Skip to main content


In 1894, a Boston man bet another $20K that no woman could travel around the world by bicycle.

So Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, then penniless, learned to bike & set out to prove him wrong & earn prize money.

From 1894-95, she did just that (sailing between continents). Kopchovsky kept her husband & family a secret, using the alias Londonderry. She won $10K for her accomplishment & returned to raise her family.

https://jwa.org/thisweek/jun/25/1894/annie-cohen-kopchovsky #HistoryRemix #history

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

🥥 The value today of the $10,000 that Annie Kopchovsky (Londonderry) won in 1896 -- not 1856 as the #AltText puts it -- is more than $365,000. 🥥
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Annie Londonderry's story was brilliantly rendered in "Spin", a play by Evalyn Parry, which featured a bicycle on stage as a musical instrument: https://evalynparry.com/spin/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb2CUD7g4UM

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

“I think [bicycling] has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. I stand & rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel. It gives woman a feeling of freedom & self-reliance. It makes her feel as if she were independent. The moment she takes her seat she knows she can’t get into harm unless she gets off her bicycle & away she goes, the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”

- Suffragist Susan B. Anthony, 1896 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/obituaries/annie-londonderry-overlooked.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NU0.gAMP.GI5GiD5Z7SJR&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare #history #bike /2

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

You should check out the musical performance/album Spin, by Evalyn Parry, which has a song about Londonderry 😁 https://evalynparry.com/spin/
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

this is the reasoning I suspect behind the bicycling courses the Mütterzentrum (mothers' centre) near me organized for the recently arrived Syrian women earlier this century.

Lo, thar be cookies on this site to keep track of your login. By clicking 'okay', you are CONSENTING to this.