for the world to see (and imitate) at the Centennial Exposition. Indeed, technological determinism would remain a force in the American consciousness for nearly another century, through the advent of electricity, internal combustion, and nuclear power, before being challenged during the 1960s by an accumulation of evidence showing Americans that growth, technology—perhaps even the prosperity they made possible—all had their limits.
But in 1876, technological determinism, the age of steam, and the industrialization they made possible were far from over. The steam-powered railroad and the steamboat, for example, would remain commonplace means of transport for decades to come. However, despite these advances, there remained one aspect of transportation in which the power of steam was at a severe disadvantage: personal, independent transport of the kind provided by a horse and buggy. Because the steam engine was an external combustion engine—where fuel was burned in a chamber outside the engine to heat the water and create the steam that powered the machinery—the steam engine along with the boilers where the steam was created formed a large and heavy apparatus, whose power could only be increased by making the size and heft of the engine even larger, until one reached the immense size of the Corliss Steam Engine itself.
While some mechanics did pursue the application of steam power to personal transport, most inventors understood that the key to propelling a horseless carriage by mechanical means was to reduce the size and weight of the engine while at the same time increasing the amount of power it produced. The solution they devised was the internal combustion engine, where a small amount of vaporous fuel was ignited inside the engine cylinder in an explosion akin to gunpowder in a cannon or musket. But instead of the explosive energy being imparted to a cannon or musket ball that flew from the chamber, the force created by the internal combustion of fuel was held within the cylinder and transferred via the up-down motion of a piston to the axle of a wheeled vehicle.
In Europe, English inventor Robert Street devised the first internal combustion engine as early as 1794, while Swiss engineer Isaac de Rivaz built the first horseless carriage in 1813; however, his vehicle was a four-wheel cart with barely enough engine power to move at three miles per hour. From these modest beginnings experimentation continued on both sides of the Atlantic. But it took many more years, and the discovery of the four-stroke engine cycle (intake-compression-ignition-exhaust) by German mechanic Nikolaus Otto in 1876, to make the idea of internal combustion a practical reality. Still, many technological problems remained to be solved before the internal combustion engine could be successfully adapted to an automotive vehicle. The first horseless carriage in the world using an internal combustion engine of the Otto design was developed by Gottlieb Damiler and appeared in Germany in 1883. In America, the first horseless carriage, more primitive than its European counterpart but functional nonetheless, was introduced in 1895, manufactured by the Duryea Brothers of Springfield, Massachusetts. On August 5, 1895, Charles Duryea arrived in Hartford driving a horseless carriage that he and his brother Frank had designed and built in their shop in Springfield. Duryea had made the twenty-mile, one-way trip in about two hours, his open carriage automobile “taking the hills and grades with comfort.” The historic journey made Charles Duryea the first person to operate a gas-powered auto in Connecticut.5
However, there was already on exhibit in Philadelphia in 1876 a new mechanical vehicle that for the coming generation would ease the way to automobility while providing a means of personal transportation for millions of Americans. That vehicle, an import from England, was on display in the Centennial’s Wagon & Carriage Exhibition Building, right next to the latest in English horse-drawn carriages. It was called the “ordinary bicycle.” Despite its name, the rather odd-looking machine was far from ordinary. It had a large front wheel, fifty-six inches in diameter, to which the drive pedals were attached at the hub; while at the other end of its S-shaped iron frame was a much smaller rear wheel, twenty-four inches in diameter. Metal pegs protruding from the spine of the frame allowed the rider to climb up the back of the cycle onto a small leather saddle seat situated atop the front wheel, where the rider perched himself precariously above the driving pedals.
One of the millions of visitors to Philadelphia in 1876 was Albert A. Pope, a Civil War veteran who still carried the title of Colonel with pride. At thirty-five years of age, Pope was already a successful entrepreneur who had amassed a million dollars in personal wealth by manufacturing tools and nonleather supplies for the thriving shoe industry in Massachusetts, and was looking about for a new business opportunity. Seeing the small display of English ordinary bicycles at the Centennial Exposition, Pope became enamored with the product. As he recalled, “They attracted my attention to such an extent that I paid many visits to this exhibit, studying carefully both the general plan and the details of construction and wondering if any but trained gymnasts could master so strange and apparently unsteady mount.”6
On the train back to Massachusetts, Colonel Pope considered the possibility of importing such ordinary bicycles from England through his Boston-based company and selling the odd-looking machines in the States. Or perhaps he would manufacture his own version of the bicycle, thereby eliminating licensing and import fees and increasing his profit accordingly. A keen man of business, Pope considered as well the risks inherent in such an enterprise. Just how popular could such an unconventional vehicle become? Who, exactly, would buy one? Who could even ride one! Yet ordinary bicycling was already a popular pastime in England, and Pope’s instinct told him that the bicycle might also find an audience among athletic young men in America looking for a new sport to master.
Colonel Albert A. Pope’s success in Hartford earned him the title “Father of the American Bicycle Industry.” One Hundred Years of American Commerce 1795–1895, 1896
It is here, in the ruminating mind of Colonel Albert Pope, on the train ride home to Boston from the Centennial Exposition of 1876, that the story of Connecticut transportation in the twentieth century begins.
The Bicycle Comes to Connecticut
In the 1880s and 1890s, Boston entrepreneur Albert Pope made Hartford a national center of high-quality bicycle manufacturing.
Nearly two years after visiting the Centennial Exposition, in May 1878, Colonel Albert Augustus Pope arrived at Hartford’s Asylum Street station on a New Haven Railroad day coach from Boston. He brought with him not luggage, but a Duplex Excelsior ordinary bicycle that he had recently imported from England. When Pope retrieved the vehicle from the train’s baggage car, the 56" high-mount bicycle was the first of its kind to appear in Hartford. Drawing quizzical stares from station onlookers, Pope skillfully mounted the Duplex Excelsior and rode off in the direction of the Weed Sewing Machine Company on nearby Capitol Avenue, a cadre of curious children traipsing behind him.7
Since returning from the Centennial Exposition, Pope decided to pursue the business of manufacturing and selling ordinary bicycles—having first learned to ride and enjoy the vehicle himself at his home in Boston—and had purchased a batch of fifty ordinary bicycles from England, with which he intended to test the market. However, rather than retool his factory in Boston to manufacture bicycles, Pope thought it best to find a business partner to make the bicycles for him, while he focused his talents as a salesman on promoting the product. As he himself once said, “I could not make a bicycle if my life depended on it, but I know how to sell them.”8
The Weed Sewing Machine Company, headed by George A. Fairfield, a fellow Civil War colonel, was a logical choice. The firm was well respected in the shoe manufacturing industry with which Pope was familiar, and had in place a skilled workforce that was experienced in making interchangeable parts. As it happened, the sewing machine business was then in a slump, and whether Pope was aware of it or not, the Weed Company was looking for a new source of revenue. So when Pope approached Fairfield with an offer to make a batch of fifty ordinary bicycles for him based on the Duplex Excelsior—to be sold under the American trade name Columbia—Fairfield accepted.
Even with a prototype at hand, however, manufacturing the bicycles proved a daunting task. To replicate the English model, Weed Company engineers had to design and forge seventy-seven unique parts, some of which required large and expensive dies costing hundreds of dollars.