Like The Wind

When the bicycle was invented it did more than simply change people's lives, leisure and mobility. It ignited a controversy over traditional gender roles. One woman set out to change all that.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to American Shadows, a production of iHeartRadio and
Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
In October of eighteen ninety three, it became clear to
the readers of the National Police Gazette, a popular men's magazine,
that America was facing a scourge that challenged the decency
and the physical well being of Americans. It had been
introduced in the country almost a decade earlier, and had
been a plague on women's health and happiness ever since.

(00:37):
The object of everyone's displeasure the bicycle. That October, the
men who read the Gazette were confronted by the scandless
image of aspiring model Angeline Allen riding a bike in
a stylish bicycle suit. While her jaunt cap, long sleeved
fitted coat and kneelength bloomers might look conservative to us,
it was downright and decent in the eyes of many

(01:00):
Gilded Age Americans. Alan wasn't the first woman to draw
the ire of the press for riding a bike. The
bicycle craze that swept the nation was shocking, and everyone
had an opinion. The bicycle was invented in eighteen seventeen
and was originally called a swift walker, it had no
petals and was made of wood with two large wheels

(01:21):
trimmed with iron rims and leather tires. Though it was
unwieldy to ride, the invention caught on and it didn't
take long for people to make improvements. More women joined
in the merriment in the eighteen eighties thanks to the
development of the safety bicycle, which had equal sized wheels
and tires that inflated. For women, the bicycle was a

(01:42):
vehicle of freedom as well as fun. It allowed them
a new kind of mobility that never had before, which
threatened the status quo. The arguments against women bicycling fell
into two main camps, the moral and the medical. Morally speaking,
the needed to ride a bicycle was indecent by nineteenth

(02:03):
century standards. The bicycle suit resembled Alan's bloomers and blouse ensemble,
and the split legs were seen as sillacious and masculine.
Organizations like the Women's Rescue League of Boston disparaged female bicyclists,
claiming the city's sex workers used them to look for
clients and show off their figures. In Chicago, one man

(02:24):
would hide in parks and whip women who were peacefully
cycling in their suits. Aside from the potential for the
bicycle to lead young women into moral peril, medical professionals
worried it was too much of a strain on women's health.
They emphasized a new condition known as bicycle face as
evidence for their claims. A bicycle face was as sort

(02:45):
of grimace. Women's faces apparently took on when they were
exerting themselves, with flushed cheeks, bags under their eyes, and
an overall look of exhaustion. Bicycling was in short making
women ugly. Also claimed that there were other potential ailments,
like the bicycle hump of bicycle wrists, bicycle gums, and

(03:07):
the bicycle hand, which was a condition that formed because
women's hands were so much weaker than men's and they
couldn't handle the eye hand coordination. Though some women voiced
their own opinions about the bicycle, many of them positive,
male journalists continued to harp on the dangers of cycling
for the fairer sex from their lofty newspaper columns and

(03:28):
medical journals. It would take a spectacular feat and a
courageous woman to challenge the moralists and the medical men
and subvert the gender roles that the world plung to
so closely. I'm lorn vogelbum Welcome to American Shadows. The

(03:48):
Massachusetts State House sits glittering golden on Beacon Hill, at
the top of a slope running along the Boston Common.
On June twenty fifth of eighteen ninety four, a crowd
of about five hundred gathered to watch a spectacle. But
it wasn't a parade or a speech they were looking for.
It was a small woman in long skirts standing next

(04:10):
to a bicycle. She was known as Annie Londonderry, and
she had a bet to win. A decade earlier, in
eighteen eighty four, a British man named Thomas Stevens cycled
around the world, and in eighteen eighty nine Nellie Bly
went around the world in seventy two days via the
traditional travel methods, beating the fictional record, But due to

(04:31):
financial constraints and the general attitude toward the fair sex
on bikes, no woman had tried to repeat Stephen's trip
until Annie. Admittedly she was an unlikely candidate. Her real
name was Annie Kopschowski, a twenty four year old Jewish immigrant.
Her family had moved to Boston when she was a child,

(04:52):
and she grew up in the West End along with
immigrants from all over Europe, at least a quarter of
whom were Jewish. Though many of Europe's Jewish pop relation
had immigrated to America in the eighteen hundreds to escape
pogroms and discrimination, they didn't find a warm welcome here.
Anti Semitism was on the rise across the nation, including
in Boston, so Jewish families stuck together in neighborhoods like

(05:15):
the West End. Tenement housing dominated the skyline, and the
buildings were connected by thin laundry lines strung clothes flapping
in the breeze if anyone could look up. That is.
The streets were paphazardly paved with disjointed cobblestones, and you
were more than likely to turn your ankle if you
weren't paying attention. Annie's whole life was in the West End.

