Katherine 'Kittie' Knox

Katherine 'Kittie' Knox, a seamstress and dressmaker was born in 1874 to a free black father (John H. Knox) and white mother (Katherine W. Towle), became a prominent and accomplished cyclist by the 1890s in Boston. But her mixed racial heritage raised eyebrows, as did her insistence on riding a man’s bike and wearing pantaloons of her own design instead of the long, heavy skirts prescribed by Hopkins and her ilk. [Photo: Boston Globe]

And if that weren’t enough, she excelled at the sport: Knox completed multiple 100-mile rides and placed 12th out of 50 male and female cyclists in a major national race, “far ahead of her lighter-hued sisters,” one magazine reported.

Knox had seemed doomed to obscurity. But six years ago, author Lorenz Finison stumbled across her name while researching a forthcoming book on Boston’s cycling history. Passing references to Knox in cycling books prompted Finison to search local newspaper archives for more information.

“I found an article saying she won a cycling costume contest in Waltham,” said Finison, a teacher at the Boston University School of Public Health and a cofounder of Cycling Through History, which develops bike routes between African-American heritage sites. “I thought, that’s really amazing. Why, given the racial climate of the time, would she have won a contest out there? I thought I should look into it more.”

Kittie Knox faced not only sexism but also racism. Finison eventually unearthed a trove of stories about Knox. While many articles were preoccupied with her race and appearance — “a beautiful and buxom black bloomerite” was one reference in Referee Magazine — he learned that Knox had been a member of Boston’s only black cycling group, the Riverside Cycle Club, before joining the Boston based National League of American Wheelman in 1893.

Knox soon found herself at the epicenter of a fight over whether blacks could join the league, he said. After a Southern faction of league leaders successfully politicked in 1894 to make the group for whites only, Knox’s appearance at the league’s 1895 national meet in Asbury Park, N.J., caused an uproar. Trouble began upon her arrival, when, rather than appease critics, “Miss Knox did a few fancy cuts in front of the clubhouse and was requested to desist,” The New York Times reported.

Then, when Knox went to register for the meet and presented her membership card, the credentials were rejected.

Much of the Globe’s coverage of early Boston cycling clubs, as cited by Finison, betrays blatantly racist and sexist attitudes common in that era. But one Globe report from the event in 1895 at Asbury Park trumpeted Knox’s abilities, perhaps to point a finger at Southern papers that had decried her participation.

“The leaders tried to lose Knox during the eighteen mile run but she was game, and when the big crowd entered the town on the return trip she was up with the leaders, sailing with the best of them,” the Globe wrote. “She was not to be consigned to the tribe of ‘also rans,’ and today all the League members are anxious to see her. And when she appears in the street she receives more attention than a half dozen star racing men.”

Sadly, Knox died at the age of 26, in 1900. According to her death certificate of chronic parenchymatous.

Through Finison’s efforts, her family was found and she was finally honored in 2013. Three generations of Kittie Knox’s relatives attended a ceremony dedicating a new headstone at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge Massachusetts.

On the Mount Auburn Cemetery site you can find the following: Katherine T. 'Kittie' Knox (1874 - 1900), While Kittie Knox earned her living as a seamstress and dressmaker, her avocation was bicycling. In her early years she rode in Cottage City (now Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts), known for its racially mixed community. Knox caused consternation by insisting on riding a man’s bike in knickerbockers (pantaloons worn by young boys) rather than a woman’s bike in a skirt. “Kittie Knox was a strong rider, having completed several Century (100 mile) rides on one of the heavy bikes of that era,” scholar Lorenz Finison notes. Mount Auburn Cemetery never knew of Knox’s extraordinary life until Finison contacted the Cemetery to confirm Knox’s burial. Mount Auburn was able to connect with members of the Knox family, who were thrilled to learn of and visit the burial site of their famous ancestor.