Read the excerpt from Chapter 4 of Wheels of Change.
Not surprisingly, Rinehart wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. In 1894, she testified at the annual conventional of the Colorado State Medical Society about the benefits of the divided skirt for female cyclists. “It is almost impossible for a lady to ride any distance . . . with the ordinary skirt,” she told the mostly male audience. “You get too much of the dress on one side of the wheel, and you do not get enough of the dress on the other side.” Rinehart’s success brought her a number of product endorsements, including Stearns bicycles, Samson tires, and the Rinehart Skirt, a divided skirt designed in her honor by a seamstress in Denver.
The quotations in this passage develop the central idea that the invention of the bicycle brought with it many changes, such as
new clothing options for competing women.
fierce competition among women cyclists.
feelings that women should not be racing.
laws that banned women from competing.