(05:37):
Her husband, Max Kopchowski, was a devout Orthodox Jew who
worked as a peddler to help support the family, but
spent most of his time in prayer to keep from
sliding further into poverty. Annie got a job going door
to door selling advertisements in local newspapers, developing a charming
demeanor and excellent sales skills. Annie was a go getter

(05:58):
and willing to do whatever it took to make a
name for herself and support her family, which is how
she came to be a part of the convoluted wager
that would send her from pillar to post. According to
one story, it was a bet between two wealthy Bostonians
that a woman couldn't cycle around the world. The terms
were simple. Annie would cycle around the world in fifteen

(06:20):
months or less and return with five thousand dollars that
she earned on the road. She wasn't allowed to accept charity.
If she won, she would receive ten thousand dollars, and
if she lost, she'd get nothing. That morning in June,
the gathered crowd likely sized Annie up and wondered how
she would pull off such a feat. None of them
knew that Annie had never ridden a bicycle aside from

(06:42):
three lessons before that day at the courthouse. Standing at
five foot three inches and about one hundred pounds, Annie
would have to pilot a forty two pound Columbia bicycle
around the world. The bike was part of several advertisements
she was using to fund her trip, she would be
showcasing the name brand bike and had paper advertisements pinned
to her front and back. Even her new surname, Londonderry,

(07:05):
was part of a new Hampshire Water Company promotion, though
some theorized she changed it to avoid rampant anti semitism.
The twenty fifth was her official start date, but Annie
didn't leave Boston until the twenty seventh, and was seen
off by a small crowd that didn't include her family.
Her husband and children adored her, so it must have
been devastating for them to lose her for over a year. Instead,

(07:29):
a close friend and a handful of newspapermen were there
to record annie send off, armed with a pistol, a
change of clothes, and the money she'd received from advertisers.
Annie was off like a kite, as one paper put it,
Although her brother was the reporter and might have been biased,
the Boston Post's description of her wobbling down Beacon Street

(07:50):
was probably more accurate. Bumping, jolting and peddling for her life.
Annie was starting a journey that could change perceptions of
women forever, and her first stop, the Big Apple. Anyone
who's ridden a bicycle competitively or otherwise knows that weight matters,

(08:16):
and so as Annie trundled along unpaved roads toward New
York City by way of Providence, Rhode Island, she had
to account for every extra pound of baggage on top
of that forty two pound bike. In addition to her
lack of experience, this meant it was slow going. She
managed to make it to New York by July second,
with plans to leave for Washington, d C. In a

(08:36):
few days. All of this was put on hold for
nearly a month so Annie could make more money. She
was nothing if not practical, and newspaper articles showed how
she had shed her original plans and her wardrobe when
the need arose. Her bicycling skills had improved, and as
she left New York on July twenty eighth with a
new itinerary, she donned a new skirt suit with bloomers underneath. Scandalously,

(09:01):
she didn't wear a corset and could easily lift her
skirt and pitnant away from the petals. July twenty eighth
was one of the hottest days on record in New York,
reaching ninety eight degrees, and in the middle of the
city it was likely hotter still. Despite the heat, though
weight of her bike and endless hills, Annie made good
time to Buffalo. There she recovered before cycling along Lake

(09:23):
Eurie and made her way to Chicago, arriving on September
twenty fourth. Annie was scarcely recognizable by the time she
had reached Chicago. She traded in her original Columbia bicycle
for a lighter Sterling bike, which was half the weight.
The bike and accompanying banners were another advertising scheme to
help keep her afloat. Annie was seen off from City

(09:43):
Hall on October fourteenth of eighteen ninety four, riding out
of Chicago much more smoothly than she had in Boston.
She was joined along the way by packs of bicyclists,
predominantly men, but some women too. In fact, the Lady
Cyclist Club of Chicago escorted her for a portion of
her trip. Annie's original plan was to continue west to
San Francisco and from there to Asia and Europe. However,

