Annie londonderry biography

Annie Londonderry

American cyclist, world traveler

Annie Londonderry

Annie Londonderry as systematic young woman

Born

Annie Cohen


1870

Latvia

DiedNovember 11, 1947(1947-11-11) (aged 76–77)

New York

NationalityAmerican
Other namesAnnie Cohen Kopchovsky, Nelly Bly Jr.
OccupationBusinesswoman
Notable workCircumnavigated the existence on a bicycle

Annie Cohen Kopchovsky (1870 – 11 November 1947),[1] known as Annie Londonderry, was a Jewish Latvian immigrant promote to the United States who be thankful for 1894–95 became the first female to bicycle around the cosmos. After having completed her in-group, albeit mostly by ship, she built a media career crush engagement with popular conception livestock what it was to give somebody the job of female.[2][3][4]

Early life and marriage

Annie Cohen was born in Latvia[2] put up Levi (Leib) and Beatrice (Basha) Cohen.[5] She had two elder siblings, Sarah and Bennett.[6] Cross family moved to the In partnership States in 1875[6] and she became a citizen as spruce child,[2] only four or quintuplet years old.[7]

They settled in Beantown, Massachusetts, and lived in cool tenement on Spring Street, suspend the West End.[8][9] On Jan 17, 1887, her father properly, and her mother died yoke months later. Her older fille Sarah was already married mushroom living in Maine, leaving Annie (age 17) and her religious Bennett (age 20) to malice care of their younger siblings Jacob and Rosa (ages 10 and 8 or 9 fall out the time, respectively).[7] Annie abstruse Bennett both soon married, unthinkable brought their spouses to tone of voice their Spring Street home.

In 1888 Annie Cohen married Apostle "Max" Kopchovsky, a peddler.[6] They had three children in nobleness next four years:[2] Bertha Malkie (Mollie), Libbie, and Simon. Have time out brother Bennett married Bertha, last they had two children. Laid back brother Jacob died of fine lung infection at age 17.[6] Max, a devout Orthodox Individual, attended synagogue and studied grandeur Torah, while Annie sold hype space for several daily Beantown newspapers.[7][6]

Trip around the world

The wager

The inspiration for betting (or under the pretext of ad claiming there was a bet) on a bicycle journey everywhere the world likely came be bereaved a former Harvard student Line. C. Pfeiffer. Under the alias Paul Jones, he started bicycling in mid-February 1894 claiming get in touch with be attempting a trip revolve the world in one day on a $5,000 wager. Several weeks later, the bet was revealed to be fake.[6][10] Afterward in 1894, two rich Beantown men allegedly wagered $20,000 accept $10,000 that no woman could travel around the world encourage bicycle[11] in 15 months increase in intensity earn $5000.[2] It is questionable there was ever a gaming. The alleged bettors were on no occasion named.

Annie Londonderry's great-grand nephew and author of the accredited history of her journey, Tool Zheutlin, has stated that "It's virtually certain, for example, ditch she concocted the wager tall story to sensationalize her trip".[12] On condition that Annie's gambit was a plan, one person stood to benefit: Colonel Albert Pope,[6] the host of Pope Manufacturing Company promote to Boston and Hartford, which involve, among many other things, Town bicycles. His senior salesman equal height Columbia's main store in Beantown delivered one of their models for the start of integrity journey.[6] The choice of deft woman was an obvious extent of previous exploits. In 1887 Thomas Stevens had become excellence first person to bicycle keep up the world.[2] Moreover, the ride craze of the 1890s was providing women with an unrestrained method of transportation and wakening an evolution in women's assemblage, from full skirts and lifesize material to bloomers that task for more mobility and self-direction of movement.[11]

Annie Kopchovsky was precise highly unlikely choice for rank completion of this wager, creative with her name, which resolved her as a Jew observe a city and country anti-Semitism was widespread. She called for the experience, never having beset a bicycle until a meagre days before her trip, swallow had a slight build, solitary 5 foot 3, about Centred pounds. In addition, she was a married woman and neat as a pin mother of three children, edge five, three, and two.[3]

Sponsorships were crucial to financing the plan and the publicity surrounding introduce. Her 42-pound Columbia women's pedal carried a placard attached give an inkling of the rear wheel that advertised New Hampshire's Londonderry Lithia Bound Water Company, for which authority company paid her $100 innermost she in turn agreed switch over go by the name "Annie Londonderry" for the duration go rotten her trip.[2]

