what they're told they cannot do. So no voting, no
higher education. Let's keep in mind that it wasn't until
the nineteen seventies or so that women in the United
(25:22):
States were allowed to have credit cards, which is weird.
Check out our episode on that from a few months
or years back. We've been at this for a while.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Which is kind of funny.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
It's sort of a funny concession too, because it's not
like credit cards are like the best thing for anybody
to have, especially you know, folks who are using them
to achieve spending power above their means.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Shout out to Edward Burnees, also involved in women's suffrage
as a way to sell cigarettes.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
That's what I'm saying. It's sort of like a little
bit of a self serving concession.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
One hundred percent. And so at this time in the
eighteen nineties, of course, women were not allowed the same
privileges as dudes. So you couldn't vote, you could have
very difficult time gain the higher education, your job opportunities
are quite limited.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
At the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
American law enshrine, like the legal decision of this country
was that if you were a woman and you were married,
which of course they wanted you to be married, then
you would have no legal identity distinct from your husband.
You had to do the child and household stuff. The
(26:36):
UK tried some soft propaganda with this by calling women
the angel of the house, So why would she ever
go outside? This is where we enter what we call.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
The new woman. Yeah, we don't want her to think
that she can have it all.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
A feminist ideal in the eighteen nineties was really represented
as an educated, social, active, very independent woman that was
dubbed coined by feminists Sarah Grand The New Woman in
eighteen ninety four and the safety bike really hit the
(27:13):
scene at an important moment for the new woman where
this concept challenged current cultural and gender norms along with
a lot of other things that were happening kind of
in lockstep like the Bloomers. The new woman had economic independence,
held a job, professional roles, could be highly educated, had
personal freedom, was physically fit and active, enjoyed playing sports
(27:37):
right alongside the men. All of these things that were
supported and cultivated by the bicycle and having access.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
To yeah yeah, And this idea of the new woman
goes across socioeconomic Boundarieseople who are working on the factory floor,
people who are doing what they called pink collar work
(28:06):
office jobs, the feminine equivalent of a white collar job.
These folks could all be the new woman and safeties.
The bikes were designed with a lady's full dress at
the time in mind, so we said, look, the skirts
are going to get tangled. People are going to catch
(28:27):
a header. This is non ideal. Cycling didn't just encourage
social freedom, it encouraged physical freedom through changes in women's fashion.
This is where we talked about Bloomers. We mentioned that
corsets were cartoonishly restricting, and a lot of skirts had
these long trains like what you might see in a
(28:50):
wedding today, and dresses with petticoats were heavy as heck.
A person's daily dress, not even the fancy one at
this time, could weigh twenty five pounds, so you know,
you know, these people had to wear that stuff. Their
hamstrings were jacked. Man, my hammies, Yeah they were barking.
(29:12):
Can your hammies bark your dogs? Whichever, but yeah, twenty
five pounds. A lot of the wire or the frames.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Of these these dresses, the hoop type skirts, they were
made of iron and were incredibly heavy. Just the actual
kind of undercarriage, I think is what they would call it.
In eighteen fifty one, Amelia Bloomer, who I mentioned previously,
from New York, along with Elizabeth Katie Stanton, incredibly important
feminist activists, popularize this new fashion, the short dress over
(29:40):
loose trousers similar to pants, but they were meant to
be worn underneath dresses. Of course, the bloomer not to
be too redundant, but they were. I don't think we
quite got to this incredibly controversial because they were just
too much like pants.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Ben They're too much like pants.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
And while all this conversation is happening, more and more
people are picking up Bloomers. Maybe it is for a
larger goal, maybe it's activism, but as Maria points out,
and I agree with her here, they probably just wanted
to get out of those heavy, those cartoonishly heavy skirts.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
And years later, and also just to add, they were
initially kind of more designed as undergarments, and so there
was a modesty concern here, you know, from the patriarchy,
I guess, saying that they're, oh, you're wearing underwear out
in public.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Yeah, in eighteen This all happened in eighteen fifty one.
As we said, So if we returned back to the
eighteen nineties, what we see is that a lot of
women who were fans of bicycling, again, most of them
at that point are going to be pretty wealthy and
pretty white. They adopted the Bloomers because it was just
(30:55):
more practical, but it was still highly controversial. This is
the thing, partially, this is a big part of why
bicycles advanced women's rights in the United States. It meant
that you could move without a chaperone. It meant that
you could travel by yourself, You could decide where you
(31:19):
wanted to go. If you look at a suffragist like
Francis Willard, you'll see quotes that read the following quote.
