The Wasp — 1896 — page 202: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This satirical illustration depicts an imagined future of San Jose featuring electric street lighting and extensive bicycle infrastructure. The top panel shows a nighttime park filled with cyclists riding under bright electric lights. The bottom panel shows a daytime scene with what appears to be organized cycling paths or roads. The caption states "The San Jose Road kept in order with carpet sweepers," suggesting satire about maintaining pristine conditions for cyclists. The overall piece appears to satirize the cycling craze of the 1890s and optimistic visions of technological progress, specifically electric lighting and bicycle-centric urban planning in San Jose. The tone mocks both the bicycle enthusiasm of the era and grandiose predictions about the future—presenting an exaggerated, perhaps unrealistic vision of a cyclist's paradise that "some day be realised in a degree."