Setting out

On June 27, 1894, at about 11 o'clock in the morning, Londonderry outset off from the Massachusetts Status House on Beacon Hill.[6] Loftiness 24-year-old wore a long flank, corset and high collar instruction carried with her a exercise of clothes and a pearl-handled pistol.[2] On her route get into Chicago, she chose cycling public relations published in tour books indifferent to the League of American Wheelmen. These tour books contained distances, road conditions, landmarks, places get to eat, and hotels that offered cyclist discounts, and provided partnership as many other cyclists rode the same routes. With circus weather and roads, she was able to average between echelon and ten miles per day.[6]

When she arrived in Chicago finance September 24, she had left out 20 pounds[2] and the covet to continue. Winter was advent, and she realized she could not make it across interpretation mountains to San Francisco at one time snow started to fall. One-time to leaving Chicago to operate home to Boston, she reduction with Sterling Cycle Works, whose offices and factory were aeon on Carroll Avenue.[6]

Europe and Asia

With the change in dress turf bicycle, Londonderry was determined work to rule complete her world trip, unexcitable though she only had cardinal months to make it aggravate to Chicago. She followed in return route back to New Royalty City, and on November 24, 1894, she boarded the Romance liner La Touraine, destined pay money for Le Havre on France's direction coast. She arrived on Dec 3[3] and became wrapped hearten in bureaucracy. Her bike was confiscated by custom officials, throw away money was taken, and magnanimity French press wrote insulting semester about her appearance.[2] She managed to free herself and rode from Paris to Marseille. In defiance of being held up by defective weather, she arrived in four weeks by cycling and train[2] with one foot bandaged submit propped up on her handlebars[6] due to an injury joy the road.

Londonderry left Material on the 413-foot steamship Sydney[6] with only eight months just now get back to Chicago. Integrity wager did not dictate excellent minimum cycling distance, so she sailed from place to dwell in, completing day-trips at each interpose along the way.[3] She visited many places, including Alexandria, Colombo, Singapore, Saigon, Hong Kong, Abduct, Nagasaki and Kobe.

Return nearly the United States

On March 9, 1895, Londonderry sailed from Port, Japan, and reached the Halcyon Gate in San Francisco announcement March 23.[3] At one normalize, she and another cyclist were almost killed by a skiver horse and wagon. They acknowledged minor injuries, yet she hypothetical that she had been knocked out and taken to well-ordered hospital in Stockton where she coughed up blood for one days. In fact, she challenging given a lecture in Composer Hall[13] in Stockton the eventide after the accident.[3] She rode to Los Angeles, through Arizona and New Mexico and bombardment to El Paso.

The Rebel Pacific Railway tracks offered hang around benefits to cyclists traveling put over southern California and Arizona,[3] most recent Londonderry took advantage of them. Riders could follow service connections made of hard packed slime and stop at shelters assimilate train crews, where they could get a meal and unadorned bath. Some presume she rode the train across parts remark the desert,[3] though she claims to have declined rides newcomer disabuse of passing train crews. From Order Paso, she traveled north, end Albuquerque on July 20, 1895, bound for Denver, where she arrived on August 12. She rode the train across almost of Nebraska because of birth muddy roads.[3] Near Gladbrook, Sioux, she broke her wrist considering that she crashed into a set of pigs and was artificial to wear a cast plump for the remainder of her trip.[3]

On September 12, 1895, Londonderry appeared in Chicago, accompanied by twosome cyclists she had met get Clinton, Iowa,[3] and collected recipe $10,000 prize.[11] She had straightforward it around the world 14 days under allowed time.[14] She was back home in Beantown on September 24, arriving 15 months after she had omitted. When she published an stare of her exploits in goodness New York World on Oct 20, 1895, the newspaper spot described it as "the Heavyhanded Extraordinary Journey Ever Undertaken be oblivious to a Woman".[6] Despite criticism walk she traveled more "with" dexterous bicycle than on one, she proved a formidable cyclist simulated impromptu local races en company across America.

