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By the way, did you fellows know that a hummingbird weighs as much as a quarter? Do you think a hummingbird also weighs the same as two dimes and a nickel? But then she asked a question of her own: How do they weigh a hummingbird?
Calvin Trillin
how come there are somany lawyers? :-)
Clavin Trillin
HMM! HMB!! Hate Will Not Make US Great!! Vote Blue!!
eastern swallowtail butterfly on zinnia, j c raulston arboretum, ncsu, raleigh, borth carolina
just in case one of the dinner guests turns up without his teeth ;-)
Calvin Trillin
Climate Change Matters! Resist the Ignorant Orange Clown Prince!
Yellow Mountain magnolia, j c raulston arboretum, ncsu, raleigh, north carolina
Finally got a look at what appears to be the male in this nest - he's much smaller than his red counterpart. As the sun came up, he began singing his magical little trill.
“By the way, did you fellows know that a hummingbird weighs as much as a quarter? Do you think a hummingbird also weighs the same as two dimes and a nickel? But then she asked a question of her own: ‘How do they weigh a hummingbird?’” – Calvin Trillin
Beijing ( Pechino) 16 agosto 2008 Le ragazze del Fioretto, Ilaria Salvadori, Margherita Granbassi, Valentina Vezzali e Giovanna Trillini vincono la medaglia di bronzo nel Fioretto a squadre. Foto GMT
that I hadn't meant my answers literally :-)
Calvin Trillin
prunus mume, Japanese flowering apricot, 'Dawn', j c raulston arboretum, ncsu, Raleigh, north carolina
"When it comes to Chinese food I have always operated under the policy that the less known about the preparation the better. A wise diner who is invited to visit the kitchen replies by saying, as politely as possible, that he has a pressing engagement elsewhere."
-- Calvin Trillin
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Thanks a lot for visits and comments, everyone...!
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without
my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
~Calvin Trillin
Spinach Enchiladas...with freshly-prepared chunky salsa and blue corn tortilla chips. In case you're wondering, yes—I found something wrong with the first two servings that we tried to shoot. *chomp* Next! :)~
I've been asked quite a few questions, so I'm going to try to answer a few in the coming weeks. :)
What software do you use?
As stated in my EXIF data, I use Lightroom 3 exclusively—which I regard as the best for viewing, editing & managing digital photos (and I've used Aperture, ACR, etc.).
No Photoshop?
No, not at all. Even my watermark is added as an export preset in LR.
Why?
I choose not to use any image-editing software like PS, Picnik, Picasa, Gimp, etc. for two reasons:
1) It forces me to be a better photographer. Meaning, I try to capture virtually everything in-camera: mood, light, framing, and color...but most importantly—the true reality of the moment or subject.
2) And because I strive to be a realist with my photography, this means no cloning, textures or overlays (but I love photos where so many talented folks use them beautifully) and very minimal cropping...which is why I always shoot in either square, 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio...never an odd crop.
By adhering to these two beliefs, there's no reason for me to ever leave Lightroom. When processing a RAW file, I'm able to adjust colors, tonality, clarity and light (sometimes I'll spend as much time processing a photo as I did setting up & shooting it). But again, ultimately my goal is to remain loyal to the actual scene—not alter it...thus allowing it to resonate with authenticity. And with any luck, that sense of realism will help transport the viewer to the actual place & time that I'm sharing.
Hope this helps! :)
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM
Aperture: f/1.4
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO Speed: 100
Flash: (1) Off-camera left; diffused, reduced power
Polarizer/Filter: None
Exposure: 1/640
RAW File Processing: Lightroom 3
Slik Sprint Pro w/ Manfrotto 496RC2 Ballhead
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
© Steven Brisson. Do not use without permission.
Valerio ed Elena declamano Folgore, chi con la voce, chi con il suono del flauto, mentre Alessio Trillini disegna la facciata del Duomo di San Gimignano #sglumiere15
The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.
- Calvin Trillin.
The original meal has never been found :-) Calvin Trillin
HBW!!
cactus, pulque agave, 'Crazy Horse', j c rauston arboretum, raleigh, north carolina
because of the effect it would have on restaurants. I'd let just about everybody in except the English :-) Calvin Trillin. HFF!!
Exploramentary!!
cherry blossom, my yard, cary , north carolina
(Wikipedia)
The Library District is an officially designated neighborhood in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, United States, roughly bounded by 9th and 11th Streets on the north and south and Main Street and Broadway on the east and west. The District contains several buildings individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as well as the West Ninth Street-Baltimore Avenue Historic District, also listed on the National Register. It also contains other notable structures not listed on the National Register.
