Annie Londonderry
Annie Cohen Kopchovsky (1870 – 11 November 1947),[1] known as Annie Londonderry, was a Jewish Latvian immigrant to the United States who in 1894–95 became the first woman to bicycle around the world. After having completed her travel, albeit mostly by ship, she built a media career around engagement with popular conception of what it was to be female.[2][3][4]
Early life and marriage
Annie Cohen was born in Latvia[2] to Levi (Leib) and Beatrice (Basha) Cohen.[5] She had two older siblings, Sarah and Bennett.[6] Her family moved to the United States in 1875[6] and she became a citizen as a child,[2] only four or five years old.[7]
They settled in
In 1888 Annie Cohen married Simon "Max" Kopchovsky, a peddler.[6] They had three children in the next four years:[2] Bertha Malkie (Mollie), Libbie, and Simon. Her brother Bennett married Bertha, and they had two children. Her brother Jacob died of a lung infection at age 17.[6] Max, a devout Orthodox Jew, attended synagogue and studied the Torah, while Annie sold advertising space for several daily Boston newspapers.[7][6]
Trip around the world
The wager
The inspiration for betting (or falsely claiming there was a bet) on a bicycle journey around the world likely came from a former
Londonderry's great-grand nephew and author of the authoritative history of her journey, Peter Zheutlin, has stated that "It's virtually certain, for example, that she concocted the wager story to sensationalize her trip".
Annie Kopchovsky was a highly unlikely choice for the completion of this wager, starting with her name, which identified her as a Jew in a city and country where anti-Semitism was widespread. She lacked the experience, never having ridden a bicycle until a few days before her trip, and had a slight build, only 5 foot 3, about 100 pounds. In addition, she was a married woman and a mother of three children, ages five, three, and two.[3]
Sponsorships were crucial to financing the enterprise and the publicity surrounding it. Her 42-pound Columbia women's bike carried a placard attached to the rear wheel that advertised New Hampshire's Londonderry Lithia Spring Water Company, for which the company paid her $100 and she in turn agreed to go by the name "Annie Londonderry" for the duration of her trip.[2]
Setting out
On June 27, 1894, at about 11 o'clock in the morning, Londonderry set off from the
When she arrived in Chicago on September 24, she had lost 20 pounds[2] and the desire to continue. Winter was coming, and she realized she could not make it across the mountains to San Francisco before snow started to fall. Prior to leaving Chicago to ride home to Boston, she met with Sterling Cycle Works, whose offices and factory were located on Carroll Avenue.[6]
Europe and Asia
With the change in dress and bicycle, Londonderry was determined to complete her world trip, even though she only had eleven months to make it back to Chicago. She followed her route back to New York City, and on November 24, 1894, she boarded the French liner La Touraine, destined for Le Havre on France's north coast. She arrived on December 3[3] and became wrapped up in bureaucracy. Her bike was confiscated by custom officials, her money was taken, and the French press wrote insulting articles about her appearance.[2] She managed to free herself and rode from Paris to Marseille. Despite being held up by bad weather, she arrived in two weeks by cycling and train[2] with one foot bandaged and propped up on her handlebars[6] due to an injury on the road.
Londonderry left Marseille on the 413-foot steamship Sydney.
Return to the United States
On March 9, 1895, Londonderry sailed from
The
On September 12, 1895, Londonderry arrived in Chicago, accompanied by two cyclists she had met in Clinton, Iowa,[3] and collected her $10,000 prize.[11] She had made it around the world fourteen days under allowed time.[14] She was back home in Boston on September 24, arriving fifteen months after she had left. When she published an account of her exploits in the New York World on October 20, 1895, the newspaper headline described it as "the Most Extraordinary Journey Ever Undertaken by a Woman".[6] Despite criticism that she traveled more "with" a bicycle than on one, she proved a formidable cyclist at impromptu local races en route across America.