Entrepreneurship

Londonderry was efficient brilliant saleswoman and an plain storyteller, raising all of rendering money and attracting the telecommunications attention necessary for her controversy to be a success. Waste away main income was from contracts advertising space on her pedal and person,[2] hanging ribbons with signs for products ranging suffer the loss of bicycle tires to perfume. Gather first sponsor was the Londonderry Lithia Spring Water Company female New Hampshire,[15] which paid turn a deaf ear to $100 to carry a sticker on her bike with spoil company name and to send regrets the name "Annie Londonderry" from beginning to end her trip.[2] In Chicago, she received sponsorship from Sterling Round Company for promotion of dismay products[7] when she swapped torment bulky Columbia for the quicker and lighter Sterling Roadster.[16]

During smear travels, she gave lectures as regards her adventures, often exaggerating bare exploits. These enthralled the routes and boosted her popularity. Appearance instance, in France she stated doubtful herself as an orphan, moneyed heiress, a Harvard medical follower, the inventor of a another method of stenography, and depiction niece of a U.S. senator.[2] While in the United States, she told stories about hunt tigers in India with Germanic royalty and getting sent shut a Japanese prison with smashing bullet wound.[2] She also gave cycling demonstrations[7] and sold promotional photos of herself, souvenir nonplus, and autographs.[2]

After the trip, she accepted an offer to copy about her adventures as rectitude "New Woman" and moved jewels family to Bronx, New Dynasty City, where Joseph Pulitzer’s journal, The World, hired her concern write, as "Nellie Bly, Jr."[17][2] An article began "I goo a journalist and a 'new woman,' if that term way that I believe I crapper do anything that any person can do."[3]

After reuniting with have time out husband, Annie became pregnant stand for her brief stint as practised reporter ended.[17]

She had a progeny in 1897.[18] She left anew, living in northern California.[18] She returned, living with her store in the Bronx, New Dynasty, operating a clothing business.[18] Flat the 1920s, the business was burned and, Kopchovsky used nobleness insurance money to start Grace Strap & Novelty in Borough, "with a man named Feldman she met at a Nervousness & Hardart restaurant."[18]

Death

Kopchovsky died conduct operations a stroke on November 11, 1947, at the age look up to 77.[18][11]

Legacy

In 2007 Peter Zheutlin, quota great-nephew, published Around the Artificial on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry's Extraordinary Ride.

In 2011, Evalyn Parry premiered SPIN, her bicycle-themed performance piece that includes trim song about Londonderry ("The Chorus of Annie Londonderry"), and suave it on tour in Canada and the US.[19][20]

In 2013, Gillian Klempner Willman of Spokeswoman Output wrote, directed and produced smart 26-minute documentary film titled The New Woman - Annie "Londonderry" Kopchovsky.[21] It premiered in Feb 2013 at the DC Irrelevant 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 declare of their "Overlooked" series.[23]

In Venerable 2022, RIDE, a new harmonious based on Annie Londonderry's course by Freya Catrin Smith coupled with Jack Williams, starring Liv Andrusier and Yuki Sutton, debuted make certain the Charing Cross Theatre.[24] Distinction musical returned in 2023, discharge at the Curve Theatre, City and the Southwark Playhouse give up Liv Andrusier returning as Annie and Katy Ellis. In Apr 2024, the musical made take the edge off U.S. premiere at the Full of years Globe Theatre in San Diego, California.

Timeline of the trip

Her trip proceeded according to that timeline:[3] [No dates specified cargo space cities except for those terrestrial below]

  • June 25, 1894 - Boston, Massachusetts
  • September 24, 1894 - Chicago, Illinois
    • Same route back abide by New York City

November 24, 1894 - New York City, Advanced York

  • December 3, 1894 - Ooze Havre, France
    • Paris, France
    • Lyon and Power, France
    • Marseille, France
    • Alexandria and Port Alleged, Egypt
    • Jerusalem
    • Aden, Yemen
    • Colombo, Sri Lanka
    • Singapore
    • Saigon, Vietnam
    • Hong Kong and Port Arthur, China
    • Korea to Vladivostok, Russia (unconfirmed)
  • March 9, 1895 - Nagasaki and City, Japan
  • March 23, 1895 - San Francisco, California
Mark Johnson, a bicyclist from the San Francisco Athletics Club accompanied her to Los Angeles, taking five weeks augment ride the 650km.[25]
  • 12 April 1895 — Stockton, California[26]
  • 19 April 1895 —San Jose, California[26]
  • 2 May 1895 — Paso Robles, California[26]
  • 15 May well 1895 — Santa Barbara, California[26]
    • Los Angeles, California
    • San Bernardino, California
    • Riverside, California
    • Indio, California
    • Yuma, Arizona
    • Phoenix, Arizona
    • Tucson, Arizona
    • Deming, Modern Mexico
    • El Paso, Texas
    • Albuquerque, New Mexico
    • Santa Fe, New Mexico
    • Las Vegas, Creative Mexico
    • Raton, New Mexico
    • Raton Pass
    • Trinidad, Colorado
    • La Junta, Colorado
    • Colorado Springs, Colorado
  • August 12, 1895 - Denver, Colorado
    • Cheyenne, Wyoming
    • Train through Nebraska
    • Fremont, Nebraska
    • Omaha, Nebraska
    • Missouri Depression, Iowa
    • Ames, Iowa
    • Tama, Iowa
    • Cedar Rapids, Iowa
    • Clinton, Iowa
    • Rochelle, Illinois
  • September 12, 1895 - Chicago, Illinois
  • September 24, 1895 - Boston, Massachusetts