The Central Library's parking garage has a distinctive facade on 10th Street, using images of 22 9-meter-high bookspines to create a "community bookshelf." The garage was created by design firm Dimensional Innovations, and local residents got to choose which titles would be represented in the bookshelf. The Wyandotte Street facade includes enlarged historic postcards with images of 10th Street and 9th Street from the early 1900s. The Baltimore Avenue facade next to the Kansas City Club includes giant banners with images of the Great Hall of the Library of Congress' Jefferson Building and a fanciful image of a gathering of famous Kansas Citians in an architectural fantasy by local artist Bob Holloway. The 22 "Community Bookshelf" book titles (in order from West to East on 10th street):[1]
Kansas City Stories, Volume I
Kansas City, Missouri; Its History and Its People 1808-1908 (Carrie Westlake Whitney) 1908
Tom’s Town, Kansas City and the Pendergast Legend (William M. Reddig) 1986
Goin’ to Kansas City (Nathan W. Pearson, Jr.) 1987
Farm: A Year in the Life of an American Farmer (Rhodes) 1989
Mr. Anonymous, the Story of William Volker (Herbert C. Cornuelle) 1951
Kansas City, Missouri: An Architectural History, 1826 - 1990 (George Ehrlich) 1992
Journeys Through Time: A Young Traveler’s Guide to Kansas City’s History (Monroe Dodd, Daniel Serda) 2000
Kansas City Stories, Volume II
Virgil Thomson, a Reader: Selected Writings 1924-1984 (Thomson) 2002
Mrs. Bridge (Connell) 1959
I Was Right on Time (O'Neil) 1996
The O’Donnells (Peggy Sullivan) 1956
Independence Avenue (Eileen Sherman) 1990
Stella Louella’s Runaway Book (Lisa Campbell Ernst) 1998
PrairyErth: (A Deep Map) (Least Heat-Moon) 1991
Messages from my Father (Calvin Trillin) 1996
Catch 22 (Heller)
Children's Stories
Goodnight Moon (Brown, pictures by Hurd)
Harold and the Purple Crayon (Johnson)
Winnie the Pooh (Milne)
Green Eggs and Ham (Dr. Seuss)
What a Wonderful World (Weiss, Thiele, pictures by Bryan) 1995
Little House on the Prairie (Wilder)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Baum)
M. C. Higgins, the Great (Hamilton)
Silent Spring (Carson)
O Pioneers! (Cather)
Cien Años de Soledad (Marquez)
Their Eyes Were Watching God (Hurston)
Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury)
The Republic (Plato)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain)
(Building Entrance)
Tao Te Ching (Lao Tzu)
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (Hughes)
Black Elk Speaks (Neihardt)
Invisible Man (Ellison)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)
Journals of the Expedition (Lewis, Clark) + Undaunted Courage (Ambrose)
The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien)
A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
Charlotte's Web (White)
Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare)
Truman (McCullough)
This is a planar panorama, meaning pictures were taken while walking the entire block, rather than panning the buildings from one spot. There was quite a bit of construction going on, including construction trucks and cables in the way. Photoshop didn't like this but my trusty copy of Microsoft Image Composite Editor (Digital ICE) did a fairly good job of patching everything together.
Canon EOS 7D | 22mm | 1/100s | f/4.5 | ISO 100 | 28 shots
The Postcard
A postally unused Mirro-Krome postcard that was published by the H. S. Crocker Co. Inc. of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on behalf of the Jefferson National Expansion Historical Association of St. Louis, Missouri.
Although the card was not posted, it bears recipients' names and an address:
To: Pete & Barbara,
(Prince Albert),
Newton Street,
Macclesfield,
Cheshire,
England.
Alas, the Prince Albert closed for good in January 2022. Plans are currently (2023) in place for the building to be converted into a 7-bedroomed house of multiple occupation.
The card also bore a message:
"Hello Pete & Barbara,
Weather is 80 degrees -
Phew!
Flight good. Been to top
of this arch - 630 feet -
lovely view.
Also been to Chicago -
smashing.
See you later,
BUGS!"
The St. Louis Gateway Arch
The Gateway Arch is a 630-foot (192 m) tall monument in St. Louis, Missouri. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch, and Missouri's tallest accessible building.
Some sources consider it the tallest human-made monument in the Western Hemisphere. Built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States and officially dedicated to "the American people", the Arch, commonly referred to as "The Gateway to the West", is a National Historic Landmark in Gateway Arch National Park.
It has become an internationally recognized symbol of St. Louis, as well as a popular tourist destination.
The Arch was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen in 1947. Construction of the Arch began on the 12th. February 1963, and was completed on the 28th. October 1965, at an overall cost of $13 million (equivalent to $86.5 million in 2018).
The monument opened to the public on the 10th. June 1967. It is located at the 1764 site of the founding of St. Louis on the west bank of the Mississippi River.
Inception and Funding (1933–1935)
Around late 1933, civic leader Luther Ely Smith looked at the St. Louis riverfront area and envisioned that building a memorial there would revive the riverfront and stimulate the economy.
He suggested this to mayor Bernard Dickmann, who on the 15th. December 1933 raised it in a meeting with city leaders. They sanctioned the proposal, and the nonprofit Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Association (JNEMA -pronounced "Jenny May") was formed.
Smith was appointed chairman, and Dickmann vice chairman. The association's goal was to create:
'A suitable and permanent public memorial to the men who made possible the western territorial expansion of the United States, particularly President Jefferson, his aides Livingston and Monroe, the great explorers, Lewis and Clark, and the hardy hunters, trappers, frontiersmen and pioneers who contributed to the territorial expansion and development of these United States, and thereby to bring before the public of this and future generations the history of our development and induce familiarity with the patriotic accomplishments of these great builders of our country.'
Many locals however did not approve of depleting public funds for the cause. Smith's daughter SaLees related that:
"When people would tell him we needed
more practical things, he would respond
that 'spiritual things' were equally important."
The association expected that $30 million would be needed to undertake the construction of such a monument (about $508 million in 2021 dollars). It called upon the federal government to foot three-quarters of the bill ($22.5 million).
The suggestion to renew the riverfront was not original, as previous projects had been attempted, but lacked popularity. However the Jefferson memorial idea emerged amid the economic disarray of the Great Depression, and promised new jobs.
The project was expected to create 5,000 jobs for three to four years. Committee members began to raise public awareness by organizing fundraisers and writing pamphlets. They also engaged Congress by planning budgets and preparing bills, in addition to researching ownership of the land they had chosen:
"Approximately one-half mile in length
from Third Street east to the present
elevated railroad."
In January 1934, Senator Bennett Champ Clark and Representative John Cochran introduced to Congress an appropriation bill seeking $30 million for the memorial, but the bill failed to garner support due to the large amount of money solicited.
On the 15th. June 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill into law, instituting the United States Territorial Expansion Memorial Commission. The commission comprised 15 members. It first convened on the 19th. December 1934 in St. Louis, where members examined the project and its planned location.
