Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer
Research Department

Hall County's Pioneering Women

All Work and No Play
Makes Jane a Very Dull Girl!
How the Women of Hall County Played

Life in Hall County was not all work and no play.  Women found many ways to spend their free time.  From the libraries to opera houses, Hall County offered a variety of different venues of entertainment.  Many women simply enjoyed spending time with friends whether attending quilting bees or riding bicycles.

In May 1890, the Grand Island Daily Independent reported that Mabel Hargis purchased the first woman’s bicycle in Grand Island.  According to the Independent, Mabel and her husband, Andrew, were often seen early each morning “flying around our beautiful streets.”  The development of the “safety bicycle” in the late 1880s bossted the popularity of bicycles, especially among women.  Before the safety bike, “ordinary bicycles,” or “penny farthings,” were the vogue.  On penny-farthing bicycles, the front wheel, which could run as high as 64 inches, was much taller then the 16 inch rear wheel.  Riding a penny-farthing required considerable skill and athletic ability.  Head-first spills were a serious hazard.   The introduction of the safety bicycle with its wheels of similar size were much easier to operate and far less dangerous.  To accommodate women’s long skirts, the women’s safety bicycles featured a double down tube (as seen in the photograph of Dora Veit featured below), rather than a top tube as on men’s safety bicycles.

It may or may not have been daring Mabel Hargis, who on August 14, 1894 caused quite a stir when the first women bicyclist appeared wearing bloomers, the controversial creation of women’s rights activist Amelia Bloomer.  The voluminous, sweeping skirts of the 1890s were a handicap for women bicycle riders.  Bloomers, which resembled large puffy, knee length trouser, were far easier to ride in, but were considered quite scandalous when first introduced.  The sight of a bloomer-clad woman on streets of Grand Island, according to the Independent, “excited considerable comment and attracted a great deal of attention.”  By 1895, more than 40 local women wearing bloomers braved a storm of public indignation by bicycling through Grand Island.  By 1896, divided skirts replaced bloomers.  Fashionable young women cyclists attired themselves in smart jackets and divided skirts topped with straw sailors hats, anchored securely with two or more long hatpins.

Bicycle clubs became popular in the 1890s. Grand Island men joined either the “Pukwana” or the “Oriental.”  Women formed the “Tourist Wheel Club.”  Miss Flora Howell became the first Grand Island women to make a “century run,” 100 miles in 10 hours.

Grand Island also offered other pursuits for athletically inclined women.  Oscar R. Niemann (the man with the beard standing behind the women with the epees, or fencing swords in the photo below) taught “turner” classes, or physical culture classes, in Grand Island from the late 1890s through the 1920s for both men and women.  The German word “turner” relates to gymnastic skills.  Niemann, a native of Austria, served as an army officer and studied drama in Vienna before coming to America in 1879.  He and his wife, Margot, toured with theater companies throughout America before settling in Grand Island.  Margot, born in Berlin, operated a successful costume business for many years in Grand Island.

Attending Niemann’s turn of the century turner class would have been very different than the workout classes women attend today.  Instead of aerobics and Tai Bo, Niemann’s turner classes would likely have included fencing and calisthenics.  Calisthenics would have been preformed with various equipment like the Indian clubs and small dumb-bells seen in front of Niemann’s students in the photographs featured above and below.
 

Whatever their interests, Hall County women found many ways to spend their free time and have fun.

Learn more about Women's History

Hall County's Pioneering Women

Women in Business in Hall County

Social Reform and Women's Suffrage

Stuhr Museum Research Department web page

Research Department webmaster: Karen Keehr