Scooters (and Roller Skates)
As cities freak out over e-scooters today, it’s worth looking back at when these devices were actually new. Why did people love scooters in 1915, what’s different a century later, and what does all of this have to do with roller skates? They’re big questions. And the answer just might lead us to rethink how our cities are designed.
EPISODE NOTES
• Roads Were Not Built for Cars, by Carlton Reid
• Peter Norton, University of Virginia
• National Museum of Rollerskating
• The Phantom Herdic, Boston Globe, 1885
• Boston’s Surviving Herdic, Boston Globe, 1910
• The History of Roller Skating, Washington D.C. Evening Star, 1885
• Lowell Sun’s attack on roller skating women, 1885
• Skidding Through Fact and Fancy on an Autoped, New York Sun, 1916
• More Than Street Car Strike Needed To Stop This Girl’s Shopping Tours, The York Daily, 1916
• The Scooter Wars Are Actually A Century Old, Fast Company
• History of jaywalking, Vox
• The Motorized Scooter Boom That Hit a Century Before Dockless Scooters, Smithsonian magazine
• Roller Skating Foundation of America video, 1950s
• Our voice actors: Brent Rose, Gia Mora
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