Meanwhile, in December 1934, the JNEMA discussed organizing an architectural competition to determine the design of the monument, and by January 1935, local architect Louis LeBeaume had drawn up competition guidelines.
On the 13th. April 1935, the commission certified JNEMA's project proposals, including memorial perimeters, the "historical significance" of the memorial, the competition, and the $30 million budget.
Dickmann and Smith applied for funding from two New Deal agencies—the Public Works Administration (headed by Harold Ickes) and the Works Progress Administration (headed by Harry Hopkins). On the 7th. August 1935, both Ickes and Hopkins promised $10 million, and said that the National Park Service (NPS) would manage the memorial.
A local bond issue election granting $7.5 million (about $127 million in 2021 dollars) for the memorial's development was held on the 10th. September 1935 and passed.
On the 21st. December 1935 President Roosevelt signed an Executive Order approving the memorial, designating the 82-acre area as the first National Historic Site. The order also appropriated $3.3 million through the WPA, and $3.45 million through the PWA.
However some taxpayers began to file suits to block the construction of the monument, which they called a "boondoggle".
Initial Planning (1936–1939)
The NPS acquired the historic buildings within the historic site—through condemnation rather than purchase—and demolished them. By September 1938, condemnation was complete.
The condemnation was subject to many legal disputes which culminated on the 27th. January 1939, when the United States Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that condemnation was valid. A total of $6.2 million was distributed to land owners on the 14th. June.
Demolition commenced on the 9th. October 1939, when Dickmann extracted three bricks from a vacant warehouse.
Led by Paul Peters, adversaries of the memorial delivered to Congress a leaflet titled:
"Public Necessity
or Just Plain Pork".
In March 1936, Representative John Cochran commented during a House meeting that:
"I would not vote for any measure
providing for building the memorial
or allotting funds to it".
Peters and other opponents asked Roosevelt to rescind his Executive Order, and to redirect the money to the American Red Cross. Smith stated that:
"They are opposed to anything that
is ever advanced in behalf of the city."
Because the Mississippi River played an essential role in establishing St. Louis's identity as the gateway to the west, it was felt that a memorial commemorating it should be near the river. Railroad tracks that had been constructed in the 1930's on the levee obstructed views of the riverfront from the memorial site.
When Ickes declared that the railway must be removed before he would allocate funds for the memorial, President of the St. Louis Board of Public Service Baxter Brown suggested that:
"A new tunnel would conceal the
tracks and re-grading of the site
would elevate it over the tunnel.
These modifications would open
up the views to the river."
Although rejected by NPS architect Charles Peterson, Brown's proposal formed the basis for the ultimate settlement.
By May 1942, demolition was complete. The Old Cathedral and the Old Rock House, because of their historical significance, were the only buildings retained within the historic site.
The Old Rock House was dismantled in 1959 with the intention of reassembling it at a new location, but pieces of the building went missing. Part of the house has been reconstructed in the basement of the Old Courthouse.
Design Competition (1945–1948)
In November 1944, Smith asserted that:
"The memorial should be transcending
in spiritual and aesthetic values, best
represented by one central feature: a
single shaft, a building, an arch, or
something else that would symbolize
American culture and civilization."
In January 1945, the JNEMA announced a two-stage design competition that would cost $225,000 to organize. Smith and the JNEMA struggled to raise the funds, garnering only a third of the required total by June 1945. The passage of a year brought little success, and Smith frantically underwrote the remaining $40,000 in May 1946. In February 1947, the fund stood at $231,199.
On the 30th. May 1947, the contest officially opened. It comprised two stages—the first to narrow down the designers to five, and the second to single out one architect and his design. The design was required to include:
-- An architectural memorial or memorials to Jefferson.
-- Preservation of the site of Old St. Louis—landscaping, provision of an open-air campfire theater, re-erection or reproduction of a few typical old buildings, and provision
of a Museum interpreting the Westward movement.
-- A living memorial to Jefferson's 'vision of greater opportunities for men of all races and creeds.'
-- Recreational facilities, both sides of the river.
-- Parking facilities, access, relocation of railroads,
and placement of an interstate highway.
On the 1st. September 1947, submissions for the first stage were received by the 7-member jury. The submissions were labeled by numbers only, and the names of the designers were kept anonymous.
Upon four days of deliberation, the jury narrowed down the 172 submissions to five finalists, and announced the corresponding numbers to the media on the 27th. September 1947.
Eero Saarinen's design (No. 144) was among the finalists, and comments written on it included:
"Relevant, beautiful, perhaps inspired
would be the right word." (Roland Wank) (....Yes, really.)
"An abstract form peculiarly happy
in its symbolism." (Charles Nagel).
Eero Saarinen's father Eliel Saarinen also submitted a design; however the secretary who sent out the telegrams informing finalists of their advancement mistakenly sent one to Eliel rather than Eero.
The family celebrated with champagne, and two hours later, a competition representative called to correct the mistake. Eliel broke out a second bottle of champagne to toast his son.
Saarinen changed the height of the Arch from 580 feet to 630 feet (190 m), and wrote that:
"The Arch symbolizes the gateway
to the West, the national expansion,
and whatnot."
He wanted the landscape surrounding the Arch:
"To be so densely covered with trees
that it will be a forest-like park, a green
retreat from the tension of the downtown
city."
The deadline for the second stage arrived on the 10th. February 1948, and on the 18th. February, the jury chose Saarinen's design unanimously, praising its "profoundly evocative and truly monumental expression."
The following day, during a formal dinner at Statler Hotel that the finalists and the media attended, Saarinen was pronounced the winner of the competition, and awarded the checks—$40,000 to his team, and $50,000 to Saarinen. The competition was the first major architectural design that Saarinen had developed unaided by his father.
