Presentation given a the 27th Annual International Cycling History Conference in New Haven, CT. The American bicycle boom of the 1890s had wide-ranging social and economic impacts. Religious institutions had to contend with this new disruptive technology. Some clergymen thought the bicycle was the work of the devil, while others embraced it as a tool for evangelism.

1. “THE CHURCH OR THE
WHEEL?”
RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS
CONTEND WITH THE
AMERICAN BICYCLE BOOM
CHRIS SWEET
ILLINOIS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY
2016 INTERNATIONAL CYCLING HISTORY CONFERENCE

2. The preacher spoke of little things
Their influence and power.
And how the little pitted speck
Made all the apple sour
He told how great big sturdy oaks
From little acorns grew
And how the tiny little stone
The burly giant slew
But the cyclist sat there
unimpressed
By all the speaker's fire
Until he went outside and found
A pin had pierced his tire
The Bards and the Bicycle, ed Edmond Redmond, 1897

3. They are deaf even to such appeals as that
of the New Haven clergyman who drew a
terrifying picture of long columns of
Sunday bicycle riders rolling swiftly and
helplessly -without brakes, of course-
down a glittering hill to a “place where
there is no mud on the streets because of
its high temperature.”
The Forum, v. 21, 1896, 682-683

4. THESIS
The earliest bicycle riders in America did not pose
any real threat to religious institutions. It wasn’t until
the safety bicycle boom that churches were really
forced to contend with the bicycle. Many clergymen
came to believe the bicycle was the work of the devil
since it caused people to desecrate the Sabbath.
Others recognized the bicycle as a useful tool for
evangelism and attracting young people to the church.

5. BEFORE THE SAFETY BOOM
• 20th ICHC, Professor Kevin J. Hayes delivered a paper
entitled Pedaling Preachers: Clergymen and the
Acceptance of the Bicycle, 1881-1887
• 1882-1883 Wheelman Pope solicited and then
published 15 articles on the use of the bicycle by
clergymen.
• The Clerical Wheelmen’s Tours (1885, 1886)
• Before the boom bicycles were used by a few
clergymen and parishioners, but caused little debate.

6. SOME HISTORICAL CONTEXT
• Large scale industrialization
• Rural to urban migration and associated concerns about city dwelling
• Development of large corporations led to an accumulation of enormous wealth on the
one hand (Gilded Age) and an aggregation of a vast laboring force on the other.
• Rise of these corporations created mid-level sedentary office jobs that did not provide
the same opportunity for exercise as farm or factory work.
• Strikes, lockouts, boycotts, and riots often pitted working-class immigrants versus
“civilized” white managers and directors.
• Progressive Era reformers endorsed artificial exercise, outdoor camping, and other
methods of strengthening America's upper and middle classes.

7. MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY CONTEXT
• 1861 “The least of the muscular Christians has hold of the old chivalrous and
Christian belief, that a man’s body is given him to be trained and brought into
subjection, and then used for the protection of the weak, the advancement of
all righteous causes, and the subduing of the earth which God has given to the
children of men”
-Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, London: Macmillan, 1861, p. 83.
• Four characteristics of muscular Christianity were: manliness, morality,
health, and patriotism.
• Muscular Christianity was popular among American Protestants of all
denominations between 1880-1920
• Muscular Christian believed the church has become overly tolerant of
physical weakness and effeminacy

8. MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY CONT’D
“…muscular Christianity laid stress on the importance of
having a muscular, "preindustrial" body. This body,
however, was not simply meant to do preindustrial
chores such as hunting and farming; it had a higher
purpose. Instead of just being a tool for labor, the body
was viewed by muscular Christians as a tool for good, an
agent to be used On behalf of social progress and world
uplift.”
-Clifford Putney, Muscular Christianity, p. 6

9. AGAINST THE WHEEL
•Primary religious objections to cycling:
• In an era of 6-day work weeks, cyclists were
desecrating the Sabbath by skipping church
services on Sunday to go for a ride
• Sabbath was to be a day of rest
• Some claimed that cycling led to increased
drinking

