by Tom Ewing
June 26, 2025
During America’s Gilded Age, bicycle parades emerged as events connecting communities to the new and fashionable form of transportation technology. In the summer of 1897, a widely circulated newspaper article drew attention to the “Parade of the Four Hundred,” featuring representatives from the elite spending their summer in Newport, Rhode Island.
The article devoted considerable attention to the participants in the parade, referencing leading families of Newport who would be represented in the parade, including Astors, Vanderbilts, and others “whose names are well known in the social life.” The costumes of the leading riders were described in detail (including some of these represented in the illustration that accompanied the article). Uncle Sam led the parade, with a stuffed eagle on the front of the wheel, “whose presence alone would proclaim the character, even if it were not for the well-known white hat and the big coat with stars upon the collar and striped trousers.” The Watteau flower girl was positioned next to Uncle Sam, with flowers decorating the front wheel, a dress based on a design by a celebrated painter in Europe, and a hat described “as an immense one of blue, with a rising plume of the same and pale blue forget-me-nots underneath it.” A tandem bicycle called the “Lady and the Tiger” will be ridden by “a fashionable Newport belle,” on the front, and the the tiger, on the back, with “a big parasol suspended over the “lady’s head.”
While the Newport event attracted national attention because of the social elites involved, bicycle parades occurred across the country, including in Virginia. The Virginia Life Stock and Fair Association annual fair in August 1895 included a bicycle parade as well as races, with prizes for the top competitors (Staunton Daily News, August 25, 1895, p. 4) . In Virginia Beach, on July 4, 1898, two hundred wheelmen and wheelwomen, with prixes for the best decorated wheel, were expected to take part. One participant was George M. Pollard of Old Dominion Paper Company whose motto (and presumably theme for his bicycle decoration) was: “Remember the Maine.” (Norfolk Landmark, July 1, 1898, p. 3; Public Ledger, July 2, 1898, p. 4) In Tazewell county, in southwest Virginia, the annual fair in 1897 included a Bicycle Parade and Bicycle Races. (Clinch Valley News, September 24, 1897, p. 4) In Lynchburg, Jennie Glass, who won first prize during the 1901 parade for decorations, who a dress with wings on the back, a “large picture hat,” and her bicycle was completely decorated: “The frame of her bicycle was concealed by masses of snowball flowers, the spokes were covered with silver and gold butterflies, and in front of the wheel was a large white butterfly from whose wings white satin ribbons connected with smaller butterflies at the end of the handle bars.” The front page article describes more than twenty costumes, including Susie Crump, “in a representation of the red, white, and blue, the national colors, which were cleverly brought out in flowers and colored tissue paper.” (News and Advance, October 17, 1901, p. 1)
Fifty years ago, as American prepared to celebrate the Bicentennial, bicycle parades continued, also with patriotic themes. In Vero Beach, Florida, a bicycle parade in early 1976 featured cyclists and their machines decorated as the Statue of Liberty, Paul Revere (and his horse) and an “old fashioned outhouse” (Indian River Press Journal, January 15, 1976, p. 52)
The historical legacies of these parades are evident in communities which continue the tradition of bicycle parades. In Lexington, Virginia, the annual 4th of July children’s bike parade, which begins with face painting and includes a ride down Main Street, following Route 76 through downtown, provides clear evidence of how this history remains relevant in the present.
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