History
The first popular bicycles were the large penny-farthings. The pioneering inventor, W. H. J. Grout of Stoke Newington, invented a portable version in which the large front wheel could be dismantled into four pieces so that they would fit into a carrying bag.
In the 1890s, Captain Gérard of the 87th Regiment of French Infantry was an advocate of bicycles for military use. To enable his troops to operate in rough terrain, he devised a bicycle which could be folded in two and carried on the soldiers' backs; the weight was "between 22 and 26¼ lbs" (10–12 kg). The first time the Gérard portable bicycle was used, it "gave complete satisfaction and justified all expectations". The bicycles were manufactured by Charles Morel who commercialised the type.
In 1919, Charles Haskell Clark of New York City filed a patent (granted in 1921) (patent US1381281) for a portable bicycle that was easy to carry onto trains or street cars. Additional advantages of small wheels, described in the patent, were the reduced interference with skirts and the ability to dodge in and out among the crowd. The December 1919 issue of Scientific American had an article describing Mr. Clark's "city bicycle".
Read more about this topic: Portable Bicycle
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“Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)