10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17484
application/pdf
2038-3460
17484
2
en
Charlotte Hagström
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Kat Jungnickel, Bikes and Bloomers. Victorian Women Inventors and Their Extraordinary Cycle Wear, MIT Press, 2018
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
11
Book Reviews
2021-03-09
2023-06-27
2021-03-09
2023-10-16
143-146
TS
Charlotte Hagström
2020
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17484
143
Lund University
2038-3460
2
en
146
Kat Jungnickel, Bikes and Bloomers. Victorian Women Inventors and Their Extraordinary Cycle Wear, MIT Press, 2018
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17484/16331
11
Book Review                                                              143
   Kat Jungnickel
Bikes and Bloomers. Victorian Women Inventors and Their Extraordinary
Cycle Wear, Cambridge, MA, the MIT Press, 2018, pp. 323

Charlotte Hagström Lund University

    In the late 1800s, a cycle craze swept across Britain. The bicycle became
the new means of getting about for the middle and upper classes, men as
well as women. While there were very few concerns as to the suitability of
this activity for men, for women who took up cycling, their new activity
was deemed problematic, on several accounts. There were strong social
norms in place around mobility and the (in)appropriateness of women ap-
pearing in public. Medical beliefs of the alleged weakness of the female
body prevailed, and, there was the “dress problem”. A woman striding a
bike in men’s wear was unthinkable. Riding a bicycle in long skirts was of
course both difficult and dangerous. But, the alternative, that is, to simply
removing them and wearing trousers was definitely out of the question.
The clothes thus had to be adapted and adjusted to meet the needs of rid-
ers, while at the same time respecting the notions of what was considered
proper clothing for a respectable woman.
    This required creative and innovative thinking and actually resulted in
various patterns and designs being created by women, for women. Many
of the ideas were patented. But who were these inventors and how did they
come up with their designs? What motivated them and how were they and
their inventions regarded? What can patents for cycle wear from the late
1800’s tell us about mobility, technology and women’s positions and pos-
sibilities? In her highly interesting and captivating book, Kat Jungnickel
traces some of the women behind these inventions. By combining materials
found in archives with ethnographic insights gained from actually making
dresses from these patterns, she sheds light on a hitherto neglected area.
    At first, I have to admit, the prospect of reading a study of patents did
not really spark my interest. But, very soon I realized this was neither dull
nor dry. On the contrary, it was exciting and, as Jungnickel notes, it helped
me get closer to the women of the era as I could hear their voices and see
significant sides of society through their eyes.
    In one article on strategies for gendering design, Maja van der Velden
and Christina Mörtberg (2012) discuss and demonstrate the intricate con-
nections between gender, design and material objects. Similarly, in a study
on Philips electric shavers Ellen van Oost (2003) shows how shavers con-
figure the users’ femininity and masculinity. Patents, as Jungnickel’s book
convincingly shows, prove to be excellent sources for exploring the close
ties between design and gender. As they constitute both social and tech-
nical data, patents “reveal how the politics of mobility and ideas around
144                                                         Tecnoscienza – 11 (2)

