The great Coliseum was a literal seething, surging mass of excited humanity. The ladies were there and the boxes, bleachers, gang-ways and arena was [sic] one grand kaleidoscopic effect of ever-changing coloraments.
And how they cheered and applauded, and clapped their hands, as the merry cycliennes vied with each other for the supremacy.
First it was Glaw, then Allen, and Baldwin—and all had their favorites—but when Anderson shot across the winning line the house went mad. Men tossed their hats, broke their canes—turned Bedlam loose.
—Salvatore, “They’re Off! At the Park,” Columbus Dispatch, February 2, 1897
The initial backlash against women’s racing succeeded in segregating racing men and women, but it did nothing to dampen the sport’s popularity. In the winter and spring of 1897, women’s racing thrived. William Benedict’s Cycle Carnival Company reaped the rewards of Bobby Smiley’s advance publicity work, and as various incarnations of the troupe made their way from Cleveland in early January to Indianapolis and Columbus, back to Cleveland, and then on to Cincinnati, Chicago, Detroit, Akron, Youngstown, and Grand Rapids, news of the women and each succeeding race resulted in big first-night crowds, enthusiastically partisan cheering, and excellent competition. In Cleveland on January 4, some four thousand people filled the Central Armory, while another two thousand overwhelmed the lone box office and had to be turned away. In Indianapolis on January 18, three thousand first-night fans crowded into Tomlinson Hall. News of these packed houses hit Columbus and Cincinnati, next on the tour, and each drew over three thousand to opening night.
Thanks to Smiley’s efforts, the riders themselves were becoming well-known celebrities, each with her own character and reputation. Tillie was the big, strong, tow-headed Swede, the Terrible Swede, with the ever-present look of fierce determination—and by now the recognized champion of women’s racing, a title unofficially conferred on her via a gold medal crafted by the Morgan & Wright Tire Company. Dottie Farnsworth was the charmer, with pretty eyes, dark curly hair, and dramatic costumes and jewelry, a fan favorite, but she was also the impetuous one, often sulking or pouting over some perceived slight. Helen Baldwin, best known of the bunch, continued as Queen of the Wheel—graceful, gracious, slight in stature but tough when she needed to be, and fast. May Allen was always the English girl, described without fail as both plucky and lovely, a rider of long experience often seen as just now working herself back into shape, ready to return to her former glory. And now, almost a year since her last six-day race, there was Lizzie Glaw, the German. She was the quiet one—heady, strategic, and powerful. The long layoff seemed to have done Lizzie good. That winter she’d prove to be an even greater threat to Tillie than Dottie and the others.
Together they were known as the Big Five, and throughout 1897 their races challenged the men’s at the box office and in the hearts of big-city crowds from Philadelphia to Kansas City.
The February 1–6 race at Park Rink in Columbus brought the Big Five all together for the first time since Tillie’s debut race in Chicago a year earlier, but this time no local amateurs or second-tier professionals were there to get in their way. It was considered the finest field of riders ever assembled. The five women had “come heralded by stories of such great success in other cities,” reported the Ohio State Journal, “that Columbus is beginning to believe that there must be something in this new bicycle craze after all.”1 There was enough local buzz that extra railway excursions with special round-trip fares were added for every town within fifty miles of the capital.
Fully thirteen officials—a starter and scorer, a referee, five laps scorers (one for each racer), a timer and announcer, two assistant timers, and three judges—were hired for the week. The track at Park Rink was called fifteen laps to the mile, but it measured “long,” so the women actually covered more than they were credited for. Even so, they averaged nineteen miles an hour by the official count. After her long layoff, Lizzie was uncharacteristically out of shape, but she managed to hang with the bunch. On the second night the good friends Helen and May bumped tires and “took a cropper,” and Lizzie vaulted over them both.2 Lizzie’s frame snapped in two and May’s was bent, but they all remounted within the six-lap limit, Lizzie and May on backups. Helen suffered a fairly bad cut on her knee, leading to yet another of her now-famous stocking malfunctions. “To show how closely the race was watched,” the Columbus Press archly observed, “it might be noted that every man in the house knew that pretty Helen Baldwin tore her stocking in the tumble.”3
Tillie won the first night, Dottie the second, and the two raced to a dead heat on the third, while Helen’s bruised and bloodied knee caused her to fall well behind the others. The crowd applauded her game determination, though, and when she collapsed into her trainer’s arms after making the one-hundred-mile mark, the audience gave her a long ovation. Helen returned to her hotel and didn’t appear again on the track, although she did return as a spectator and enjoyed ovations even from her seat in the stands.
