From the Library: Women on the Move

Through all my research into the early years of bicycle racing in the Los Angeles region I came across a single instance of women's bicycle racing taking place in the city or / and its nearest neighbors. That one instance was a road race. Racing on the track just did not seem to happen. Therefore, when I discovered this book I was surprised to find out that women's track racing, particularly Six-Day racing, was huge in the eastern cities during the 1890s. Typical night-time crowds might number around 5,000, but on the biggest nights that total could swell to between 10,000 and 15,000, filling the arenas to standing room only. A core group of riders including Tillie Anderson, Dottie Farnsworth, Mate Christopher, May Allen, Helen Baldwin, Lizzie Glaw, Pearl Keyes, Frankie Nelson, Ida Peterson, and a French woman simply known as Lissette, travelled a circuit from the Atlantic states, to the Great Lakes and Prairie states, to the deep south, where they would be joined by less-well-known local riders. 

A part of the attraction of women's track racing was the highly competitive nature of the races. While mens' Six Day races of the era soon enough devolved into a death march, the competitors racing continuously for the six days and barely able to maintain control of their bikes, Six Day races for women, on the other hand, typically ran for two, three or four hours each day, so that the women were relatively fresh for each race, their speeds consistently high, and each day was like a new race. It was a far more exciting format.

While the book focuses on the core group of riders and the rivalries that developed between them, there are also insights into their lives beyond the track, the nature of the racing game, the different types of tracks, and societal conditions determining how the women and their sport (women's racing was outlawed by the League of American Wheelmen) were viewed. This is a fascinating read of a mostly unknown facet of sport, and the competitors who were unquestionably the greatest women athletes, not only of their era, but through the succeeding decades as well.

Gilles, Roger   Women on the Move: The Forgotten Era of Women's Bicycle Racing   Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018