Entrepreneurship
Londonderry was a brilliant saleswoman and an exceptional storyteller, raising all of the money and attracting the media attention necessary for her trip to be a success. Her main income was from selling advertising space on her bike and person,[2] hanging ribbons and signs for products ranging from bicycle tires to perfume. Her first sponsor was the Londonderry Lithia Spring Water Company of New Hampshire,[15] which paid her $100 to carry a placard on her bike with its company name and to use the name "Annie Londonderry" throughout her trip.[2] In Chicago, she received sponsorship from Sterling Cycle Company for promotion of its products[7] when she swapped her bulky Columbia for the faster and lighter Sterling Roadster.[16]
During her travels, she gave lectures about her adventures, often exaggerating her exploits. These enthralled the media and boosted her popularity. For instance, in France she described herself as an orphan, wealthy heiress, a
After the trip, she accepted an offer to write about her adventures as the "New Woman" and moved her family to Bronx, New York City, where Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper, The World, hired her to write, as "Nellie Bly, Jr."[17][2] An article began "I am a journalist and a 'new woman,' if that term means that I believe I can do anything that any man can do."[3]
After reuniting with her husband, Annie became pregnant and her brief stint as a reporter ended.[17]
She had a child in 1897.[18] She left again, living in northern California.[18] She returned, living with her husband in the Bronx, New York, operating a clothing business.[18] In the 1920s, the business was burned and, Kopchovsky used the insurance money to start Grace Strap & Novelty in Manhattan, "with a man named Feldman she met at a Horn & Hardart restaurant."[18]
Death
Kopchovsky died of a stroke Nov. 11, 1947, she was 77 years old.[18][11]
Legacy
In 2007 Peter Zheutlin, her great-nephew, published Around the World on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry's Extraordinary Ride.
In 2011, Evalyn Parry premiered SPIN, her bicycle-themed performance piece that includes a song about Londonderry ("The Ballad of Annie Londonderry"), and presented it on tour in Canada and the US.[19][20]
In 2013, Gillian Klempner Willman of Spokeswoman Productions wrote, directed and produced a 26-minute documentary film titled The New Woman - Annie "Londonderry" Kopchovsky.[21] It premiered in February 2013 at the DC Independent Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Documentary.[22]
In November 2019, Londonderry was featured in an obituary in The New York Times, as part of their "Overlooked" series.[23]
In August 2022, RIDE, a new musical based on Annie Londonderry's cycle by Freya Catrin Smith and Jack Williams, starring Liv Andrusier and Yuki Sutton, debuted at the
Timeline of the trip
Her trip proceeded according to this timeline:[3] [No dates specified for cities except for those given below]
- June 25, 1894 - Boston, Massachusetts
- September 24, 1894 - Chicago, Illinois
- Same route back to New York City
November 24, 1894 - New York City, New York
- December 3, 1894 - Le Havre, France
- Paris, France
- Lyon and Valence, France
- Marseille, France
- Alexandria and Port Said, Egypt
- Jerusalem, Palestine
- Aden, Yemen
- Colombo, Sri Lanka
- Singapore
- Saigon, Vietnam
- Port Arthur, China
- Korea to Vladivostok, Russia (unconfirmed)
- March 9, 1895 - Nagasaki and Yokohama, Japan
- March 23, 1895 - San Francisco, California
- Mark Johnson, a cyclist from the San Francisco Olympic Club accompanied her to Los Angeles, taking five weeks to ride the 650km.[25]
- Mark Johnson, a cyclist from the
- 12 April 1895 — Stockton, California[26]
- 19 April 1895 —San Jose, California[26]
- 2 May 1895 — Paso Robles, California[26]
- 15 May 1895 — Santa Barbara, California[26]
- Los Angeles, California
- San Bernardino, California
- Riverside, California
- Indio, California
- Yuma, Arizona
- Phoenix, Arizona
- Tucson, Arizona
- Deming, New Mexico
- El Paso, Texas
- Albuquerque, New Mexico
- Santa Fe, New Mexico
- Las Vegas, New Mexico
- Raton, New Mexico
- Raton Pass
- Trinidad, Colorado
- La Junta, Colorado
- Colorado Springs, Colorado
- August 12, 1895 - Denver, Colorado
- September 12, 1895 - Chicago, Illinois
- September 24, 1895 - Boston, Massachusetts
See also
- Cycling records
- Bicycling and feminism
- Elizabeth Robins Pennell, who wrote of her cycling tours around Europe in the 1880s
- Fanny Bullock Workman, who toured by bicycle in Europe, Algeria and India in the 1890s
- Frances Willard (suffragist)
- Laura Dekker
- Nellie Bly
- Thomas Stevens (cyclist)
References
- ^ Weber, Bruce (6 November 2019). "Annie Londonderry, Who Traveled the World by Bicycle". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Foulkes, Debbie (April 5, 2010). "Annie Kopchovsky Londonderry (1870? – 1947) Rode A Bicycle Around the World". Forgotten Newsmakers. Retrieved September 21, 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Zheutlin, Peter. "Chasing Annie: The Woman Who Changed My Life Was Brave, Cunning, Daring And Free -- And I Never Met Her" (PDF). Bicycling (May 2005): 64–69. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-03-27. Retrieved 2016-12-13.