Dottie lived up to her reputation as the glitziest of the riders. Before Wednesday’s race, the Chicago Handle Bar Company presented her with a new model of her usual Dayton racing bicycle. Weighing only nineteen pounds, it was adorned by a handlebar of rolled gold, pearl, and mahogany trim—the costliest handlebar ever used in a race. “Other riders have had similar ones, but kept them as ornaments for fear of damaging them in a spill,” said the Ohio State Journal, “while the Minneapolis scorcher is willing to take a chance and puts the jeweled bar into hard service.”4 Dottie would ride the bicycle for the remainder of the season. Then on Thursday, looking for a boost of support from the crowd, Dottie broke out her red tights and blouse and became Red Bird Farnsworth once again, drawing waves of applause with each charge to the front.
With Helen out, the crowd’s sympathies shifted mainly to May Allen, however, not Dottie. May had also been injured in Tuesday night’s fall, and she labored the rest of the week. Helen joined the crowd in cheering her from the sidelines, while Tillie continued to lead the way, earning a special ten-dollar prize for leading at the one-hundred-mile mark and winning nights 4 and 5. Her last lap on Thursday night, with Dottie and Lizzie pushing from behind, was timed at 8.4 seconds—close to twenty-nine miles per hour, even faster when taking into account the long track. Tillie was in top form.
By Friday night, the sleet and drizzle that had made Columbus sidewalks slippery all week finally turned into a heavy rain, and the Park Rink roof began to leak. As the women looped tentatively around the track, laborers rushed onto the planks and toweled the surface dry. Others climbed up and nailed pails to the rafters, hoping to catch the drops before they fell. The wet conditions slowed the racers down, but they made it without incident until the final sprint. Tillie led, with Lizzie hanging on to her rear wheel and Dottie and May close behind. Lizzie’s front tire hit a wet spot and she went down hard. Dottie, head down for the sprint, plowed into Lizzie and flew in the air for twenty feet before skidding up the bank. May, who characteristically rode with her head up, not down like the others, managed to steer around the mess.
Lizzie was bruised all along her left side and shoulder, plus Dottie’s wheel had struck her directly on the head, where she received a “nasty-looking wound.”5 She got up without assistance, though, and walked unaided to the dressing room. Dottie’s knees and elbows were badly bruised, and her leg was cut with a ragged gash. By midnight both riders announced that, despite their injuries, they would ride in the finale. They appeared the next day limping and sore, but after a few miles they were back in form. With Helen cheering them on, all four riders kept together until Messier announced that he’d soon fire the pistol signaling the final three laps. People not already standing rose up, many on top of their chairs. Tillie held the pole, and Lizzie lapped Tillie’s wheel. May and Dottie rode side by side, slightly behind. When the pistol was fired, all four riders bent farther into their crouch, and “breathless silence prevailed.”6 First Tillie, then Lizzie pulled away from the others, and finally Tillie pulled still farther ahead and won by less than two lengths.
With the exception of Helen’s withdrawal, the race was everything the advance publicity had promised. Despite two hard falls, Lizzie had pushed Tillie until the very end. Dottie and May, too, despite their own injuries, kept pace the whole way. Thanks mainly to being in the lead when the two accidents occurred, only Tillie escaped the week without injury—a fact not unnoticed by her rival Dottie, who said later: “It’s only too bad that those who deserved to get hurt escaped without injury.”7
The Columbus race was a success on every level, with an all-star field, a very close race with two hair-raising accidents, and raucous and adoring crowds. Perhaps the best way to relive the enthusiasm displayed in the city is to eavesdrop on excerpts from the daily reports of Salvatore, a columnist for the Columbus Dispatch. Bylines were uncommon in nineteenth-century newspapers, and Salvatore is evidently a pseudonym, but these columns record one person’s reactions to the six days of unfolding drama at the racetrack. Salvatore’s voice is a striking one, revealing at once a kind of macho reluctance to be sucked in by the female racers and a willingness to embrace the sport for all that it was.