(10:07):
it was only growing colder. Annie was getting faster on
her bike, but cycling through the winter on the Great
Plains was a dismal prospect, so she turned around and
headed back to New York. She sold nick knacks and
lectured along the way to make money and earn bed
and board. Whenever she stopped, the newspapers commented on her progress,

(10:28):
and when she returned to Buffalo, she decided she'd trade
in her bloomers for a man's cycling suit. She likely
cut a dashing figure, but the moralists were horrified at
the shocking site. Annie didn't care. She wore that outfit
for the rest of the trip, slowly chipping away at
the public's perceptions of femininity. Annie made it back to

(10:50):
New York City and in November of eighteen ninety four
ordered a steamer set for l' of France. It's unclear
whether the French had heard about her wager, but she
hardly got a warm welcome. Her bike was impounded and
her money was confiscated. A Luckily, a friend from the
passage stepped in and Annie, the bike, and her possessions

(11:10):
were sent to Paris, arriving on December fourth to a
raucous perception. The people were fascinated, but the press was vicious.
The papers mercilessly picked at Annie, commenting on her sacrificing
her womanhood and becoming sexless. Fate worse than death for
a woman, or so they believed. They hounded her choice

(11:31):
of dress, her masculinity, and her americanness. Still, any press
seemed to be good press because the public didn't care.
Annie received plenty of advertising opportunities, and, like in the States,
cycling clubs joined her throughout her ride. She was never alone. Still,
it was a difficult trip between the snow drifts and

(11:53):
the mud. Annie struggled through the French countryside and injured
her achilles tendon before she hit Marseilles. She had to
paddle with only one foot. She stayed for five days
in Marseille to recover and earn enough for a steamer
passage through the Suez Canal. While on board, she made
short stops in Alexandria, Jerusalem, Port Said and Yemen. To

(12:14):
honor the terms of the bet and keep her injury
from getting worse, Annie took other forms of transportation to
these places and then rode her bike through the city gates.
The press continued their non stop bullying, but Annie set
her sights on Asia. She had no idea what lay
ahead for her, not until she set foot in Singapore. Though,

(12:42):
nothing could have been worse than Annie's disastrous arrival in France.
Singapore wasn't much better. A newspapers mocked her, bet, her suit,
and her posture, saying she was addicted either to a
sewing machine or a bicycle. To them, she was both
sexless and overly sexual, which was a tough needle to thread.

(13:03):
She wasn't in Singapore long, heading to Sri Lanka, Saigon,
and Hong Kong before making her way to Shanghai. Saigon
specifically seemed to find Annie fascinating, and someone even wrote
a poem to celebrate her endeavor. To them, she was radiant,
bold and audacious, which was a far cry from how
most of the press had portrayed her during her journey.

(13:25):
While most of the world might not have changed their opinions,
Annie was making an impact. Unfortunately, much of her trip
through China, Korea, and Japan wouldn't be so pleasant. The
First Sino Japanese War began on August first of eighteen
ninety four. It would last nearly a year. The Qing
Dynasty of China and the Meiji Empire of Japan were

(13:48):
fighting over control of Korea. Japan's decisive victory sent shockwaves
through the area and signaled to the international community that
the Qing dynasty may be failing, but a new empire
was on the world. Annie arrived in the area when
the war was really getting off the ground, and later
gave interviews and lectures about what she had seen. Much

(14:09):
of it was colored by Western anti Asian sentiments. Annie
claimed that when she was in Nagasaki she had met
two journalists who would cover the battles happening in Port
Arthur and Way Highway. She joined them still on her
bicycle while they rode horses, and although they might not
have been allowed on the front lines, they could still
see the horrors of war. In a later interview, Annie

(14:31):
claimed that after the battle at Way Highway, she and
her guide fell into a frozen river and Chinese troops
began shooting at them in the water. They escaped, but
Annie was shot in the shoulder and had to be treated.
As they fled the area, the pair were captured by
Japanese soldiers and held him sell for three days. Annie
said that she watched her guide die because of his

(14:52):
injuries and saw a Chinese prisoner executed right in front
of her. She said she wasn't allowed out until a
French consul sent troops for her. She left the war
behind and boarded a ship to San Francisco on March
twenty fifth of eighteen ninety five. By the time she
had landed, she was already a symbol of everything a
woman could accomplish and a model for female independence and liberation,