The design drew varied responses. Representative H. R. Gross opposed the allocation of federal funds for the Arch's development. Some local residents likened it to:
"A stupendous hairpin and a
stainless steel hitching post."
The most aggressive criticism emerged from Gilmore D. Clarke, whose February 26th. 1948, letter compared Saarinen's Arch to an arch imagined by fascist Benito Mussolini, rendering the Arch a fascist symbol.
This allegation of plagiarism ignited fierce debates among architects about its validity. Douglas Haskell from New York wrote that:
"The use of a common form is not
plagiarism. This particular accusation
amounts to the filthiest smear that
has been attempted by a man highly
placed in the architectural profession
in our generation."
The jury refuted the charges, arguing that:
"The arch form is not inherently fascist,
but is indeed part of the entire history
of architecture."
Saarinen considered the opposition absurd, asserting:
"It's just preposterous to think that a
basic form, based on a completely
natural figure, should have any
ideological connection."
By January 1951, Saarinen had created 21 drawings, including profiles of the Arch, scale drawings of the museums and restaurants, various parking proposals, the effect of the levee-tunnel railroad plan on the Arch footings, the Arch foundations, the Third Street Expressway, and the internal and external structure of the Arch. Fred Severud made calculations for the Arch's structure.
Final Preparations (1959–1968)
Moving the railroad tracks was the first stage of the project. On the 6th. May 1959, the Public Service Commission called for ventilation to accompany the tunnel's construction, which entailed placing 3,000 feet of dual tracks into a tunnel 105 feet west of the elevated railroad, along with filling, grading, and trestle work.
In August 1959, demolition of the Old Rock House was complete, with workers beginning to excavate the tunnel. In November, they began shaping the tunnel's walls with concrete. On the 17th. November 1959, trains began to use the new tracks.
Construction of the Arch
The MacDonald Construction Co. of St. Louis was awarded the contract for the construction of the Arch and the visitor center. The Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Company served as the subcontractor for the shell of the Arch.
In 1959 ground was broken, and in 1961, the foundation of the structure was laid. Construction of the Arch itself began on the 12th. February 1963, as the first steel triangle on the south leg was eased into place.
These steel triangles, which narrowed as they spiraled to the top, were raised into place by a group of cranes and derricks. The Arch was assembled with 142 twelve foot-long (3.7 m) prefabricated stainless steel sections. Once in place, each section had its double-walled skin filled with concrete, prestressed with 252 tension bars.
In order to keep the partially completed legs steady, a scissors truss was placed between them at 530 feet (160 m), later removed as the derricks were taken down. The whole endeavor was expected to be completed by fall of 1964, in observance of the St. Louis bicentennial.
Contractor MacDonald Construction Co. arranged a 30-foot (9.1 m) tower for spectators, and provided recorded accounts of the undertaking. In 1963, a million people went to observe the progress, and by 1964, local radio stations began to broadcast when large slabs of steel were about to be raised into place.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographer Art Witman documented the construction for the newspaper's Sunday supplement Pictures, his longest and most noted assignment. He visited the construction site frequently from 1963 to 1967, recording of every stage of progress.
With assistant Renyold Ferguson, he crawled along the catwalks with the construction workers up to 190m above the ground. He was the only news photographer on permanent assignment at the construction, with complete access. He primarily worked with slide film, but also used the only Panox camera in St. Louis to create panoramic photographs covering 140 degrees. Witman's pictures of the construction are now housed in the State Historical Society of Missouri.
The project manager of MacDonald Construction Co., Stan Wolf, said that a 62-story building was easier to build than the Arch:
"In a building, everything is straight up,
one thing on top of another. In this Arch,
everything is curved."
Delays and Lawsuits
Although an actuarial firm predicted that thirteen workers would die while building the Arch, no workers were killed during the monument's construction. However, construction of the Arch was nevertheless often delayed by safety checks, funding uncertainties, and legal disputes.
Civil rights activists regarded the construction of the Arch as a token of racial discrimination. On the 14th. July 1964, during the workers' lunchtime, civil rights protesters Percy Green and Richard Daly, both members of Congress of Racial Equality, climbed 125 feet (38 m) up the north leg of the Arch:
"To expose the fact that federal funds
are being used to build a national
monument that was racially
discriminating against black contractors
and skilled black workers."
As the pair disregarded demands to come down, protesters on the ground demanded that at least 10% of the skilled jobs should be given to African Americans. Four hours later, Green and Daly dismounted from the Arch to charges of trespassing, peace disturbance, and resisting arrest.
In 1965, NPS requested that the Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel remove the prominent letters "P-D-M" (its initials) from a creeper derrick used for construction, contending that it was promotional, and violated federal law with regards to advertising on national monuments.
Although Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel initially refused to pursue what it considered a precarious venture, the company relented after discovering that leaving the initials in place would cost $225,000 and after that, $42,000 per month.
On the 26th. October 1965, the International Association of Ironworkers delayed work to ascertain that the Arch was safe. After NPS director Kenneth Chapman gave his word that conditions were "perfectly safe," construction resumed on the 27th. October.
Topping out and Dedication
President Lyndon B. Johnson and Mayor Alfonso J. Cervantes decided on a date for the topping-out ceremony, but the Arch had not been completed by then. The ceremony date was reset to the 17th. October 1965; workers strained to meet the deadline, taking double shifts, but by the 17th. October, the Arch was still not complete.
The chairman of the ceremony then anticipated the ceremony to be held on the 30th. October 1965, a Saturday, to allow 1,500 schoolchildren, whose signatures were to be placed along with others in a time capsule, to attend. Ultimately, PDM set the ceremony date to the 28th. October.
The time capsule, containing the signatures of 762,000 students and others, was welded into the keystone before the final piece was set in place. On the 28th. October 1965, the Arch was topped out as Vice President Hubert Humphrey observed from a helicopter.
