Quotes by Frances E. Willard

“If women patronize the wheel the number of buyers will be twice as large. If women ride they must, when riding, dress more rationally than they have been wont to do. If they do this many prejudices as to what they may be allowed to wear will melt away. Reason will gain upon precedent and ere long the comfortable, sensible, and artistic wardrobe of the rider will make the conventional style of woman's dress absurd to the eye and unenduring to the understanding. A reform often advances most rapidly by indirection. An ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory; and the graceful and becoming costume of woman on the bicycle will convince the world that has brushed aside the theories, no matter how well constructed, and the arguments, no matter how logical, of dress-reformers.””

How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle: Reflections of an Influential 19th Century Woman

“Another writer argued in an 1895 issue of the Cosmopolitan that by riding a bicycle, a woman would "become mistress of herself," transformed into a "rational, useful being restored to health and sanity.””

How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle: Reflections of an Influential 19th Century Woman

“In 1895, Ann Strong declared in the Minneapolis Tribune that bicycles were "just as good company as most husbands" and that when a bicycle gets shabby or old a woman could "dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community.””

How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle: Reflections of an Influential 19th Century Woman

“That which caused the many failures I had in learning the bicycle had caused me failures in life; namely, a certain fearful looking for of judgment; a too vivid realization of the uncertainty of everything about me; an underlying doubt--at once, however (and this is all that saved me), matched and overcome by the determination not to give in to it.””

How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle: Reflections of an Influential 19th Century Woman

Frances E. Willard

Frances E. Willard was a prominent American educator, reformer, and women's suffrage advocate in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in 1839 in Churchville, New York, she became a key figure ...