ANNIS BURR PORTER
Milo Porter was born in 1815 in Onondaga County, New York, near Syracuse. He was the youngest in his family of six siblings. His father died when he was only five years old and spent his youth growing up on the family farm. When his mother passed away when he was twenty he decided to head West. Joining a newly married friend, Luther Marsh, they went to Illinois.
The New Yorkers ended up buying land in Lombard just west of Chicago. After several years the Marshes moved on to Iowa and Milo stayed in Lombard. At age 55 Milo finally married. The young lady, Mary Isadora Wilson, was only 20 years old. Over the next eight years the couple has 3 daughters and a son. The middle daughter was named Annis Burr Porter. She would turn out to be a unique woman.
The New Yorkers ended up buying land in Lombard just west of Chicago. After several years the Marshes moved on to Iowa and Milo stayed in Lombard. At age 55 Milo finally married. The young lady, Mary Isadora Wilson, was only 20 years old. Over the next eight years the couple has 3 daughters and a son. The middle daughter was named Annis Burr Porter. She would turn out to be a unique woman.
The farm life was not for Annis. And the May-December marriage was probably not going well. At age 15 she ran off to nearby Chicago to enjoy life. One of her first jobs was to work for the local Pinkerton Detective Agency.
By age 18 Annis had fallen in love with the growing popularity of riding a bicycle. Between 1884 and 1896 bicycle riders in Chicago would grow from just over 600 to almost 200,000. About 40,000 were females.
By age 18 Annis was riding with the Columbian Eagle Wheelmen of Chicago. Women "wheelmen" were a rarity. Especially Annis's specialty of riding Centuries. These were 100 mile rides around Chicago without stopping. She would be paced by one of the other male wheelmen on the team. After having the lady's record for a couple years, several other Chicago women would challenge and break her record. So she broke their record. Her bicycle weighed about 50 pounds at that time.
Whenever a lady completed a Century she would get a badge with a bar attached. Annis would end up with 21 bars attached to her badge. Plus, she had Centuries that didn't add to this count when she pedaled from Chicago to New York City. She would complete 9 Centuries in each direction. A trip she did twice.
By 1897 there were 2 female "wheelmen" in the country that had ridden over 17,000 each during the year. So much for the "weaker sex".
By 1897 there were 2 female "wheelmen" in the country that had ridden over 17,000 each during the year. So much for the "weaker sex".
On her trip to New York City she rode a 21 pound Quaker model bicycle and was riding for Morgan & Wright. The Morgan & Wright company was founded in 1891 by Fred Morgan and Rufus Wright, while the pneumatic safety bicycle was still fairly young, and the bicycle boom was just coming into flower. Besides tires, they also produced other tire-related items (pumps, patch kits, tire repair accessories...) and other bicycle products (pedal rubbers, rubber toe clips, chain lubricant), and distributed a variety of other bicycle-related sundries through their catalogue. With the advent of the 20th century, the company gradually turned to the early automobile rubber market, moved to Detroit around 1906.
Annis also joined up with another female "wheelman", Eva Christin, and started doing tandem distance and endurance rides.
After accomplishing all these feats she took bicycle riding to another height. 480 feet to be exact. In 1896 she rode her bicycle down the Boyton's Shoot-the-Chute in Chicago. After flying down the chute she would leap over the handle bars and land about 60 feet out in the water. She didn't do this just once, but daily for a couple weeks.
In 1898 Annis moved to Little Rock, Arkansas. She took a nursing course and worked at the Gus Blass Company. Mr. Blass owned a popular large department in downtown Little Rock.
With the Spanish-American War about to break out Annis used her nursing training to join the Red Cross. She became nurse #212 and was ready to serve in Cuba if necessary. She was disappointed when she only got to serve stateside.
While in Little Rock she went to New Orleans and performed her Shoot-the-Chute routine at their new water park.
By 1900 she returned to Chicago to live with her mom. Her mother had divorced her father and remarried. Her two sisters also lived with her. The three girls were part of a rare group of traveling salesmen or "drummers". At the time less than 500 women were traveling the roads selling everything from make-up to rat traps.
Annis's mother had been a drummer at one time, also. In 1900 she was giving lectures on medicine.
Annis's two sisters worked routes that took them from Chicago to the West Coast selling brushes. They would plan their routes to meet each other weekly.
Annis was now representing the Chicago American Playing Card Company (Hochman L23a). Besides playing cards they also had stationery products.
And who would be the leader in the sale of rat traps? Annis, of course. By 1903 she worked for the E Z Manufacturing Company of Galesburg, Illinois. Annis was so good at selling that she sold all the company's inventory and booked orders for several months in advance. The company only had 17 employees. While male clerks made about $25,000 a year in today's money top female drummers would make over $32,000. Her male competitors all knew her.
One of her tricks to stay ahead of the men on her routes were to stop express mail trains. She would sweet talk a station master to stop the express train to get a ride to the next town ahead of her competitors. The station masters claimed "she was not one to say no to".
While working her route in Rhode Island she stopped in a jewelry store in Cranston. The owner's son, Walter Scott Hough, Jr., was 24 years her senior and recently divorced. He was also very well off. Apparently there was an instant attraction because the were married in Chicago in 1905 where Walter soon moved to.
Walter and Annis later moved to Ithaca, New York, to live and then returned to Rhode Island. But, married life did not go well. After 12 years Annis filed for divorce. Walter was worth over $400,000 had to pay her $135,000 in alimony. This was on top of the $52,000 he was paying his first wife, Not one to learn a lesson Walter married again in 1921 at age 69.
Annis eventually left Rhode Island and moved to the village of Trumansburg, New York, about 50 miles from her dad's birthplace. She passed away there in 1933.
If Your Want To Learn More...
A great site to check out about the bicycle world of Chicago in Annis's time is here.........
A great site to check out about the bicycle world of Chicago in Annis's time is here.........