A Catholic priest and a rabbi prayed over the keystone, a 10-ton, eight-foot-long (2.4 m) triangular section. It was slated to be inserted at 10:00 a.m. local time, but was in fact done 30 minutes early, because thermal expansion had constricted the 8.5-foot (2.6 m) gap at the top by 5 inches (13 cm). To mitigate this, workers used fire hoses to spray water on the surface of the south leg to cool it down and make it contract.
The keystone was inserted in 13 minutes with only 6 inches (15 cm) remaining. For the next section, a hydraulic jack had to pry apart the legs six feet (1.8 m). By noon, the keystone was secured. Some filmmakers, in hope that the two legs would not meet, had chronicled every phase of construction.
The Gateway Arch was expected to open to the public by 1964, but by 1967 the public relations agency had stopped forecasting the opening date. The Arch's visitor center opened on the 10th. June 1967, and the tram began operating on the 24th. July.
The Arch was dedicated by Hubert Humphrey on the 25th. May 1968.He declared that the Arch was:
"A soaring curve in the sky that links
the rich heritage of yesterday with
the richer future of tomorrow. It brings
a new purpose and a new sense of
urgency to wipe out every slum.
Whatever is shoddy, whatever is ugly,
whatever is waste, whatever is false,
will be measured and condemned in
comparison to the Gateway Arch."
About 250,000 people were expected to attend the dedication, but rain canceled the outdoor activities, with the ceremony being transferred to the visitor center. After the dedication, Humphrey crouched beneath an exit as he waited for the rain to subside so that he could walk to his vehicle.
After Completion
The project did not provide 5,000 jobs as expected - as of June 1964, workers numbered fewer than 100. The project did, however, incite other riverfront restoration efforts, totaling $150 million. Building projects included a 50,000-seat sports stadium, a 30-story hotel, several office towers, four parking garages, and an apartment complex.
The idea of a Disneyland amusement park that included "synthetic riverboat attractions" was considered, but later abandoned. The developers hoped to use the Arch as a commercial catalyst, attracting visitors who would use their services. One estimate found that since the 1960's, the Arch has incited almost $503 million worth of construction.
Characteristics of the Arch
Both the width and height of the Arch are 630 feet (192 m). The Arch is the tallest memorial in the United States, and the tallest stainless steel monument in the world.
The cross-sections of the Arch's legs are equilateral triangles, narrowing from 54 feet (16 m) per side at the bases to 17 feet (5.2 m) per side at the top. Each wall consists of a stainless steel skin covering a sandwich of two carbon-steel walls with reinforced concrete in the middle from ground level to 300 feet (91 m), with carbon steel to the peak.
The Arch is hollow to accommodate a unique tram system that takes visitors to an observation deck at the top.
The structural load is supported by a stressed-skin design. Each leg is embedded in 25,980 tons of concrete 44 feet (13 m) thick and 60 feet (18 m) deep.
Twenty feet (6.1 m) of the foundation is in bedrock. The Arch is resistant to earthquakes, and is designed to sway up to 18 inches (46 cm) in either direction, while withstanding winds of up to 150 miles per hour (240 km/h).
The structure weighs 42,878 tons, of which concrete composes 25,980 tons; structural steel interior, 2,157 tons; and the 6.3mm thick grade 304 stainless steel panels that cover the exterior of the Arch, 886 tons.
This amount of stainless steel is the most used in any one project in history. The base of each leg at ground level had to have an engineering tolerance of 1⁄64 inch (0.40 mm), or the two legs would not meet at the top.
Mathematics of the Arch
The Arch is a weighted catenary - its legs are wider than its upper section. A hyperbolic cosine function describes the shape of a catenary. The catenary arch is the stablest of all arches, since the thrust passes through the legs and is absorbed in the foundations, instead of forcing the legs apart.
The Gateway Arch however is not a common catenary, but an inverted weighted catenary. Saarinen chose a weighted catenary over a normal catenary curve because it looked less pointed and less steep. In 1959, he caused some confusion about the actual shape of the Arch when he wrote:
"This Arch is not a true parabola, as is often
stated. Instead it is a catenary curve—the
curve of a hanging chain—a curve in which
the forces of thrust are continuously kept
within the center of the legs of the Arch."
Lighting the Arch
The first proposal to illuminate the Arch at night was announced on the 18th. May 1966, but the plan never came to fruition. However in July 1998, funding for an Arch lighting system was approved by St. Louis's Gateway Foundation, which agreed to take responsibility for the cost of the equipment, its installation, and its upkeep.
In January 1999, MSNBC arranged a temporary lighting system for the Arch so the monument could be used as the background for a visit by Pope John Paul II.
Since November 2001, the Arch has been bathed in white light between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. via a system of floodlights. Designed by Randy Burkett, it comprises 44 lighting fixtures situated in four pits just below ground level.
On the 5th. October 2004, the U.S. Senate approved a bill permitting the illumination in pink of the Arch in honor of breast cancer awareness month. Both Estée Lauder and May Department Store Co. had championed the cause.
One employee said that the Arch would be:
"A beacon for the importance of
prevention and finding a cure."
While the National Park Service took issue with the plan due to the precedent it would set for prospective uses of the Arch, it yielded due to a realization that it and Congress were "on the same team," and because the illumination was legally obligatory; on the 25th. October 2004, the plan was carried out.
The previous time the Arch was illuminated for promotional purposes was on the 12th. September 1995, under the management of local companies Fleishman-Hillard and Technical Productions, when a rainbow spectrum was shone on the Arch to publicize the debut of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus' Wizard of Oz on Ice at the Kiel Center.
