New Books In Sports

Today we are joined by Roger Gilles, Director of the Honors College and Professor of Writing at Grand Valley State University, and author of Women on the Move: The Forgotten Era of Women’s Bicycle Racing (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). In our conversation, we discussed the rise of women’s velodrome racing in the American Midwest in the 1890s, the business of six-day cycling, and the gender politics of women’s racing. In Women on the Move, Gilles recovers the history of women’s cycle racing in the 1890s. Female scorchers like Tillie “The Terrible Swede” Anderson, Lizzie Glaw, and Dottie Farnsworth barnstormed across the Midwest from Oklahoma City to Pittsburgh. Their sport proved to be popular, even more so than men’s endurance six-day events. They raced on steeply banked short tracks, pedalled at speeds up to 30 miles per hour, braved severe injuries from crashes, dealt with wardrobe malfunctions, and won enormous prizes. They were America’s first famous female athletes. Gilles’ work traces the intersec