## Metadata
- Author: [[Carlton Reid]]
- Full Title: Roads Were Not Built for Cars
- Published:
- Category: #books
## Highlights
- bicycle stuff. The bicycle was a new thing, and little was known about it. The editors were hungry for news; they wanted either serious stuff or humorous stuff. Pope gave them all kinds, and billions of words were printed about the bicycle.”
Pope’s enthusiasm for bicycling wasn’t just sales-driven, however, and he was a passionate user of his own products; he started Pope Manufacturing Company because he believed others would like what he liked. His first view of the product that would take over his life came in 1876 when visiting the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, America’s first World’s Fair. A display of five English high-wheeler bicycles caught Pope’s eye: “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 a mount.”
Pope learned to ride a high-wheeler in 1877, and started to import these exotics from England in 1878. They were expensive to import so Pope commissioned Weed Sewing Machine Company of Hartford to produce them in the US. A Hartford trade directory of 1889 takes up the tale:
When, in May [1878] Col. A. A. Pope rode circuitously from the station to the office of [Weed Sewing Machine Company] on a bicycle of English make, excited throngs swarmed into the streets through which he passed to catch a view of the strange vehicle … As the Colonel disappeared through the door, the surprise and curiosity were transferred from the outside to the inside of the [◊](https://readwise.io/open/281724539) ^rw281724539
---
tags: books
aliases: Roads Were Not Built for Cars
date created: 2022-03-31
publish: true
---
## Metadata
- Author: [[Carlton Reid]]
- Full Title: Roads Were Not Built for Cars
- Published:
- Category: #books
## Highlights
- bicycle stuff. The bicycle was a new thing, and little was known about it. The editors were hungry for news; they wanted either serious stuff or humorous stuff. Pope gave them all kinds, and billions of words were printed about the bicycle.”
Pope’s enthusiasm for bicycling wasn’t just sales-driven, however, and he was a passionate user of his own products; he started Pope Manufacturing Company because he believed others would like what he liked. His first view of the product that would take over his life came in 1876 when visiting the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, America’s first World’s Fair. A display of five English high-wheeler bicycles caught Pope’s eye: “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 a mount.”
Pope learned to ride a high-wheeler in 1877, and started to import these exotics from England in 1878. They were expensive to import so Pope commissioned Weed Sewing Machine Company of Hartford to produce them in the US. A Hartford trade directory of 1889 takes up the tale:
When, in May [1878] Col. A. A. Pope rode circuitously from the station to the office of [Weed Sewing Machine Company] on a bicycle of English make, excited throngs swarmed into the streets through which he passed to catch a view of the strange vehicle … As the Colonel disappeared through the door, the surprise and curiosity were transferred from the outside to the inside of the [◊](https://readwise.io/open/281724539) ^rw281724539
---