Public Access to the Arch
In April 1965, three million tourists were expected to visit the Arch annually after completion; 619,763 tourists visited the top of the Arch in its first year open. On the 15th. January 1969, a visitor from Nashville, Tennessee, became the one-millionth person to reach the observation area; the ten-millionth person ascended to the top on the 24th. August 1979.
In 1974, the Arch was ranked fourth on a list of "most-visited man-made attractions." The Gateway Arch is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the world, with over four million visitors annually, of which around one million travel to the top.
The Arch was listed as a National Historic Landmark on the 2nd. June 1987, and is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Visitor Center
The underground visitor center for the Arch was designed as part of the National Park Service's Mission 66 program. The 70,000-square-foot (6,500 m2) center is located directly below the Arch, between its legs.
Although construction of the visitor center began at the same time as construction of the Arch itself, it did not conclude until 1976 because of insufficient funding; however, the center opened with several exhibits on the 10th. June 1967. Access to the visitor center is provided through ramps adjacent to each leg of the Arch.
The center houses offices, mechanical rooms, and waiting areas for the Arch trams, as well as its main attractions: the Museum of Westward Expansion and two theaters displaying films about the Arch.
The older theater opened in May 1972; the newer theater, called the Odyssey Theatre, was constructed in the 1990's and features a four-story-tall screen. Its construction required the expansion of the underground complex, and workers had to excavate solid rock while keeping the disruption to a minimum so that the museum could remain open.
The museum houses several hundred exhibits relating to the United States' westward expansion in the 19th. century, and opened on the 10th. August 1977.
The visitor center and museum underwent a $176 million expansion and renovation that was completed in July 2018. The renovation included a 46,000-square-foot underground addition featuring interactive story galleries, video walls, a fountain and a café.
The Observation Area
Near the top of the Arch, passengers exit the tram compartment and climb a slight gradient to enter the observation area. This arched deck, which is over 65 feet (20 m) long and 7 feet (2.1 m) wide, can hold up to about 160 people, equivalent to the number of people from four trams.
Sixteen windows per side, each measuring 7 by 27 inches (180 mm × 690 mm), offer views up to 30 miles (48 km) to the east across the Mississippi River and southern Illinois with its prominent Mississippian culture mounds at Cahokia Mounds, and to the west over the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County beyond.
Modes of Ascent
There are three modes of transportation up the Arch: two sets of 1,076-step emergency stairs (one per leg), a 12-passenger elevator to the 372-foot (113 m) height, and a tram in each leg.
Each tram is a chain of eight cylindrical, five-seat compartments with a small window on the doors. As each tram has a capacity of 40 passengers and there are two trams, 80 passengers can be transported at one time, with trams departing from the ground every 10 minutes.
The cars swing like Ferris-wheel cars as they ascend and descend the Arch. This movement gave rise to the idea of the tram as "half-Ferris wheel and half-elevator."
The trip to the top takes four minutes, and the trip down takes three minutes.
The tram in the north leg entered operation in June 1967, but visitors were forced to endure three-hour-long waits until the 21st. April 1976, when a reservation system was put in place.
The south tram was completed in March 1968. Commemorative pins were awarded to the first 100,000 passengers.
As of 2007, the trams have traveled 250,000 miles (400,000 km), conveying more than 25 million passengers.
Incidents Associated With the Arch
-- July 1970
On the 8th. July 1970, a six-year-old boy, his mother, and two of her friends were trapped in a tram in the Arch's south leg after the monument closed. According to the boy's mother, the group went up the Arch around 9:30 p.m. CDT, but when the tram reached the de-boarding area, its doors did not open.
The tram then traveled up to a storage area 50 feet (15 m) above the ground, and the power was switched off. One person was able to pry open the tram door, and the four managed to reach a security guard for help after being trapped for about 45 minutes.
-- July 2007
On the 21st. July 2007, a broken cable forced the south tram to be shut down, leaving only the north tram in service until repairs were completed in March 2008. Around 200 tourists were stuck inside the Arch for about three hours because the severed cable contacted a high-voltage rail, causing a fuse to blow.
The north tram was temporarily affected by the power outage as well, but some passengers were able to exit the Arch through the emergency stairs and elevator. It was about two hours until all the tram riders safely descended, while those in the observation area at the time of the outage had to wait an additional hour before being able to travel back down.
An Arch official said the visitors, most of whom stayed calm during the ordeal, were not in any danger, and were later given refunds. The incident occurred while visitors in the Arch were watching a fireworks display, and no one was seriously injured in the event. However, two people received medical treatment: one person needed oxygen, and the other was diabetic.
-- March 2008
Almost immediately after the tram returned to service in 2008, however, it was closed again for new repairs after an electrical switch broke. The incident, which occurred on the 14th. March, was billed as a "bad coincidence."
-- February 2011
On the morning of the 9th. February 2011, a National Park Service worker was injured while performing repairs to the south tram. The 55-year-old was working on the tram's electrical system when he was trapped between it and the Arch wall for around 30 seconds, until being saved by other workers.
Emergency officials treated the injured NPS employee at the Arch's top before taking him to Saint Louis University Hospital in a serious condition.
-- March 2011
On the 24th. March 2011, around one hundred visitors were stranded in the observation area for 45 minutes after the doors of the south tram refused to close. The tourists were safely brought down the Arch in the north tram, which had been closed that week so officials could upgrade it with a new computer system.
The National Park Service later attributed the malfunction to a computer glitch associated with the new system, which had already been implemented with the south tram. No one was hurt in the occurrence.
-- June 2011
Around 2:15 p.m. local time on the 16th. June 2011, the Arch's north tram stalled due to a power outage. The tram became stuck about 200 feet (61 m) from the observation deck, and passengers eventually were told to climb the stairs to the observation area.
It took National Park Service workers about one hour to manually pull the tram to the top, and the 40 trapped passengers were able to return down on the south tram, which had previously not been operating that day because there was not an abundance of visitors.
