The evening was a sensational one in many ways, and when the schemes to defeat Farnsworth developed one after another, the plucky little girl found it too much for her, and breaking down completely, she burst into tears, but still kept riding. Then there was a scene that has seldom been equaled on a race track. The audience cheered Farnsworth, hissed Keyes and cool headed people had all they could do to keep the more excitable ones from breaking on to the track and causing a small riot. Some threatened to throw chairs and some made incipient attempts to do it, but the race was too great a one, even as it stood, to be interrupted, and thousands of people watched it in wild excitement.
—“All Bets Off,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 10, 1897
Even as the best women riders topped twenty miles an hour and began to threaten some of the men’s hourly records, many male observers of the sport continued to view the racers first and foremost not as athletes but as women. Rivalries were chalked up less to competitive fire than to what the men considered to be petty female jealousy. Stoking such jealousy, real or imagined, was at the very least a way to sell newspapers. The race at Cleveland’s Central Armory that opened the 1897 season featured Tillie, Dottie, May, the Rochester riders Jennie Brown and Pearl Keyes, and Amy Kalgren of St. Paul. “Pretty Pearl Keyes,” as she was called by the Cleveland World, was just seventeen years old, and this was her first race in competition with Dottie Farnsworth, “whose black eyes and midnight hair are quite as much an attraction as her powers of pedaling—and the propellers for furnishing the same,” said the World.1 Right away Pearl seemed to have it in for Dottie. The reason, claimed the World, had to do with the way Dottie’s “captivating smile” appealed to the men and made her the favorite of the crowd, whose shouts of encouragement were said to rankle deep in Pearl’s heart. “Pearl is some peaches herself in the way of pulchritude,” said the World, “and though she has any number worshiping at her shrine, the plaudits for Dottie make her shiver with rage.”2
After Tillie and Dottie gained one lap on the field over the first three days, Pearl teamed up with Jennie Brown on the fourth night to keep the two leaders in a pocket over the final laps, and the two Rochester women won the night’s race. The next night, Friday, Pearl tried to recover her lost lap, but Dottie and Tillie kept a close watch on her and never allowed her to jump ahead. The sprint at the end of the first hour saw an exhilarating battle between Dottie and Pearl for second place. Pearl held second position going into the sprint, but Dottie rode hard along the outside for several laps. “Dottie was determined to fall in behind Tillie,” reported the World, “but when she attempted it Pearl deliberately curved her wheel upwards and blocked Dottie off.” Dottie kept at it, however, and the two of them rode farther and farther up the incline toward the top of the track “while the spectators held their breath in fear that Farnsworth would be toppled over into the arena.”3 Around and around they went, and finally Pearl tired and gave way, allowing Dottie to slide in behind Tillie and hold second place until the first hour ended.
In the second hour, Dottie was determined not to let Pearl and Jennie pocket her again as they had on Thursday. When the gong sounded for the final three laps, Dottie held the lead, with Tillie hugging her rear wheel. Pearl was third, and several times she tried to gain on the outside, but Dottie and Tillie held their positions and finished first and second, still one lap ahead.
After Friday night’s race, according to the Leader, Pearl’s animosity turned to anger. “Dottie,” she cried, “you cut me three times tonight.”
“Well, keep your place and I won’t have to.”
“If you cut in ahead of me again, I’ll throw you!”4 And with that threat, Pearl entered the final night one lap behind the leaders—a night a World headline described as “Probably the Most Thrilling Athletic Event Ever Witnessed in Cleveland.”5 At the start of the final hour, the riders were bunched together when Tillie spurted forward without warning, followed gamely by Dottie. Here’s the World’s version:
Their faces aflame, with almost superhuman exertion, they spun round and round, with an increasing rapidity that made strong men contract their muscles in deadly fear that the hands guiding the wheels would falter and a horrible accident ensue. As they continued fast and faster pent up emotion broke loose in a wild pandemonium. Men threw their hats in the air and hugged each other in sheer ecstasy of excitement. Chairs were upset. Shrieks and yells resounded with a sound like the combined effort of a dozen circus calliopes.