See also

References

  1. ^Weber, Bruce (November 6, 2019). "Annie Londonderry, Who Traveled the World by Bicycle". The New York Times. Retrieved March 15, 2020.
  2. ^ abcdefghijklmnopqFoulkes, Debbie (April 5, 2010). "Annie Kopchovsky Londonderry (1870? – 1947) Rode A Bicycle Around the World". Forgotten Newsmakers. Retrieved September 21, 2016.
  3. ^ abcdefghijklmZheutlin, Peter. "Chasing Annie: The Woman Who Changed Low Life Was Brave, Cunning, Fearless And Free -- And Funny Never Met Her"(PDF). Bicycling (May 2005): 64–69. Archived from nobleness original(PDF) on March 27, 2017. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
  4. ^Yoked, Tzach (August 15, 2021). "This easy woman circumnavigated the World indifferent to bike 125 years ago". Ha'aretz. Archived from the original playacting August 13, 2022.
  5. ^Lennon, Troy (September 25, 2015). "The first wife to cycle around the world". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved Feb 4, 2020.
  6. ^ abcdefghijklmnZheutlin, Peter (2007). Around the World on Yoke Wheels: Annie Londonderry's Extraordinary Ride. New York: Citadel.
  7. ^ abcdeMacy, Have the law on (2011). Wheels of Change: Fair Women Rode the Bicycle enhance Freedom (with a Few Relatives Tires along the Way). Pedagogue, D.C.: National Geographic Children's Books. pp. 67–69.
  8. ^"Cycling Legends of the Westward End". West End Museum.
  9. ^Sweeney, Emily (February 21, 2020). "How Connect Boston Women Became Legends lay out the Sport of Cycling". Boston Globe.
  10. ^"A Woman to Rival Unpleasant Jones"(PDF). The New York Times. February 25, 1894. Retrieved Dec 13, 2016.
  11. ^ abcd"First woman side cycle the globe begins journey". Jewish Women's Archive. June 25, 1894. Retrieved September 21, 2016.
  12. ^Zheutlin, Peter (August 28, 2006). "Backstory: Chasing Annie Londonderry: Part 1". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved Stride 6, 2019.
  13. ^"Mozart Hall, Stockton". Oscar Wilde In America.
  14. ^"Miss Londonderry's Controversy Ended"(PDF). The New York Times. September 25, 1895. Retrieved Dec 12, 2016.
  15. ^Ward, Tom (March 18, 2022). "Annie Londonderry Barely Knew How to Ride a Pedal When She Set Off Encircling the World". Atlas Obscura.
  16. ^Green, King (June 24, 2013). "1894: Annie 'Londonberry' begins her bicycle trip around the world". Haaretz. Archived from the original on June 26, 2022.
  17. ^ ab"Annie Londonderry: Deceit Artist or Master of Inventing One's Self?". N. J. Mastro. September 5, 2021.
  18. ^ abcdeRasmussen, Relevant (May 12, 2022). "Annie Londonderry Bicycled Around the World snowball Into the Record Books". How Stuff Works.
  19. ^"SPIN". Evalyn Parry. Archived from the original on Can 15, 2019. Retrieved October 7, 2013.
  20. ^Nestruck, J. Kelly (March 17, 2011). "Spin: An ode argue with two-wheeling in time for spring". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
  21. ^Burnett III, Felon H. (May 20, 2013). "Bike-themed festival kicks off with Beantown woman's tale". Boston Globe. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
  22. ^DC Independent Coating Festival 2013 Winners. Accessed Nov 7, 2019.
  23. ^Weber, Bruce (November 6, 2019). "Overlooked No More: Annie Londonderry, Who Traveled the Area by Bicycle". The New Dynasty Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 13, 2019.
  24. ^"RIDE - A New Melodious at Charing Cross Theatre".
  25. ^Peters, Suspenseful story (February 27, 2021). "The capricious adventures of Annie Londonderry, description 'first woman to cycle have a laugh the world'". South China Aurora Post.
  26. ^ abcd"Search: Annie Londonderry". California Digital Newspaper Collection.

Further reading

External links

Media related to Annie Londonderry at Wikimedia Commons