An additional 120 people were at the observation deck at the time of the outage, and they also exited via the south tram. During the outage, visitors were stuck in the tram with neither lighting nor air conditioning. No one was seriously injured in the incident, but one visitor lost consciousness after suffering a panic attack, and a park ranger was taken away with minor injuries. The cause of the outage was not immediately known.
Stunts and Accidents Associated With the Arch
-- June 1966
On the 16th. June 1965, the Federal Aviation Administration cautioned that aviators who flew through the Arch would be fined, and their licenses revoked. At least ten pilots have disobeyed this order, beginning on the 22nd. June 1966.
-- December 1973
In 1973, Nikki Caplan was granted an FAA exception to fly a hot air balloon between the Arch's legs as part of the Great Forest Park Balloon Race. During the flight, on which the St. Louis park director was a passenger, the balloon hit the Arch and plummeted 70 feet before recovering.
-- July 1976
In 1976, a U.S. Army exhibition skydiving team was permitted to fly through the Arch as part of Fourth of July festivities, and since then, numerous skydiving exhibition teams have legally jumped onto the Arch grounds, after having flown their parachutes through the legs of the Arch.
-- June 1980
The Arch has been a target of various stunt performers, and while such feats are generally forbidden, several people have parachuted to or from the Arch regardless. In June 1980, the National Park Service declined a request by television producers to have a performer jump from the Arch.
-- November 1980
On the 22nd. November 1980, at about 8:45 a.m. CST, 33-year-old Kenneth Swyers of Overland, Missouri, parachuted onto the top of the Arch. His plan was to release his main parachute and then jump off the Arch using his reserve parachute to perform a base jump.
Unfortunately, after landing the wind blew him to the side, and he slid down the north leg to his death. The accident was witnessed by several people, including Swyers' wife, also a parachutist. She said that:
"My husband was not a hot
dog, daredevil skydiver. He
had prepared for the jump
two weeks in advance."
Swyers, who had made over 1,600 jumps before the incident, was reported by one witness as follows:
"He landed very well on the
top of the Arch, but had no
footing."
Swyers was reportedly blown to the top of the Arch by the wind and was unable to save himself when his reserve parachute failed to deploy. The Federal Aviation Administration said the jump was unauthorized, and investigated the pilot involved in the incident.
-- December 1980
On the 27th. December 1980, St. Louis television station KTVI reported receiving calls from supposed witnesses of another stunt landing. The alleged parachutist, who claimed to be a retired professional stuntman, was said to be wearing a Santa Claus costume when he jumped off an airplane around 8:00 a.m. CST.
He parachuted onto the Arch, grasped the monument's beacon, and used the same parachute to glide down unharmed. KTVI said it was told:
"The feat was done as an act of
homage to Swyers, and was a
combination of a dare, a drunk,
and a tribute."
However on the day after the alleged incident, authorities declared the jump a hoax. A spokesperson for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department said no calls were received about the jump until after it was broadcast on the news, and the Federal Aviation Administration said the two calls it had received were very similar.
One caller also left an out-of-service phone number, while the other never followed up with investigators. Arch officials said they did not witness any such jump, and photos provided by the alleged parachutist were unclear.
-- February 1986
An appeal by stuntman Dan Koko to be allowed to jump from the Arch was turned away in February 1986. Koko, who was a stunt double for Superman, wanted to perform the leap during Fourth of July celebrations.
-- September 1992
On the 14th. September 1992, 25-year-old John C. Vincent climbed to the top of the Gateway Arch using suction cups, and proceeded to parachute back to the ground. He was later charged with two misdemeanors: climbing a national monument, and parachuting in a national park.
Federal prosecutor Stephen Higgins called the act a "great stunt" but said that:
"It is something the Park
Service doesn't take lightly."
Vincent, a construction worker and diver from Harvey, Louisiana, said:
"I did it just for the excitement,
just for the thrill."
He had previously parachuted off the World Trade Center in May 1991. He said that scaling the Arch "wasn't that hard," and that he had considered a jump off the monument for a few months.
In an interview, Vincent said he visited the Arch's observation area a month before the stunt, to see if he could use a maintenance hatch for accessing the monument's peak. Due to the heavy security, he instead decided to climb up the Arch's exterior using suction cups, which he had used before to scale shorter buildings.
Dressed in black, Vincent began crawling up the Arch around 3:30 a.m. CST on the 14th. September 1992, and arrived undetected at the top around 5:45 a.m., taking an additional 75 minutes to rest and take photos before finally jumping.
During this time, he was seen by two traffic reporters inside the One Metropolitan Square skyscraper.
Vincent was also spotted mid-air by Deryl Stone, a Chief Ranger for the National Park Service. Stone reported seeing Vincent grab his parachute after landing and run to a nearby car, which quickly drove away.
However, authorities were able to detain two men on the ground who had been videotaping the jump. Stone said 37-year-old Ronald Carroll and 27-year-old Robert Weinzetl, both St. Louis residents, were found with a wireless communication headset and a video camera, as well as a still camera with a telephoto lens.
The two were also charged with two misdemeanors: disorderly conduct, and commercial photography in a national park.
Vincent later turned himself in, and initially pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. However, he eventually accepted a guilty plea deal in which he testified against Carroll and Weinzetl, revealing that the two consented to record the jump during a meeting of all three on the day before his stunt occurred.
Federal magistrate judge David D. Noce ruled on the 28th. January 1993 that Carroll had been involved in a conspiracy, and was guilty of both misdemeanor charges; the charges against Weinzetl were dropped by federal prosecutors. In his decision, Noce stated:
"There are places in our country where the
sufficiently skilled can savor the exhilaration
and personal satisfaction of accomplishing
courageous and intrepid acts, of reaching
dreamed-of heights and for coursing
dangerous adventures.