On and on went the two riders. They could not have seen the track before them. The crowd was a vast blur. It was superlatively plucky, thrilling, desperate, dangerous. In a south gallery box a woman threw up her arms and fell fainting in the clasp of her escort. Some timid people turned from the scene, unable to stand the strain.6
Slowly but surely, the reporter went on, Tillie pulled away. The crowd of five thousand was split between the two riders: “Farnsworth! Anderson! No, it’s Farnsworth. It’s Anderson. Go it! Go it!” Tillie made it half a lap ahead, and then as Dottie’s fans groaned in anguish, Tillie pulled herself closer and closer to the pack and gained the coveted lap. With less than an hour to go, the race appeared to be over.
The Leader, however, described the key moment differently, painting Dottie as the victim of foul play. Beginning that final hour, the paper said, May Allen led the bunch, followed by Pearl and Jennie, with Tillie and Dottie trailing (albeit still one lap ahead). Tillie made her jump to the outside, swiftly passing the other riders, and Dottie tried to follow—but in this version, after Tillie passed, May swung a little wide, and Pearl did the same. Dottie climbed up the track and tried to keep pace, and just then Jennie slipped underneath Dottie and effectively gave her no choice but to stay halfway up the track—or fall back into last place. From that outside position, Dottie had no chance of keeping up with Tillie, and the entire bunch gradually lost ground. Once Tillie had gained her lap, the combination relaxed, leaving the outside clear once again. To the Leader, it was clear that Dottie had been intentionally pocketed.7
The Plain Dealer agreed, pointing the finger directly at Pearl Keyes, “who had,” after all, “openly threatened to throw Farnsworth and kill her if necessary to keep her from winning.” Pearl had repeatedly swerved into Dottie’s path, the Plain Dealer claimed, frustrating Dottie again and again, until finally Dottie burst into tears right there on the track—but still she kept riding. “The audience cheered for Farnsworth, hissed Keyes and cool-headed people had all they could do to keep the more excitable ones from breaking on to the track and causing a small riot.” The reporter called it “the worst combination of ‘dirty work’ ever perpetrated on any track or in any race.”8
Tillie won the race by that single lap over Dottie, finishing with 239 miles plus seven laps in twelve hours. The crowd cheered both riders, but Dottie got the bulk of the sympathy. The crowd hissed Pearl Keyes, and Dottie vowed never again to enter a race that included the Rochester rider.
The crowd and the racers eventually cleared out, and the referee and three judges followed the women back to their Hawley House rooms at the corner of West Third Street and St. Clair Avenue. There they spoke to each of the women about what happened. As might be expected, everyone denied any wrongdoing, although Pearl admitted that she had it in for Dottie because of the lap she’d lost on the second night of the race. At one point Pearl went so far as to claim that Dottie had approached her to form a combination against Tillie, and the referee sent for Dottie, who of course denied the accusation. With all the women in a single room, tensions rose to the breaking point. Finally, it was generally conceded that Dottie had been blocked to some degree, but the women claimed that such things were liable to occur in any race. By midnight, the referee returned to the Central Armory and announced his decision: “No race, and first prize to be equally divided between Anderson and Farnsworth.”9
There was indignation all around over this outcome. The first to protest was Benedict, the race manager. He hadn’t been told of the local referee’s decision to interview the women at their hotel. As far as he was concerned the race was over, the crowd had gone home, and Tillie had won. The crowds that came to see the races—not to mention the parts suppliers and bicycle manufacturers that supported the riders and paid Benedict to advertise their products—wanted winners and losers, not disqualifications. Tillie herself was indignant as well. The judges had cleared her of any role in the combination, yet she now was being told to forgo $50 of her $250 prize. Grant Dottie the disputed lap, Tillie said, and Tillie should still receive first prize, since she crossed the tape half a length in front.
Dottie’s opponents accused her of being a “quitter” who couldn’t handle defeat—a charge that would continue to dog Dottie her entire career. Pearl, May, and Jennie all admitted that they were glad Tillie had finished first, even while denying participation in a plot to make it happen. May said Tillie needed no help from others. “I never, at any time, doubted that Miss Anderson would win the race,” May said.
