1890s Downtown 4th St. Santa Ana, CA.

               Pictures courtesy of Orange County Archives

This is a picture of downtown 4th Street Santa Ana, Ca. in the1890s. It is another restoration done in Photoshop by me. This captivating moment captured on film shows the mode of transportation; horse and buggy and the bicycle and of course the steam powered street car all in the same shot. The first thing I noticed in this picture was the woman on the bicycle, she reminded me of the wicked witch of the east in the Wizard of Oz., but further back is another woman on a bike too it was kind of neat seeing these women riding down a busy city street in full dress something you don’t see unless it’s an old picture from the late 1800s and early 1900s. But as my search continued for old Orange County pictures I started noticing bicycles, they seem to be in a lot of photos, I had stated in the last Blog bicycles were a big deal they were the new technology then; I know it seems weird but put yourself back about 110 to 120 years ago and all you would see is people on horses and riding in carriages and coaches, then you would see somebody go by on one of those new fangled safety bikes, you know the one’s with the rear wheel driven by a sprocket and chain that was Hi Tech then. Every cyclist should give thanks to Hans Renold for his wonderful gift, in 1887 he invented the twin roller chain and later that year the safety bicycle was born no more going over the bars (or wheel) and no more broken collar bones from riding those high wheeled velocipedes suddenly bicycles became high tech machinery.

In 1890 bicycles cost about $100.00; since most people made anywhere from $200.00 to $500.00 a year that was a very expensive item, but by 1900 the cost came down to about $50.00 for a very well made bike, the golden years for bicycles was from 1890 to about 1910 because very few automobiles were around at that time. Now what about these ladies riding bikes; well, women made up over one third of the sales of bicycles in the USA at that time, bicycles gave women the freedom of getting around without having to deal with horses and carriages unfortunately some women were arrested for riding bikes when they wore pants or shorts, such a sin! Women were a big part of the short lived golden era of bicycles in the USA.