10. AGAINST THE WHEEL
• Rev. David Beaton (Unity Church, Dearborn, IL)
• “No greater crime against civilization can be committed than the action of bicycle
clubs to hold meets, parades, races, and other sports on Sunday. It is a question of
health and civic virtue. For to trample upon the religious use of Sunday as a day of
rest and worship is to poison the lifeblood of our American civilization.”
-Chicago Tribune, June 17, 1895
• Epworth League (Methodist Young Adult Association)
• 700 members of the Epworth League were enlisted against Sunday cycling.
Solemnly the young people stood, raised their right hands and swore, "I promise
that I will not ride my wheel on the Sabbath, only as it will honor my Master, and as
I believe he would like to have me do. I also promise to exert all possible influence
to discourage others in the use of the Sunday wheel.“
-Robert Smith, A Social History of the Bicycle, 71-75

11. AGAINST THE WHEEL
•“Rev. F. M. Johnson, of Rockford, Illinois, is in
trouble. He bought a bicycle and learned to
ride it. One of his trustees remonstrated with
him, but the pastor claimed the inalienable
right to find happiness on a wheel and the
trustee resigned, a number of the members
going with him. Probably the disgruntled
prefer that he should ride the foal of an ass.”
-Sandusky Register Oct. 31, 1894

12. DWIGHT MOODY (MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE)
• 1856 Moves to Chicago (shoe salesman!)
• 1865-1869 president of the Chicago Y. M. C. A.
• Later 1800’s foremost American Evangelist (urban revivalism)
• Founded Northfield schools, Moody Bible Institute, Moody Press
• Spoke against the bicycle in multiple sermons and interviews:
• “I don't believe any one can see the vast throng of young men in our
cities — and I am sorry to say, bad women, too — on their bicycles
going off into the country and fields and woods to spend the Sabbath,
and trampling the law of God into the dust, filling their pockets with
Sunday newspapers — and these are their bibles — it wouldn't have
been tolerated a few years ago!”
-Works of Dwight L. Moody, V.14 Moody’s Latest Sermons, p. 117-118

13. ONE MORE AGAINST
“These bladder-wheeled bicycles are diabolical devices of the
demon of darkness. They are contrivances to trap the feet of
the unwary and skin the nose of the innocent. They are full of
guile and deceit. When you think you have broken one to
ride and subdued its wild and Satanic nature, behold it
bucketh you off in the road and teareth a great hole in your
pants. Look not on the bike when it bloweth up its wheels,
for at last it bucketh like a bronco and hurteth like thunder.
Who has skinned legs? Who has a bloody nose? Who has
ripped breeches? They that dally along with the bicycle.”
(Minneapolis Tribune, Jan. 11, 1896, p. 5, cited in Smith, 2)

14. THE BICYCLE AND THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• France Willard, founder Women's Christian Temperance Union
(1874)
• Wheel within a Wheel (1895):
• So as a temperance reformer I always felt a strong attraction
toward the bicycle, because it is the vehicle of so much harmless
pleasure, and because the skill required in handling it obliges
those who mount to keep clear heads and steady hands. (p. 13)
Willard’s bicycle
“Gladys” an Imperial
Rover.

15. AMERICAN TEMPERANCE LIFE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION
“Any clergyman who will secure
twenty new members for
American Temperance Life
Insurance Association between
now and the 31st day of January
next may have a high grade
Columbia Bicycle as an absolutely
free gift.”
- Homiletic Review, vol. 30, 1895, 182

16. FOR THE WHEEL

17. REV. JENKIN LLOYD JONES, CHICAGO
• Chicago Tribune, April 16, 1896
• Invited parishioners to ride their
bicycles to church with valet bicycle
parking in the church basement!
• “[B]y all means let the phrase ‘The
church or the wheel’ be made
pointless by the unanimous
indorsement of ‘The church and the
wheel.’”

19. • “If men and women will ride on Sunday why not invite them
to ride to church and provide a place for their machines?
Why not allow them to stack their wheels in the lecture
room or build a shed for bicycles as the country church
provides a shelter for horses and carriages? People living at
a distance might thus be induced to come to church who
otherwise would certainly stay away. Surely riding a bicycle
to church is not a sin. It is a saintly procedure compared
with riding on horse cars and elevated railroad trains for
these forms of travel necessitate the labour of drivers
conductors and brakemen and prevent their attending
divine service.”
• Rev. John Scudder, The Young Man, Volume 8, 1894, 288.

