Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
June 7, 1819
Primary Source Reference:
Peale Museum Accessions Book, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, p. 98
Notes:
Karl Freiherr von Drais (1785-1851) was a noble German forest official and significant inventor in the Biedermeier period, including the earliest form of a bicycle, without pedals.
In 1819, after viewing such a machine in Baltimore and reading several descriptions of European models in the newspapers, Peale built one at Belfield. See Charles Willson Peale to Charles Peale Polk, 16 May 1819; Selected Papers3: 716-718; Horace Wells Sellers, The "Draisiana" or Pedestrian Hobby Horse of 1819: A prototype of the Modern Bicycle, with Notes from the Journal of Charles Willson Peale (Doylestown, Pa., 1917), copy at APS.
