Although most Americans in the twentieth century associate bicycles and bicycling with children, Europeans, or fitness buffs, a bicycle craze among adults swept the United States in the late 1880s and 1890s that stimulated much excitement and new ways of thinking about transportation. Capitalists created a thriving and valuable bicycle manufacturing industry and a well-developed trade press, as leaders of substantial influence emerged and the industry made rapid advances in design and technology. Major pioneers in aviation (the Wright brothers) and the automobile industry (Henry Ford) got their start as bicycle designers and mechanics, applying their expertise to new motorized forms of transportation.

The early industry gained its footing in the late 1870s when Colonel Albert Pope, a successful Boston industrialist, converted an old sewing machine factory into a bicycle plant. Pope set about building an empire, hiring skilled machinists and die makers to craft interchangeable parts, enabling...