I saw a short, interesting article on Autoblog Green about how bicycles built American roads:
In the late 1800s, a business man by the name of Albert Pope had noticed the growing popularity of bicycles and started up his own manufacturing company. In order to make his product more appealing to those who lived outside of well-manicured city streets, Pope began a crusade that would shape the face of transportation in America. He started a magazine with the sole purpose of bringing road quality to the public eye, donated vast sums of money to MIT to start a new road engineering program and eventually succeeded in convincing congress to found the Office of Road Inquiry – what would eventually become the Federal Highway Administration.
Many might not recognize Mr. Pope's name, but you may know about his company, Columbia bicycles.
Here's a fun little video showing the manufacturing of Columbia Bicycles in the very early 1950's. Unfortunately, by this point in history, bicycles were well under their way to being pushed out as transportation vehicles (despite the video's claim otherwise). Owning an automobile was growing tremendously as a status symbol, promoting growth of the suburbs. (The rest, as they say, is history - including almost all the bicycle manufacturing plants.)
The video is complete with a little information about the size of the auto industry, cellophane production, and nice little commercial for Stag Beer at the end.
