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All early velocipide (bike/trike) developments occured in Europe. And the initial prototypes had any any mechanism providing a form of propulsion. Baron Karl von Drais invented what proved to be the ancestor od all modern bikes and trikes -- the dandy horse (1817). Propulsion was introduced Michaux Company's chain-driven bicycle --the 'Boneshaker'. French brothers Pierre Micheaux came up with the central idea, connecting cranks and pedals to the front of an old hobby horse bicycle. This made it faster and less strenuous to ride. It was at this point that Americans joined the Eueropean effort leading ton bikes abd trikes. When the first tricycle appeared in America, we do not know. We notice both bikes and trikes in the the United States during the late-19th century. Both bikes and trikes and bikes were at first called 'velocipedes', a term first used in France. We are not sure yet just when trikes first appeared in America. The trike in America appeared after bikes and were only for younger boys, although trikes appeared much earlier in Europe. We do not yet have confirmed examples from the 1870s, but it is likely that there were some. A good example of an early trike is an unidentified boy in 1881. This is the earliest definitely dated American trike we have found to date. Almost all of the early trike images were studio portraits. This is not surprising given that the vast proportion of American 19th century photographs were studio portraits. And the children were all dressed up for the portrait. The studios had trikes as props for photographing children. The boys on the previous page are a good example. We continue to see studio portraits using trikes as props into the early-20th century (figure 1). As family snapshots were not yet common, we do not know how common they actually were. We suspect that in the 19th century that they were an item only common in fairly affluent families. The situastion in the 1890s was similar in Europe and America. There was more nterest in bikes thn trikes. The bike was more of a recreaiional than a practicakl behicle.
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