The 1890s Bicycle Boom in the Ukrainian Lands: Local Mobilities between Technological Westernization and Imperial Politics

Abstract

Abstract This is the first comparative study of the 1890s Bicycle Boom in the Ukrainian lands, which at that time were part of the Habsburg and Romanov Empires. This article reconstructs the world of bicycle producers, retailers, advocators, consumers, and riders, focusing on local agency in the adoption of Western cycling technologies. A comparison of bicycle clubs in the Ukrainian lands of the two empires illustrates how distinct imperial, ethnic, social, and gender politics influenced the social construction of cycling technologies. This article presents a portrait of technological progress in which local enthusiasts were key drivers of innovation, whereas the two imperial states responded with regulatory measures rather than actions that would promote technological development. Although Eastern Europe was late in launching its own mass production of bicycles, the cultural phenomenon of the 1890s Bicycle Boom in the Ukrainian lands, which stimulated great enthusiasm, public debates, and new standards of bodily performance, emerged simultaneously with the boom in bicycle-producing Western societies.