I begin to feel that myself plus the bicycle equaled
myself plus the world. And there's a poetry to that.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
No question, And it's something that I think we've been
describing all along the way, even in our own.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Relationships with bicycles, and how they can still be a
little bit of a sticking point to people today who
are like, who do you think you are out there
and enjoying the world, you know, moving around without having
to be stuck in gridlock traffic. So the safety bike
afford a woman a socially acceptable way to Also to
our earlier point, b outside the home in what had
(32:03):
been a male dominated space. Now they're out there, we're
out here, and they were doing it on two wheels.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Enter the bad guys. Okay, the culture war begins. Why
they said happy holidays. These people basically yelled, what about Christmas?
There was no shortage of tin plate propped up experts
quote unquote who would who would vociferously oppose the idea
(32:35):
of women on bikes? And they said, there are two
reasons these are so dumb. There are two reasons are one,
what if she takes aheader, she's going to be permanently disfigured.
No one's going to marry her. And then two, which
I think is the most ridiculous one. They were like, guys,
look at the seats. These women may be having Orgasmsay right, bikes.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Oh dear heavens, how dare.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
How a lady have a good time in the United States?
Speaker 2 (33:05):
I mean, you know, given the puritanical kind of bent
of the time, I could see how ladies straddling a
thing in public could be a victim of something like
the male gaze, This idea of like, oh my gosh,
this is scandalous, but it's not.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
Really.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Most of these issues are not women's problems. It's problems
men have with women, and it's oftentimes because of how
much it threatens them, either you know, financially in terms
of their level of power and control, or oftentimes sexually.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah, sorry, bro, it turns out your wife's bike is
better than you are at police here. That was like
the hidden concern there, and it was such a trumped
up malarchy thing for people to pretend to be worried about.
And doctors at the time were in hot debate in
public media about whether there are health benefits or harm
(34:05):
from bicycling. Some said it cured all manner of things,
and they were probably they were right ish. They were
wrong about some of it. They were right ish about
a lot. It's great for it's great for staying in
shape in a low impact way. But they said, look
(34:26):
like that means it helps with obesity, heart disease, vericose veins.
But they also said bikey will cure your anemia and
your asthma and your melancholia.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Well, I would agree with melancholia frankly. I mean, this
is this idea of it just being a cure for
the blues. Sometimes getting out there and feeling the wind
in your hair and all that and having that sense
of freedom can remedy those kinds of feelings. Melancholia was
of course, kind of a catch all term for just
the sads back in a time where they really truly
didn't have much understanding of men health. But I would
(35:01):
argue that that's true. Maybe some of the more specific
quote nut doesn't make sense there. And when we say
the medical community was divided, I think we can say
it was divided between those members who had their hearts
in the right place and then the quack sector who
seems to be on board with big Man.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yes, yeah, the the other bad guys.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Right, these are our.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Technically qualified doctors or their pundits, the Tucker Carlson's of
the day. They would say this is not a healthy
exercise for women, for the angels of the house. Bicycle
face is a medical condition that happens to women who
bit too much because when they are when they are
(35:50):
biking they're exercising, their faces wrinkle up and it makes
them nervous and exhausted, and it makes them look ugly
a kages aka smile more. It's a totally made up condition,
but the symptoms were described in detail. Those symptoms being
(36:13):
stuff like permanent facial disfigurement, similar to when your parents
may have said, don't make that face. Your face might
stay that way forever. That comes from this bicycle face thing. Yeah,
Maria titled the document today. I like to call it
resting bicycle face, a precursor to the other RBF resting
(36:33):
bitch face, which is a very pejorative thing. That is
the root of that whole smile more thing. It's this
idea that women owe you some sign of affection or
positive whatever.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
It's just it's dumb and it persists.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
M and then other symptoms would include flushed faces, you know,
like the faces you make when you're exercising, bulgie eyes,
clinched jaws, a general expression of weariness.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Yeah, to get from exertion, right.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, And they never applied this bicycle face idea to
the dudes.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Oh, there's so many examples of this stuff, and check
out episodes of stuff man've never told you about some
of these topics as well. They've they've covered this over
the years, the idea of like the wandering womb and
like all of these you know, hysterical women and all
of this. There's a lot of smear campaigns specifically directed
by the health community at women over the years to
(37:34):
justify some pretty gnarly treatment of it.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
This ultimately ends up being a moral panic, an outbreak
of again, a culture war time tale as old as time.
It's an example of fake health scares that were used
to fight against social change by people who were happy
with the status quo because they were at the top.