The cycling craze has struck Columbus. That it’s popular and in vogue with the masses is evidenced by the three or four thousand in attendance last evening when Starter Roy McGrew pulled the trigger.
What the managers of the popular enterprise will do towards seating their patrons during the remaining portion of the week is now a matter of conjecture.
Cleveland had her five thousand people at the opening night, and countless numbers were turned away.
But Columbus.
The house couldn’t hold them.
Rain, snow, sleet, ice—nothing could stop them. They stood in the foyer, the lobbies, the seats; clamored upon the railings, stepped on each other’s toes, elbowed and pushed, surged and thronged to the front.
And then they couldn’t seat them.
Good-natured? Why everything went. Laughs and jibes, smiles and titters were the order of the evening.
Who was there?
Why who wasn’t?
Everyone who has the great national pastime at heart—his sisters, and his cousins and his aunts—and the other fellow’s sister, too.
Did they enjoy it?
It was a success.
There’s something about the sport—you can’t tell what—but there you sit, crane your neck and strain your eyes.
Suddenly, without a moment’s warning, up you jump, emit a crazy yelp, out comes your handkerchief—then you execute an impromptu ghost dance.
The riders become infected.
The crowd catches the fever, and in five minutes the entire populace is whooping like a gang of college students in the Bad Lands.
After the show is over, then you walk home like a man in a trance. After you get there the old lady asks if you’ve had a good time.
No you haven’t.
When she isn’t looking you sneak out in the kitchen and grope around in the dark for the frog-in-your-throat bottle.
And so it goes.
Last night it was the same old song.
The girls rode and the crowd cheered.
The great rink was filled from end to end with a jolly, letter-her-go mob. Dame Fashion was there. You could see her everywhere. Tonight she’ll be stronger. And tomorrow. But what will they do when Saturday night comes?
Every available nook and crevice last night at the big rink was filled to overflowing with interested spectators as the fair cyclists sprinted past the mile poles on their long, tedious journey.
Little lulls were conspicuous at times—then the band would strike up with some lively ditty and pandemonium would reign.
Fancy a sedate business man sitting quietly in his box taking in the surroundings.
Some favorite would jump out in the lead—then another—and another.
Everyone had their particular choice.
Soon the sedate gentleman would be seen to hitch uneasily in his chair. Then he’d get up. Sit down again.
The deadly merry-go-round was doing its duty.
Soon he’d forget where he was and the great concourse of rooters had won another victim. After he found his lungs, his eyes would snap, fingers twitch and away he would go, just like the crazy gang over on the bleachers—daffy as a loon.
There was more snap and vigor to last night’s racing than at any time during the week.
Sprints were more frequent and the spirit of supremacy manifested itself among the riders.
The attendance was all that could be desired, every available nook and corner being filled.
The better element was a conspicuous commodity and the boxes and front rows of the reserved section presented an animated appearance.
All interest is now centered in the race. Curiosity seekers have contracted the fever and last night enthusiasm was at blood heat.
The rooters held an open levee over in their end of the house and many were the snappy sallies of wit and encouragement accorded the fair cyclennes. Bouquets, college yells, baseball phrases and individual bon-mots added to the gay sport. Encouraged by the encores of the great audience, the night’s racing was one continual series of brushes and sprints, and when at the close Miss Anderson again crossed the winning line, the air was rent with wild huzzas.
There was a sprint from the moment Anderson broke away in front. At the end of the 116th mile Glaw, who had been lying third, rushed out of the bunch and held it for 8 laps when Dottie assumed the lead. It was not until the 123rd mile that Allen cut loose, and what a scramble there was up and down the sides of the arena. Up went the hats in the air. They shrieked, yelled and whooped.
Just then someone sent in a magnificent bouquet which the pretty English girl carried in triumph about the course while the bleachers sent out a new one. It ran like this:
“May, May, May,
What’s the matter with May?
She’s all right.
Who?
M-a-a-a-a-y-y-y!”
Then when Anderson’s bouquet was sent in, followed by one for Farnsworth, the ball commenced to roll. Farnsworth’s followers turned to the Allen crowd and yelled:
“Why, you’re not so warm.
