UCLA Fowler Museum guest curator David Herlihy will describe the lives and adventures of 19th Century bicycle pioneers William L. Sachtleben and Thomas G. Allen Jr. on Sunday, Jan. 11 at 3 p.m. His presentation, "The Sachtleben Collection: The Back Story," will expand upon the Fowler exhibit about them, Round Trip: Bicycling Asia Minor, 1891, which runs through April 5.
Herlihy will draw upon his research on the two young Americans who set off in 1890 to circle the globe on new-fangled “safety” bicycles. Three years later, after pedaling some 18,000 miles on three continents, their harrowing tales of adventure made them international celebrities (“the greatest travelers since Marco Polo,” by one glowing account). Their timely championing of the bicycle helped to spark the great bike boom of the mid-1890s, which would transform cycling from an elitist, male-dominated pastime into a wildly popular means of recreation and transportation for all.
Along the way, Sachtleben and Allen chronicled their adventures with two novel compact Kodak film cameras, heralding a new “democratic” era for photography as well. The Fowler exhibit features 42 circular black-and-white photographs taken by the cyclists and reproduced from recently scanned negatives held by the UCLA Library Special Collections. The images track a year on the road between Athens, Greece, and Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and their accompanying captions are based on Sachtleben’s meticulous notes, written on the envelopes that contained each original negative.
Herlihy is author of "Bicycle: The History" and "Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and His Mysterious Disappearance." A book signing will follow the event, which is free. Find more information at the Fowler Museum.
