The Wasp — 1896 — page 234: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a title/cover page for *The Wasp*, "The Illustrated Weekly of the Pacific Coast," from 1896. The main illustration depicts a man on horseback encountering a woman with a bicycle on a rural road—a scene satirizing anxieties about the "New Woman" and bicycle culture of the 1890s. The accompanying quote warns of "frightful accidents to some of the bloomer sex," referencing women cyclists who wore practical bloomers instead of restrictive skirts. The text implies that women taking such independence and physical risks (cycling alone) would end up "sitting disconsolate, disheveled and distressed on the side of the road." The satire critiques Victorian anxieties about female mobility and the perceived danger of women's liberation through modern transportation.