“I have been entered in seven different races with Miss Farnsworth,” Tillie added, “and never failed to beat her. I simply ask for justice and refuse to accept anything but first prize, for I won the race fairly and honestly.” Tillie then issued a challenge: “I do not have to resort to such tactics to defeat her and I am willing to ride her a race of any distance for any money from $100 to $1,000. There would then be no other riders to ‘pocket’ her.”10
Dottie accepted the challenge. “I would consider it no disgrace to be defeated by Tillie Anderson,” she said. “She is a wonderful rider and she might have beaten me anyway, but I want her to win on her merits as a rider and not by a scheme that no man or woman could win against.”11
The head-to-head match was arranged for Tuesday night, January 12, for a prize equal to first place in the full six-day race: $250. Following preliminary races between May Allen and Amy Kalgren and then Pearl Keyes and Jennie Brown, Tillie and Dottie appeared and rode their warm-up laps before a raucous capacity crowd. It was a fifteen-mile race, 225 laps around the oval. For the first eight miles each woman tried with two or three hard sprints to gain a lap, but neither was able to shake the other. Then they settled into a watchful pace, gauging each other for the final sprint. At thirteen miles Tillie slowed to force Dottie to take the lead, but Dottie was determined to begin the final sprint on Tillie’s elbow. Six laps from the end Tillie began her spurt, and it was apparent that she still had plenty of strength for the finish. Dottie clung to Tillie’s rear wheel but was unable to close the gap, and Tillie crossed the tape with a four-length lead. Her time was 42:33, an average of 21.2 mph.
“Anderson’s finish,” said the Plain Dealer, “was a wonderful one, and there are few men who could have held the clip with her.”12 The World agreed: “If there is a female cyclist in America who can ride faster than Tillie Anderson,” it said, “she has not yet been discovered.”13
“Now Dottie can’t say I’m a cheater,” Tillie said as she dismounted. “I’ve just beaten her fair and square, just as I have a half dozen times before.”14 She said she was never so happy in her life.
“I kept my promise if I did lose,” Dottie said, “and I did all I hoped to do. It was worth the side bet for me to prove that Miss Anderson’s win of over a lap was not due to her superiority and that is why I entered the match race. I promised to keep close to her and I did it. Tillie Anderson is the most wonderful rider in the world and it is no disgrace to be defeated by her, but there are other races and I still hope to win.”15
Before the final applause had quite died down, Tillie began an exhibition mile, going full speed for another fifteen laps at a twenty-four-mile-an-hour clip. Tillie and Dottie shook hands, and Tillie invited Dottie to ride an exhibition mile of her own. “The audience doesn’t want to see the loser,” Dottie said, but the roar of the crowd told her otherwise, and she agreed to mount her wheel one more time. “She only attempted to show a few good bursts of speed and prove that she was still able to go a merry clip in spite of the hard race,” reported the Plain Dealer, “but she was cheered at every turn.” “The race throughout has been a marvelous success,” the Plain Dealer concluded, “and has proved that women’s bicycle races can offer more exciting sport than any wheeling events that have ever ventured in Cleveland.”16
In their endless attempt to discredit women racers, the LAW’s Wheelmen declared that Dottie, whom its writers described as the prerace favorite, was pocketed “as a result of antipathy toward her.” The Wheelmen went on to disparage the “amateur judges” who haplessly called it “no race,” implying that had the race been held under LAW rules with LAW officials, things would have been handled differently. The writer left it unsaid that the LAW refused to sanction such races or allow LAW officials to participate in any way.17
Several Cleveland papers also argued that LAW rules might have prevented the fiasco. Pearl Keyes and May Allen, said the Plain Dealer, would have been suspended for life “if there were rules to govern such races.”18 The Leader similarly held that the kind of pocketing that occurred on the final night of the race would, under LAW rules, lead to suspension.19
The Plain Dealer reported that some of those involved with the Cleveland race went so far as to suggest that the judges themselves were under the spell of Dottie’s female charms and decided in her favor for that reason alone. The reporter called this “rot” but then went on to say: “It required only one week to convince local wheelmen that the jealousies of women riders are hard things to contend with and this latter fact is what prevented the L.A.W. from taking hold of such races when it was proved that they were legitimate sport and free from objectionable features.” In other words, the reasoning went, the LAW would likely sanction women’s races based solely on the quality of the sport, but the women’s unruly temperaments made sanctioning the races impossible. “The wrangles that are bound to follow women’s races,” concluded the Plain Dealer, “would have all the officials crazy in a season.”20