(15:15):
and she still had half a continent across. She stayed
in San Francisco for two and a half weeks before
setting off across the west for Chicago. While most of
what she had faced up until that point hadn't been easy,
this last leg of her journey was the most excruciating.
Annie said she was held up at gunpoint by two
highwaymen on the California border, and while she managed to

(15:38):
get away, the experience was traumatizing and disaster struck again
literally when a runaway team of horses trampled her in
a companion cyclist. Annie was black and blue all over,
but completed twenty two miles of her journey that day
she had a lecture to give. While cycling across the
Great American Desert, one of Annie's wheels broke and she

(16:00):
was forced to walk nearly sixty miles to the nearest town,
dragging her bike along the way.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
So it could be fixed.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Oh once she was off again, she received warm welcomes
throughout Arizona and New Mexico, though as ever the newspapers
were stand offish at best. Then a large herd of
pigs in Iowa caused her to crash and forced her
to cycle to the nearest doctor eighteen miles away with
a broken arm, and unfortunately it was set wrong and

(16:27):
later had to be rebroken to heal properly. Annie rolled
into Chicago on Thursday, September twelfth of eighteen ninety five,
just fourteen days under her deadline. Her arm was still
broken and she was sore, but she had done something
no one thought was possible. A lone woman had cycled
around the world at a time when most Americans thought

(16:48):
lifting a hair brush might be too strenuous. She had
seen deserts, prairies, and mountains and conquered them all. Or
had she around the world is such a loose turn
of phrase. When we think of going all around the world,

(17:11):
we probably think of something more all encompassing than Annie's trip.
Annie collected her ten thousand dollars prize in Chicago and
returned home to Boston in September, where she wrote an
account of her now world famous ride. Most of the
accounts about Annie and her ride came from Annie herself,
via her articles and lectures, which were then popularized by

(17:32):
journalists who loved the wild story she told, and therein
lies the problem. Annie's story is inconsistent at best. Her
French adventure is shrouded in obscurity. She frequently stated that
she had been to certain places, but there was no
evidence to support her claim other than her own word.

(17:52):
Annie's lectures, especially those surrounding the First Sino Japanese War,
were rife with racism and hyperbole. Annie probably never saw
anyone get tortured or executed. She likely didn't have to
be rescued by a company of frenchmen because no one
would have let her near the front lines to begin with.
Even the wild stories of her time in the American

(18:14):
West more closely resembled a dime novel than reality. It's
difficult to know what was real and what's fiction when
stories about Annie's adventures solely came from her. The Singapore
Straight Times might have put it best when they remarked,
we fancy she exaggerates in reference to Annie's claim that
fifty thousand people saw her off from Marseilles. Even her

(18:37):
official biographer, her great grand nephew, Peter Jutelin, admits that
the information we have about Annie is elusive at best.
We don't even know if there was a wager that
sent Annie on this quest, where the money that she
claimed came from, or anything in between. The fact is
Annie's an unreliable narrator and she built her own story,

(19:00):
using the media to spread it. Despite this deceit, it
doesn't seem to be a case of wilful dishonesty. Its
American myth making. At its finest. America thrives on our
folk heroes, and what could be more American than a
woman who had never ridden a bicycle before and challenging
the standards of her day and accomplishing something incredible. Annie

(19:23):
completely subverted gender roles in the eighteen hundreds and proved
the moralists and the medical men wrong. The women weren't
fragile creatures who needed to be coddled every step of
their lives. They could take on harrowing journeys and come
out the other side stronger for it. Annie gave women
across the nation a glimpse of the changes they were

(19:44):
clamoring for socially, politically, and athletically. She tackled the stigmas
associated with being born female and flouted them publicly. Because
of women like Annie, the bicycle became a means of
freedom for women in a whole new way, and more
women began to seize opportunities that were once considered out

(20:04):
of reach. So the questions that were left with are simple.
Does the end justify the means? Does it matter that
Annie might have lied about parts of her journey and
used the media to do it. Everyone will have their opinions,
but it seems that the answer is right in front
of us. Just look outside on a sunny day and

(20:25):
watch the people of all kinds passing by. There's more
to this story. Stick around after this brief sponsor break
to hear all about it. It's hard to imagine a