(37:57):
There were other imaginary diseases when bicycle face obviously seemed malarchy,
there were things like what they called cayphosis bicyclarum by
by one more type cayphosis bicyclis sterum cyclist spine.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
They did warn that cycling often left women vulnerable to
other general health problems such as graves disease and appendicitis. Yeah,
there was a publication on the BMJ that published an
article describing how bicycling could worsen chess problems because of
the position that you had to ride in, cause urethritis
and should be avoided by any woman suffering from pelvic mischief.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
That's my favorite term of the day, pelvic mischief.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
And again we already mentioned this notion that it could
be a way that a woman could pleasure herself, which
you know, a God forbid and be ridiculous, that's very
inconvenient for the purposes of riding a bike. I don't
think anyone's out there you know, trying to get frisky
on a bicycle scene.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Right. I want to be very diplomatic, folks, because we
are a family show. But I'm we're going to share
this quotation with you about the orgasm concern and Noel Max,
I just cannot think that whoever was writing this was
(39:27):
having a little pervy time in their own mind. Here's
the quote. So off, Mike, I did a reading of
this that was too controversial.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
So we're just going to give.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
You the words is written. But I hold to what
I'm saying without any acting or interpretation or intonation. This
is a really creepy thing for these guys to write,
they said, quote. The saddle can be tilted in every
bicycle as desired. In this way, a girl could by
carrying the front peak or pommel high, or by relaxing
(39:57):
the stretched leather in order to let it form a
deep like concavity which would fit itself snugly over the
entire volva and reach up in front, bring about constant
friction over the glytorus and labia.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Yo. Yeah, I don't know I wrote that.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
I don't know wrote well, and thankfully you know the
the snowflake men of the day were ultimately sort of
calmed down a bit with the release of something called
the anatomical saddle, which I can only imagine is something
like a banana seat or just like a broader seat.
That seemed to allay some of these fears that the
(40:34):
patriarchy had and make them settle down a little bit.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
And we are more than happy to report that, thankfully
this moral panic of the bicycle face was debunked as
it should have been. It shouldn't have started, but it
was revealed to be or understood to be ultimately a
self limiting fake condition. And again, thankfully, by the Earth
(41:00):
nineteen hundreds, it wasn't something that people were worried about.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Nah.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Doctor Sarah Hackett Stevenson, a prominent Chicago doctor, was among
the group who finally, you know, put the nail in
this particular coffin dismissing the condition. She wrote in the uh, well,
to be fair, the phrenological journal, right, which is its
own thing, of course, Yeah, phrenology, not quoit and also quackery.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
But you know, her heart was in the right place.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
And maybe this was just a popular journal at the time,
because this was something that was very widely studied, you know,
in eighteen ninety seven that any trace of such a
quote face would be temporary, okay and completely gone once
a woman was proficient in riding her bike. Okay, well,
yeah she got there, but a little circuitous route right
(41:53):
ish mm hmm yep. She also wrote that cycling was,
in fact an excellent exercise for women, and the lost
beauty of many delicate women may be recovered if they ride.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
They get out and exercise.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I guess that's true, the lost beauty of many delicate women.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Yeah, I may be recovered. I don't agree with the framing.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Great everybody loves a glow up and we also, uh,
we love this story because we are all three big
fans of bikes and cycling. Thank you again for joining
us today, folks. We can't wait for you to hit
the road or the belt line or the trail with
us on some future episodes. Also, big, big thanks to
(42:35):
mister Max Williams. Max, do you have a bicycle? I
don't want to put you on blast, but I'm curious.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
I actually do not right now?
Speaker 3 (42:42):
I am. I'm not the big bike guy, which is funny,
Zs is a very big bike guy himself. Okay, all right,
id of want to petting farthing after this episode, I can.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
See you rocking a bone shaker here, elies Max he
tried to petting farthing.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Big fakes, of.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Course, to Jonathan Strickland, aka the Quizter, who is probably
the guy who will sell you a gently used penny Farley.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
M m yeah, he's got a garage full of them.
Huge thanks to research associate Maria for knocking out this
banger research brief for us A J Mohammad Jacobs, the Puzzler,
Chris Frosciotis Anddie's Jeff Co's here in spirit, the aforementioned
cycling enthusiast Alex Williams who composed.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Arthy Beautiful Yes, big big thanks also to doctor Rachel
Big Spinach Lance, as well as the rude dudes of
Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us, especially our recent Dalli episode,
then you will love them. So hie thee to Thy
podcast platform of choice and check out some amazing stories
(43:49):
they have to share as well. Most importantly, thank you
to Noel.
Speaker 4 (43:53):
Hey to you as well, Ben. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb
Joy is essential. And it's also elusive. You can't order it, borrow it, or simply hope it into life. But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence: The Joy 101 Podcast with Hoda! Best known for her Emmy-winning work and co-anchoring Today, Hoda Kotb infuses her authenticity, curiosity, and warmth into conversations with the world’s most fascinating people. Entertainment legends, sport icons, wellness experts, and everyday folks will share how they find, allow, and experience joy. Hoda will offer her own tips and takes on seeking a more balanced, harmonious life. If you're craving inspiration, support, and useful tools to maximize your joy, tune in to these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Joy after a breakup, joy as an empty-nester, joy after loss, joy as a caretaker — Hoda's new podcast will speak to you. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb, an iHeartPodcast.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com