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Old Wheelways Audiobook by Robert L. McCullough
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Title: Old Wheelways
Subtitle: Traces of Bicycle History on the Land
Author: Robert L. McCullough
Narrator: Gary D. MacFadden
Format: Unabridged
Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
Language: English
Release date: 05-25-17
Publisher: University Press Audiobooks
Genres: History, American
Publisher's Summary:
In the later part of the 19th century, American bicyclists were explorers, cycling through both charted and uncharted territory. These wheelmen and wheelwomen became keen observers of suburban and rural landscapes, and left copious records of their journeys - in travel narratives, journalism, maps, photographs, illustrations. They were also instrumental in the construction of roads and paths ("wheelways") - building them, funding them, and lobbying legislators for them. Their explorations shaped the landscape and the way we look at it, yet with few exceptions their writings have been largely overlooked by landscape scholars, and many of the paths cyclists cleared have disappeared. In Old Wheelways, Robert McCullough restores the pioneering cyclists of the 19th century to the history of American landscapes.
Today's ubiquitous bicycle lanes owe their origins to 19th-century versions. The campaigns for wheelways, McCullough points out, offer a prologue to nearly every obstacle faced by those advocating bicycle paths and lanes today.
The book is published by MIT Press.
Critic Reviews:
"A highly readable, scholarly book about 'landseers' in America.. This book greatly adds to our understanding of the role of bicycles in the creation of America's modern society." (Gary W. Sanderson, editor, The Wheelmen Magazine)
"Anyone who's interested in the history of cycling, or the history of infrastructure and landscape, will find the images McCullough has collected fascinating." (Slate)
"Here scorches a significant book." (John R. Stilgoe, Harvard University)
Members Reviews:
More of a reference book than a narrative history.
More of a reference book than a narrative history. It's only scholarly move is to constantly claim that "scholars have overlooked the contributions of cyclists' perspectives on x," which it would have been better to just do without.
Bicycle with a Small "b," Landscape With a Capital "L"
This book is a valuable bookend to James Longhurst's unfortunately named (but quite good) Bike Battles. Both ostensibly cover the same subject: the cycle path movement, which flourished briefly in the United States, especially in and around upstate New York, in the dying years of the great bicycle boom of 1895-1901. However, they treat the subject very differently. Longhurst covers it from the standpoint of the cyclists: what organizations they formed, who they lobbied, and when necessary, what lawsuits they battled over. McCullough, on the other hand, does exactly what he says he is going to do in the subtitle of the book: closely examine the physical form of these paths, look into how they physically got built, how well or badly they faired, and what ultimately happened to them.
McCullough is an industrial archaeologist who has previously written about bridges and early modern industrial buildings. His focus in this book is on the sidepaths as objects worthy of attention in their own right. Yes, the story of the National Sidepath League and the Brooklyn-to-Coney Island sidepaths are here, but their political-organizational histories are not as linear as in Longhurst's book. This is not an institutional history. It is as much a history of landscape architecture as it is a bicycle book. If all you care about is the bicycle angle, stick with Longhurst's book.
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Title: Old Wheelways
Subtitle: Traces of Bicycle History on the Land
Author: Robert L. McCullough
Narrator: Gary D. MacFadden
Format: Unabridged
Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
Language: English
Release date: 05-25-17
Publisher: University Press Audiobooks
Genres: History, American
Publisher's Summary:
In the later part of the 19th century, American bicyclists were explorers, cycling through both charted and uncharted territory. These wheelmen and wheelwomen became keen observers of suburban and rural landscapes, and left copious records of their journeys - in travel narratives, journalism, maps, photographs, illustrations. They were also instrumental in the construction of roads and paths ("wheelways") - building them, funding them, and lobbying legislators for them. Their explorations shaped the landscape and the way we look at it, yet with few exceptions their writings have been largely overlooked by landscape scholars, and many of the paths cyclists cleared have disappeared. In Old Wheelways, Robert McCullough restores the pioneering cyclists of the 19th century to the history of American landscapes.
Today's ubiquitous bicycle lanes owe their origins to 19th-century versions. The campaigns for wheelways, McCullough points out, offer a prologue to nearly every obstacle faced by those advocating bicycle paths and lanes today.
The book is published by MIT Press.
Critic Reviews:
"A highly readable, scholarly book about 'landseers' in America.. This book greatly adds to our understanding of the role of bicycles in the creation of America's modern society." (Gary W. Sanderson, editor, The Wheelmen Magazine)
"Anyone who's interested in the history of cycling, or the history of infrastructure and landscape, will find the images McCullough has collected fascinating." (Slate)
"Here scorches a significant book." (John R. Stilgoe, Harvard University)
Members Reviews:
More of a reference book than a narrative history.
More of a reference book than a narrative history. It's only scholarly move is to constantly claim that "scholars have overlooked the contributions of cyclists' perspectives on x," which it would have been better to just do without.
Bicycle with a Small "b," Landscape With a Capital "L"
This book is a valuable bookend to James Longhurst's unfortunately named (but quite good) Bike Battles. Both ostensibly cover the same subject: the cycle path movement, which flourished briefly in the United States, especially in and around upstate New York, in the dying years of the great bicycle boom of 1895-1901. However, they treat the subject very differently. Longhurst covers it from the standpoint of the cyclists: what organizations they formed, who they lobbied, and when necessary, what lawsuits they battled over. McCullough, on the other hand, does exactly what he says he is going to do in the subtitle of the book: closely examine the physical form of these paths, look into how they physically got built, how well or badly they faired, and what ultimately happened to them.
McCullough is an industrial archaeologist who has previously written about bridges and early modern industrial buildings. His focus in this book is on the sidepaths as objects worthy of attention in their own right. Yes, the story of the National Sidepath League and the Brooklyn-to-Coney Island sidepaths are here, but their political-organizational histories are not as linear as in Longhurst's book. This is not an institutional history. It is as much a history of landscape architecture as it is a bicycle book. If all you care about is the bicycle angle, stick with Longhurst's book.