League of American Wheelmen - Washington Athletic Park - 9th and S Streets N.W. - “Rex Smith riding on one wheel standing in saddle” (photographer unknown - negative 6368), May 20 1884
Scope and Contents
The series consists of photographs of the Capital Bicycle Club and it’s members from 1882-1890. The series is arranged chronologically by date and event featuring both group and individual shots. Club members Clarence G. Allen, L. Warren Seely, Herbert S. “Bert” Owen, and Max Hansmann are prominently featured. The reverse of the photographs notes members, dates, locations, and specific activities. The 5th Annual League of American Wheelmen Races on May 20, 1884 and Herbert S. “Bert” Owen’s Birthday Run on May 7, 1888 were photographed heavily. The “Procession of the Sacred Cat” on February 22, 1887 features some very interesting photographs of club members in costume. Max Hansmann was the primary photographer for the club and applied the popular cyanotype development method to many of the photographs, which gives them a blue tint. Cyanotype photographs are noted in the folder description along with available corresponding negatives from the Washington, D.C. Historic Image Collection. The series also contains reproductions of the club’s original photographs by the Star newspaper for an article documenting the club’s history printed sometime in 1926, which include two mounted rotogravures. Rotogravure is an early photomechanical process of printing photographs in newspapers. A copy of the Star article can be found in the collection’s vertical file.
Dates
- Creation: May 20 1884
Creator
- From the Collection: Capital Bicycle Club (Organization)
Extent
From the Collection: 4 Linear feet
From the Collection: 10 Boxes
Language of Materials
From the Series: English
Repository Details
Part of the The People's Archive, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library Repository