(20:46):
more apt entry to the world for the Great Sanduena
than in the back of a circus wagon. That may
be a tall tail, but Katie Brumback, born in eighteen
eighty four in Vienna, came by her profession honestly, as
both her parents were circus performers, and she happily followed
them into the business. She was a strong child and

(21:07):
began performing early, practicing handstands balanced on her father's steady
hands at just two years old. By the time she
was a teenager, she was part of her father's act
and traveled Europe with him, astounding crowds as they took
in the latest in a long line of strong men.
Her father was very proud of her skills and her strength,
even reworking the act to show her off. When she

(21:29):
was sixteen, her father stepped in front of a crowd
to offer one hundred marks to any man who managed
to pin her to the mat. According to the stories,
no one ever collected, but one challenger managed to win
a very different prize. A cocky young man named Max
Hayman age nineteen stepped up to wrestle Katie. He later recalled,

(21:50):
she tossed him high in the air with no effort,
and the next thing he knew, he was flat on
his back with a pretty girl looking down at him.
There was nothing left for him to do, but professor
is love right then and there, and the two decided
to marry, and Max became Katie's manager. A Max adored
his wife and they happily spent time tucked in each
other's arms, or maybe he and hers. Katie was six

(22:13):
feet tall and two hundred and ten pounds, while Max
was five ten and about one hundred and sixty Neither
seemed to mind the size difference. Katie said it would
make their children stronger. She even folded him into her
act literally and figuratively a by cheerfully tossing him around
like she'd done the night they first met. In the

(22:33):
early twentieth century, the couple came to America to try
new territory, and in nineteen oh two, Katie stepped up
to challenge one of the greatest strong men of the day,
a man named Sandow. The crowd watched in awe as
Katie hefted a three hundred pound barbell over her head
while Sandow struggled to bring it chest high. From then on,

(22:54):
Katie was known as the Great Sanduena, the strongest woman
in the world. She headlined on the audeville circuit, and
the couple had their son, Teddy Roosevelt Sanduina while on
tour in nineteen oh six, They allegedly telegrammed President Roosevelt
himself for permission to name their son after him. Performing
while pregnant was no problem for Katie. On the day

(23:14):
their son was born, she had already done two shows
in Sioux City, Iowa, uplifting a group of circus performers
with a combined weight of three hundred and forty six pounds.
By nineteen eleven, Katy was headlining for the Ringling Brothers
and Bartam and Bailey combined shows, one of the most
famous circuses to ever exist. Katy was the unquestionable star,

(23:34):
but no one reaches those heights alone. The circus brought
on Cake Carew, a writer and artist, to act as
Katie's pr staff and cultivate her celebrity status further. Carew
was tasked with drawing cartoons and writing reviews of Katie's
performances that would appeal to the public and pull them
to her shows. Carew could have played on perceptions of

(23:56):
athletic women as masculine or sexless. Look at how the
press treated any Londonderry, but instead she dragged them to
a new point of view. Katy wasn't just strong, she
was graceful, beautiful, and talented. Her measurements perfectly matched what
was considered scientific perfection. She was the Samson like Venus.

(24:18):
Katie was a goddess to any who beheld her, and
the public couldn't get enough praise of everything, from Katie's looks,
to her act to her domesticity flooded the newspapers, and
much like Annie a crew in, Katie knew how to
make the press work for them, and the media wrote
about her beauty as much as her strength, portraying her
as a gentle domestic woman who happened to be able

(24:41):
to bench press four men at once. Katie stood up
for women every chance she got. As a staunch suffragist.
She even boasted to the public that any anti suffragist
who challenged her would be sorry. Katie performed in Europe
and America until she was in her sixties, before settling
down to run a bar with her husband and queen. Strangely,

(25:01):
they've never had any trouble with rowdy patrons. The Great
Sandwena passed away in January of nineteen fifty two, having
lived her whole life, proving that not only could she
survive a man's world, but she could do everything they
did and more. American Shadows is hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum.

(25:25):
This episode was written by Alie Stead, researched by Alex Robinson,
fact checked by Jamie Vargas, and produced by Jesse Funk
and Trevor Young, with executive producers Aaron Minke, Alex Williams,
and Matt Frederick. To learn more about the show, visit
grimminmild dot com. Four more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

(25:47):
to your favorite shows.