Bike Month: A visual history of biking in Maine with Sam Shupe

As bicycles have enjoyed a recent resurgence in popularity during the past decade, one wonders is this a new phenomena? This talk, illustrated with photographs and a diverse array of related visual culture, illuminates the first surge of bicycle culture to sweep the United States during the 1870s and declining in the turn of the century. Throughout this period, the modern bicycle as we know it exploded onto the American scene, spawning clubs, communities, and a popularity that permeated seemingly all facets of American life. In the case of Maine, the bicycle was embraced throughout the state from the more rural north to the state’s urban center of Portland. This talk will place Maine within the larger American bicycle movement of the late nineteenth century, highlighting the passionate clubs and prominent Mainers who helped make the state a haven for bicycle culture.

Sam Shupe is a current Ph.D. student in the American & New England Studies Program at Boston University. His specific areas of study include, photographic history, American visual ephemera, and late nineteenth and early twentieth century cultural history. A Portland native and daily cyclist, bicycles played a particularly strong role in his undergraduate career studying history at the University of Southern Maine where his senior thesis discussed turn of the century Portland architect, John Calvin Stevens and his love of bicycling.

Free coffee from Matt’s!

*image from the collection of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.