The Chainlink

Dear All,

I am a doctoral student working on the development of bicycling cultures from a historical comparative perspective. Chicago is one my case study cities alongside Johannesburg, South Africa.

I am looking for images and related information on everyday cyclists in Chicago from the 1970s into the late 1990s. I am trying to understand who it was (demographically) in this period using bikes for transportation purposes.  I would be very grateful if anyone can point me to any possible archives (even personal ones) and publications  that can reveal this information.

Thank you very much,

Njogu Morgan

PhD Candidate,
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
http://www.wits.ac.za/academic/ebe/archplan/sarchi/personnel/21903/...


Associate
The International Eco-Cities Initiative
University of Westminster, London, U.K.
http://www.westminster.ac.uk/ecocities/people/doctoral-researchers

email:0407757a@students.wits.ac.za and njogumorgan@gmail.com

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http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/August-2012/The-...

"In 1963, the Tribune was stunned to discover a bike commuter in Chicago. And not just any bike commuter—a Loop lawyer, presumably rich enough to drive, who traveled all the way from Hyde Park before the advent of the lakefront path."

Njogu, here's a little background reading for you.  Good luck with your research.

Thank you Thunder Snow.

This is awesome!

Thank you Thunder Snow.

Back in the 1970s I worked first as a volunteer then as part time staff at the Chicago Academy of Scienes (2001 North Clark Street).  Many of the artist who were re-doing the dioramas road their bikes to work.  There were no bike racks, no bike lanes, no helmets.  No infrastructure.  

One story I remember was an artist hitting an open car door and essentially ripped the door off. (Myth, tall tale?)

And once I was biking home from work, going up hill on Odgen where it used to cross the Chicago River.  Ten little ten year olds came down the hill/bridge throwing rocks at me.  How does one catch ten ten year olds?

 We used to bring our bicycles in to the building, but no one thought about bike racks.

I do have some pictures, but from a road excursion outside of University of Illinois/Champaign-Urbana.  I was riding a Peugot that was too tall for me beside it had been hit by a truck and was always out of wack (technical term, I'm sure). I learnt very quickly that you don't have your boyfriend give/select a bike for you.

Nancy L. Fagin

Chicago

This sounds like a really cool paper, good luck with it.  I wish I had more info other than what I did as a kid/teen on a bike.

There must be gobs of stuff under Jayne Byrne files.  Again, little infrastructure.  They put up a bicycle parking lot at Michigan Avenue at Grand Avenue - chain link fence with gravel (NW corner).  Foks lost interest and became just another empty lot.  

Also, early 80s.  I was biking westward on Grand and the crew of a utilities van (Com-ed?  ATT/Illinois Bell) started making obsence comments.  I slammed down my bike in front of them and wrote down the license plate and reported it to the utility.  A lawyer at the time told me "that there's such a back load of sexual harassement cases and under the Reagan administration, there wasn't much to do about it...."

I think staff training, and law suits etc. has really curbed alot of this kind of behavior.  

Women (and men) were quite exposed to riducle and ugliness; I think this is a major reason why many women will not ride, but prefer to stay locked up in their cars.

Nancy L. Fagin

Chicago

Thanks Nancy. I will look into the files. So sorry about your experience with the utilities crew.

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