Why’s hot? Who’s hot?
Dot, Dot, Dot.”
“Pin-n-n-n-g-g,” rang the starter’s pistol as the girls rounded into the home stretch.
The final spurt for the supremacy was on.
On they flew.
Swis-s-s-h-h—Whir-r-r-l-l!
Faster and faster grew the pace.
For a moment the excited assemblage sat with beating hearts and bated breath.
First it was Glaw.
Then Anderson.
Suddenly there burst from the mighty crowd a startled cheer.
And another.
Then Bedlam broke loose.
To their feet they went. On the chairs—the railings.
Deafening were the wild huzzas of the now semi-maddened spectators.
Another lap!
On flew the gallant Swede lassie with Glaw at her wheel.
Heads down, teeth clenched and muscles set—fighting the battle of their lives.
Cras-s-s-h-h—CRASH!
All is silence.
“They’re down!”
And the multitude stands transfixed.
Glaw—and Dottie.
The race has ended.
“Anderson wins.”
Although the weather was far from propitious last Saturday night, the great coliseum was jammed from door to door to witness the closing sights and scenes of the female bicycle races. The crowd was a liberal one and bestowed their favors equally upon the fair contestants.
It was another Glaw night and the pretty German girl gamely responded to the words of encouragement from her many admirers, yet she was unable to defeat her most worthy competitor, Miss Anderson, who rode a remarkable race all the way. Ever since the opening night Anderson has been in the van; forced the fighting and set the pace, so her victory is all the more remarkable.
The surprise of the evening was the admirable finish of Miss Allen, who put up one of the snappiest spurts of the week. Miss Helen Baldwin, who was unable to ride, witnessed the finish from The Dispatch box. Now and then would she lean over the railing and whisper words of encouragement to Allen as she flitted past the timer’s stand, which had a rejuvenating effect and was heartily relished by the spectators. Miss Allen has all along been at a disadvantage owing to the fact that the wheel she rides does not fit her and [her] pedals are too low, so her superb brushes were a surprise to all.
The races have been the biggest kind of a success and the management and riders have won a host of well-wishers in Columbus for the manner in which the sport has been rendered. It was clean and snappy all the way. The audience took kindly to the events and signified their pleasure by attending in vast numbers during the entire week, and should the management decide to play a return date in this city, the great rink will not hold the people who seek admittance. It was the greatest cycling craze the city has ever known.
Salvatore also interviewed Messier, Benedict, and Smiley. Messier he called “a walking encyclopedia of athletic records” and the world’s leading builder of board tracks.8 Manager Benedict was well pleased with the reception he and the racers had experienced in Columbus: “I’ve heard so much about this city and her cold sports,” he said, “that at first I was a bit timid, but when I saw that opening night, with the rain and sleet teeming down, and we nearly had to turn them away. . . . Satisfied? We are more than pleased, and it is more than likely we shall play a return date here as soon as we fill a few eastern engagements which we now have booked.”9
Press Agent Smiley revealed how the ladies earned their living. Each rider, he said, drew a regular salary by representing a particular cycling firm: Helen Baldwin rode a Napoleon, May Allen a White Flyer, Dottie Farnsworth a Dayton, Lizzie Glaw a Cleveland, and Tillie Anderson a Thistle. “The prizes they win are usually duplicated by the house they represent,” Smiley explained. “If Farnsworth wins this race, for instance, and receives the first money, that purse is doubled by the Dayton company. In this way, the girls are always out for the big end of the money.” The cash prizes advertised by management, he insisted, were genuine, as were the smaller prizes hung up for century marks and each nightly sprint to the tape. “This further encourages the girls,” he said, “and rest assured the sport never lags from the time the pistol is snapped until the end of the race.”10
Smiley believed the manufacturers’ investment in the races paid off, as bicycle sales increased in every city they visited. “I’ve never known it to fail,” he said. “The bloomer girl is here and she’s as much a fixture as any other legitimate sport. . . . You will notice a wonderful reversion in cycling styles in all cities where these races have been given. Some towns are prosy of course, but the world is travelling at a smarter gait now, you know, and to stand still is but to recede.”11