Object Details
- Description
- The Pope Manufacturing Company made this Columbia Light Roadster model bicycle around 1888. The introduction of the safety bicycle with equal-sized wheels made Ordinary (or high-wheeler) less popular, and Pope introduced a safety model in 1888, and ceased production of the Ordinary in 1892. Albert A. Pope founded the Pope Manufacturing Company in the 1870s. The company was the first company to manufacture bicycles on American soil. Pope, who had previously exported bicycles from England, began building bicycles under the trade name "Columbia" in the Weed Sewing Machine Company's factory in Hartford Connecticut in 1879. By 1890, the company was so successful it purchased the factory from Weed because it needed all the space.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- date made
- 1888
- Credit Line
- Gift of A. E. Schaaf
- Object Name
- Bicycle, Ordinary
- Other Terms
- Bicycle, Ordinary; Road
