Detail of Albert A. Pope, 1900 – Connecticut Historical Society
Albert Augustus Pope (1843-1909)
Albert Pope was a transportation pioneer who helped turn Hartford into the bicycle capital of the world. Born in 1843, Pope’s life found direction after he attended the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia where he saw his first bicycle. He soon acquired the American rights to the patents and began manufacturing his own bicycles. Pope then founded the Good Roads Movement and the League of American Wheelman out of his desire to see the US improve its transportation networks. Toward the end of the century, Pope redirected his efforts toward producing automobiles, but the prohibitive costs associated with acquiring the necessary raw materials did not allow him to compete with the Midwestern manufacturers who went on to dominate the industry.
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Albert Augustus Pope, Transportation Pioneer
Pope's bicycles and automobiles not only gave 19th-century consumers greater personal mobility, they also helped propel social change. …[more]
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“Albert Pope Collection.” Connecticut Digital Archive. https://collections.ctdigitalarchive.org/islandora/search/mods_titleInfo_title_mt%3A%28Pope%29%20OR%20mods_subject_name_personal_namePart_ms%3A%28Pope%29?page=1.
“Digital Collection - Pope Manufactring Company.” 2013. Connecticut History Online. http://www.cthistoryonline.org/cdm/search/collection/cho/searchterm/Pope%20Manufacturing%20Company/mode/exact (October 15, 2013).
“Panoramic Photograph - Pope Mfg. Co. #2, Hartford, Conn., ca. 1909.” 2013. Library of Congress - Prints & Photographs Online Catalog. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2007662033/ (October 14, 2012).
Goddard, Stephen. 2009. Colonel Albert Pope and His American Dream Machines: The Life and Times of a Bicycle Tycoon Turned Automotive Pioneer. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Pope, Albert. 1892. The Movement for Better Roads. Boston, MA: Pope Manufacturing Company. http://www.archive.org/stream/movementforbett01popegoog#page/n5/mode/2up.
“Pope Park.” 2012. http://popepark.org/ (August 23, 2012).
Pope, Albert. 1895. “The Bicycle Industry.” In 1795-1895. One Hundred Years of American Commerce ... a History of American Commerce by One Hundred Americans, with a Chronological Table of the Important Events of American Commerce and Invention, New York: D.O. Haynes & Company. http://www.archive.org/stream/17951895onehundr02deperich#page/n307/mode/2up.