gender, citizenship and public space have been debated, imagined and ma-
terialised onto bodies over time” (p. 5). As the focus is on patents of cycle
wear this becomes even more revealing, since it very clearly highlights the
relationships between the physical body, technology, society and public
space. Cycle wear both enables and constrains mobility for women.
    The book is divided into three parts. In the first one, which consists of
five chapters, the author explores cycling in Victorian Britain, the emer-
gence of the Lady Cyclist and the “Dress Problem”. As mentioned, the
various creative solutions to this problem led to a number of inventions
and patents. Important in this context is that in the1890s, the patenting
process was changed and thus it became possible for new groups of inven-
tors, among them women, to claim their inventions. At the same time, bi-
cycling became fashionable with the middleclass. This led to a rapid
growth of the production of cycle-related paraphernalia and apparel. One
of many examples is “the Pneumatic Tube Coil” – hairstyle, promoted as
the “latest novelty” for mobile women, which appeared in advertisements
in 1897. The popularization of cycling also led to an intensification of pa-
tent applications. In the year that patent applications rose to 30958, as
many as 6000 were cycling-related.
    Moving to the second part of the book we get to know some of the
inventors of the time. In five chapters, the lives and histories of six women,
two of them sisters working together, are presented. One of them is Alice
Bygrave, a London-based dressmaker and the woman behind the “Bygrave
Convertible Skirt”. With the help of archival records, census-aggregate
data and patents, contemporary journals and newspapers such as Bicycling
News and Pall Mall Gazette, Jungnickel paints a picture of a successful
entrepreneur. Alice Bygrave travelled to New York to promote her skirt
and get it patented; the skirt was appreciated by the highly popular Stanley
Cycle show, and it was praised in Australia. She was not the only inventor
in the family though; her father, who was a watch- and clockmaker, was an
avid cyclist with a keen interest in bicycle design and he held several pa-
tents. In 1894, the year before Alice’s patent, he submitted a patent for
“Improvements in Cycle Saddle Springs”. Jungnickel speculates that father
and daughter might have spent time talking about ideas and making mod-
els. His experience with the patent process may have helped her become
familiar with the application process.
    There were also professional cyclists in the family; one of her younger
brothers and his wife were both racing cyclists. Rosina Lane, as was her
sister-in-law’s racing name, was a successful cyclist. In several photographs,
she can be seen wearing the “Bygrave Convertible Skirt”. Though Alice
Bygrave appears as to have been a both talented and industrious business
woman, Jungnickel emphasises the importance of not forgetting the col-
laborative work that that seem to have gone into her creations. “Piecing
together Alice’s story”, she writes, “reveals a diverse range of influences
that helped her shape her creative endeavours” (p. 154). The exploration
Book Review                                                                 145
of Alice Bygrave’s life and invention ends with a section called “Interview-
ing the ‘Bygrave Convertible Skirt’” which accounts for how Jungnickel
and her collaborators set about making the skirt. Following the step-by-
step instructions provided by the patent, turned out to be quite difficult
and raised many questions. But it also becomes obvious how: “the skirt
operates like a timepiece. There are clear parallels between her invention
and her family’s watch- and clockmaking influences” (p. 154). This is
knowledge that could have been gained only through the researchers’ prac-
tical engagement with the patent.
    The chapters that follow are structured in the same way and centre
around other inventors and their patents. Some designers made cycle wear
that would conceal and understate while others did the opposite: their
dresses were designed to stand out. This shows how important it is, as
Wiebe E. Bijker states in Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs (1995), to
“never take the meaning of a technical artefact or technological system as
residing in the technology itself”. Instead, we “must study how technolo-
gies are shaped and acquire their meanings in the heterogeneity of social
interactions” (p. 6).
    As genealogists are well aware, it is always easier to follow the extraor-
dinary or the people of ill-repute. Tracing an ordinary and law-abiding in-
dividual is much harder, as she leaves few traces in the archives. This is the
case for Julia Gill, the woman behind patent no. 6794: “A Cycling costume
for Ladies”. There were several women with this name and which one of
them designed the convertible cycling semi-skirt is not clear. As Jungnickel
points out, we can never fully know the past. But we can test various pos-
sible scenarios and see what emerges. Julia Gill self-identifies as a court
dressmaker, which means she made clothing for high-society women to
wear for special occasions. Jungnickel discusses how cycling became fash-
ionable among upper class women, which meant they also needed to in-
clude cycle wear in their wardrobe planning. The section ends, like the
others in this part of the book, with focusing on the inventor as Jungnickel
and her team sew the skirt. “On paper this garment looks socially possible,
but in material, it reveals itself as very risky!” (p. 180). The third and final
part of the book is a conclusion, which is about the politics of patenting.
This is followed by a list of British Cycle Wear Patents 1890-1900.
    To conclude, Bikes and Bloomers proved to be one of the most exciting
books I have read in a long time. Interesting and well written, it adds a lot
of new knowledge to the fields of both the history of bicycling and of fash-
ion and design, and to Science and Technology Studies. It is a fascinating
“account of cycling, sewing and suffrage” (p. 6) and the arguments are
strong, substantiated by the use of various materials and sources. Jung-
nickel’s combination of methods works very well and the procedure of ac-
tually making and wearing the skirts clearly deepens my understanding of
both the idea behind the invention and its applicability. Located in the
theoretical framework of feminist and science technology studies it is also
146                                                          Tecnoscienza – 11 (2)

a feminist reclamation project. Jungnickel wants to render the inventors
and their stories visible, arguing that “Learning about past lives invites us
to reflect on our own” (p. 9). Because what women wear while cycling, still
matters.

References
Bijker, W.E. (1995) Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs. Toward a Theory of Soci-
        otechnical Change, Cambridge MA, MIT Press.
van der Velden, M. and Mörtberg, C. (2012) Between Need and Desire: Exploring
       Strategies for Gendering Design, in “Science, Technology, and Human
       Vaues”, 37(6), pp. 663-683.
van Oost, Ellen (2003) Materialized Gender: How Shavers Configure the Users’
      Femininity and Masculinity. In N. Oudshoorn and T. Pinch (eds.), How
      Users Matter. The Co-Construction of Users and Technologies, Cambridge
      MA, MIT Press, pp. 193-208.



                                     ***
   Christopher M. Kelty
The Participant -- A Century of Participation in Four Stories, Chicago and
London, University of Chicago Press, 2020, pp. 344

Giacomo Poderi IT University of Copenhagen

    Christopher Kelty is an anthropologist and historian who has dedicated
the last couple of decades of his scholarly work to study, discuss, and un-
derstand participation. The Participant stands apart from his previous
works as it shifts the focus away from grassroots or domain specific forms
of participation with their localized practices, cultures, politics, and infra-
structures. Indeed, the book encompasses a far-reaching aim. Its starting
point is that participation has increasingly become associated to decision-
making and political processes. The aim of the book is to investigate the
genealogy of participation pertaining to the last century of US and EU so-
cieties, and therefore to identify both the particularities and “the singular-
ity of participation, not just its variations.” (p. 6). The book goes beyond
the usual questions about “participation in what?” or “why do we partici-
pate?” and it focuses on the thought-provoking one about whether it is
possible to participate in participation. As such, the contribution of the
book is ambitious and, admittedly, unique in its scope, finding its place
along those few that try to question participation in fields such as, for in-
stance, media and cultural studies (Barney et al. 2016) and participatory