- ^ Yoked, Tzach (August 15, 2021). "This unorthodox woman circumnavigated the World by bike 125 years ago". Ha'aretz. Archived from the original on August 13, 2022.
- ^ Lennon, Troy (2015-09-25). "The first woman to cycle around the world". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2020-02-04.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Zheutlin, Peter (2007). Around the World on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry's Extraordinary Ride. New York: Citadel.
- ^ a b c d e Macy, Sue (2011). Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (with a Few Flat Tires along the Way). Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Children's Books. pp. 67–69.
- ^ "Cycling Legends of the West End". West End Museum.
- ^ Sweeney, Emily (February 21, 2020). "How Two Boston Women Became Legends of the Sport of Cycling". Boston Globe.
- ^ "A Woman to Rival Paul Jones" (PDF). The New York Times. February 25, 1894. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
- ^ a b c d "First woman to cycle the globe begins journey". Jewish Women's Archive. 25 June 1894. Retrieved September 21, 2016.
- ^ Zheutlin, Peter (August 28, 2006). "Backstory: Chasing Annie Londonderry: Part 1". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved March 6, 2019.
- ^ "Mozart Hall, Stockton". Oscar Wilde In America.
- ^ "Miss Londonderry's Trip Ended" (PDF). The New York Times. September 25, 1895. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
- ^ Ward, Tom (March 18, 2022). "Annie Londonderry Barely Knew How to Ride a Bike When She Set Off Around the World". Atlas Obscura.
- ^ Green, David (June 24, 2013). "1894: Annie 'Londonberry' begins her bicycle journey around the world". Haaretz. Archived from the original on June 26, 2022.
- ^ a b "Annie Londonderry: Con Artist or Master of Inventing One's Self?". N. J. Mastro. September 5, 2021.
- ^ a b c d e Rasmussen, Patty (May 12, 2022). "Annie Londonderry Bicycled Around the World and Into the Record Books". How Stuff Works.
- ^ "SPIN". Evalyn Parry. Archived from the original on May 15, 2019. Retrieved October 7, 2013.
- ^ Nestruck, J. Kelly (March 17, 2011). "Spin: An ode to two-wheeling in time for spring". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
- ^ Burnett III, James H. (May 20, 2013). "Bike-themed festival kicks off with Boston woman's tale". Boston Globe. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
- ^ DC Independent Film Festival 2013 Winners. Accessed November 7, 2019.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-11-13.
- ^ "RIDE - A New Musical at Charing Cross Theatre".
- ^ Peters, Ed (February 27, 2021). "The fantastical adventures of Annie Londonderry, the 'first woman to cycle around the world'". South China Morning Post.
- ^ a b c d "Search: Annie Londonderry". California Digital Newspaper Collection.
Further reading
- Zheutlin, Peter (August 28, 2016). "Part 1. Backstory: Chasing Annie Londonderry". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
- Zheutlin, Peter (August 29, 2016). "Part 2. Backstory: Retracing Annie Londonderry's Victorian odyssey". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
External links
- Annie Londonderry in 1895, California Digital Newspaper Collection
- https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/annie-londonderry-cyclist-for-hire/
- https://wjudaism.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/wjudaism/article/download/3534/1591/5373
- https://www.adventurecycling.org/sites/default/assets/resources/20210501_Londonderry_Herlihy.pdf
- https://www.mummysgoneacycle.com/annie-londonderry/
- https://www.kveller.com/this-jewish-mom-was-the-first-woman-to-bike-around-the-world-in-1894/
- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/93531905/anna-l-kopchovsky
- Annie Londonderry .com
- A documentary film, The New Woman, Annie Londonderry Kopchovsky, by Gillian Willman
- https://whatshernamepodcast.com/annie-londonderry/