20. BICYCLES AND EVANGELISM
A clergyman who has kept horses for years states that a single
horse and carriage can not be kept up in order for a series of
years, and in the country too, for a less sum than $150 per year,
and my experience confirms the truth of the statement. While to
keep the bicycle in proper running condition, with ordinary
care, need not cost $25 for the ten years, against $1,500 for the
horse and carriage.
-A.O. Downs, Wheelman, V.1 1882-1883, p. 219

21. MORRILL TWINS: SINGING AND
EVANGELIZING PREACHERS
• Identical Twins
• Rode bicycles as a way to reach more people
and attract people to their revivals
• “The Rev, Morrill Twins,” the evangelists,
probably attract more attention when they go
forth on their wheels than any other of
Chicago’s great army of bicycle riders.
Wherever they go on their “bike” people line
the streets to watch them pass by; wherever
they stop is a crowd. It is rather unusual to see
two men in silk hats, Prince Albert coats, and
looking as much alike as two peas in the pod…”
• -The Daily Republican (Monongahela, Pennsylvania) · Mon, Aug 12, 1895 · Page 2

22. SALVATION ARMY BICYCLE BRIGADES
General William Booth, founder of the Salvation
Army:
“Prejudice sometimes tells us, ‘You never saw Christ
on a wheel.’ But neither did you hear of him speaking
through a telephone. The opportunities of today are
wide and God-given, and we should be blind indeed
if we failed to recognize and seize the greater
facilities they give our holy fight.”
(Taylor, Rapid Transit to Salvation, p.357)
Salvation Army had multiple bicycle brigades in the
early 1890s

23. SALVATION ARMY BICYCLE BRIGADES
A special line of bicycles at reduced rates was advertised in
The War Cry. The men’s model was named “The General”
after General William Booth, the Salvation Army’s founder.
There was also a ladies’ wheel, “very light” but “one of the
strongest manufactured.” Women, in fact, were
enthusiastic participants in the bicycle corps. General
Booth’s own daughter, Evangeline Booth, was at the
forefront of the campaign.
-Michael Taylor, Rapid Transit to Salvation, p. 363
Bicycles reduced the travel costs of the Salvation Army
evangelism efforts and added an element of novelty to
their traveling brigades.

24. ADVERTISING TO CLERGY
1891
1887
• Intentional strategy to legitimize bicycle riding.

25. GOOD ROADS
What do Good Roads have to do with religion and bicycles?
1892 Catholic World editorial: “Good roads are good civilizers, because they facilitate
the intermingling of the people, and the consequent interchange of ideas. Moreover,
good roads are an aid to religious advancement, enabling people to attend religious
services with greater facility.”
“It might be unsafe to say that ‘wherever the roads are good the morals are good,’ or
that bad roads are a sure indication of bad morals among the people who live beside
them. There would, however, be little risk in assuming that excellent highways are
conducive to right living and to intelligent regard for the best that enlightened life
affords. A tour into any of our mountain regions, where excellent thoroughfares are
next to impossible of construction, will disclose the fact that without good roads it is
hard to import enlightenment.”
-“Good Roads and Good Morals,” Chautauquan 24 (Dec. 1896): 345–46

26. SOME CONCLUSIONS
The bicycle boom forced American churches to once again contend
with technological progress.
With the rise of leisure time and the advent of professional sports
churches had to decide whether to embrace sports or shun them.
The muscular Christianity philosophy clearly advocated for
embracing sports.
The controversy between bicycle riders and churches was short-
lived, mostly ending by 1900.
Some vestiges of this controversy remain such as the Fellowship of
Christian Athletes (1954).

27. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF?
“During the last two years a motor bicycle has been doing service and
the writer is frank so say that with it he can cover a much larger
district reach more people and do it quicker and easier than is
possible with the bicycle…I find that about three calls can be made
with the motor cycle to one in the ordinary way. This means that with
the motor bicycle a much larger flock can be shepherded and that
more effectually than would otherwise be possible.”

28. IMPORTANT SECONDARY SOURCES
• Smith, Robert A. 1972. A social history of the bicycle, its early
life and times in America. New York: American Heritage
Press
• Taylor, Michael. "Rapid Transit to Salvation: American
Protestants and the Bicycle in the Era of the Cycling
Craze." The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 9,
no. 3 (2010): 337-63.
• (Primary sources listed in the slides)