However other places are designed for the
exhilaration of mere observation, and for the
appreciation of the imaginings and the works
of others. The St. Louis Arch and the grounds
of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
are in the latter category."
After his guilty plea, Vincent was sentenced to a $1,000 fine, 25 hours of community service, and a year's probation. In December 1992, Vincent was sentenced to ninety days in jail for violating his probation.
-- 2013
In 2013, Alexander Polli, a European BASE jumper, planned to fly a wingsuit under the Arch, but had his demo postponed by the FAA.
Security
Two years after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, $1 million was granted to institute a counter-terrorism program for the Arch. Park officials were trained to note the activity of tourists, and inconspicuous electronic detection devices were installed.
After the September 11 attacks on the WTC in 2001, security efforts became more prominent, and security checkpoints moved to the entrance of the Arch's visitor center. At the checkpoints, visitors are screened by magnetometers and x-ray equipment, devices which have been in place since 1997.
The Arch also became one of several U.S. monuments placed under restricted airspace during 2002 Fourth of July celebrations.
In 2003, 10-foot-long (3.0 m), 32-inch-high (81 cm), 4,100-pound (1,900 kg) movable Jersey barriers were installed to impede terrorist attacks on the Arch.
Later that year, it was announced that these walls were to be replaced by concrete posts encased in metal to be more harmonious with the steel color of the Arch. The movable bollards can be manipulated from the park's dispatch center, which has also been upgraded.
In 2006, Arch officials hired a "physical security specialist," replacing a law enforcement officer. The responsibilities of the specialist include risk assessment, testing the park's security system, increasing security awareness of other employees, and working with other government agencies to improve the Arch's security procedures.
Symbolism and Culture
Built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States, the Arch is said to typify:
"The pioneer spirit of the men and women
who won the West, and those of a latter
day to strive on other frontiers."
On the 14th. December 2003, Robert W. Duffy wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
"The Gateway Arch packs a significant symbolic
wallop just by standing there. But the Arch has a
mission greater than being visually affecting.
Its shape and monumental size suggest movement
through time and space, and invite inquiry into the
complex, fascinating story of America's national
expansion."
The Arch has become the iconic image of St. Louis, appearing in many parts of city culture. In 1968, three years after the monument's opening, the St. Louis phone directory contained 65 corporations with "Gateway" in their title and 17 with "Arch".
Arches also appeared over gas stations and drive-in restaurants. In the 1970's, a local sports team adopted the name "Fighting Arches"; St. Louis Community College later (when consolidating all athletic programs under a single banner) named its sports teams "Archers".
Robert S. Chandler, an NPS superintendent, said:
"Most visitors are awed by the size
and scale of the Arch, but they don't
understand what it's all about ... Too
many people see it as just a symbol
of the city of St. Louis."
The Arch has also appeared as a symbol of the State of Missouri. On the 22nd. November 2002, at the Missouri State Capitol, Lori Hauser Holden, wife of then-Governor Bob Holden, uncovered the winning design for a Missouri coin design competition as part of the Fifty States Commemorative Coin Program.
Designed by water colorist Paul Jackson, the coin portrays three members of the Lewis and Clark expedition paddling a boat on the Missouri River upon returning to St. Louis with the Arch as the backdrop.
Holden said that:
"The Arch is a symbol for the entire
state ... Four million visitors each year
see the Arch. The coin will help make
it even more loved worldwide."
A special license plate designed by Arnold Worldwide featured the Arch, labeled with "Gateway to the West." Profits earned from selling the plates funded the museum and other educational components of the Arch.
Louchheim wrote that although the Arch has a simplicity which should guarantee timeliness, it is entirely modern as well, because of the innovative design and its scientific considerations.
In The Dallas Morning News, architectural critic David Dillon opined that:
"The Arch exists not as a functional edifice,
but as a symbol of boundless American
optimism". The Arch has multiple "moods" -
reflective in sunlight, soft and pewterish in
mist; crisp as a line drawing one moment,
chimerical the next.
The Arch has paid for itself many times
over in wonder".
Some have questioned whether St. Louis really was - as Saarinen said - the "Gateway to the West". Kansas City-born "deadline poet" Calvin Trillin wrote:
"I know you're thinking that there are considerable
differences between T.S. Eliot and me. Yes, it is true
that he was from St. Louis, which started calling itself
the Gateway to the West after Eero Saarinen's
Gateway Arch was erected, and I'm from Kansas City,
where people think of St. Louis not as the Gateway to
the West but as the Exit from the East."
With renovations in the 2010's of the visitor center, the message of the Arch has been more inclusive in its historic perspective, highlighting the impact of colonialism, and particularly the effect of American frontierism on the environment, land and people of the First Americans, as well as Native Mexicans.
It furthermore exhibits the urban history of the site and the struggle of its people, as well as of its construction workers for more rights, during the civil rights movement era.
The Arch's futuristic style has been seen as a symbol for the automobile age and the surrounding automobile-centric urban and interstate infrastructure, promising a technological future of a new accessible frontier.
This outlook has seen continuation, lending the Gateway Arch's iconic shape and meaning to the name and logo of the future Lunar Gateway, with its purpose as a gateway to the Moon and Mars.
On the 29th. February 1969, in an article in The New York Times, Louchheim praised the Arch's design as:
"A modern monument, fitting,
beautiful and impressive."
Cultural References to the Arch
-- Dutch composer Peter Schat wrote a 1997 work, Arch Music for St. Louis, Op. 44. for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. It premiered on the 8th. January 1999 at the Powell Symphony Hall.
Since Schat did not ascend the Arch due to his fear of heights, he used his creativity to depict in music someone riding a tram to the top of the Arch.
-- Paul Muldoon's poem, "The Stoic", is set under the Gateway Arch. The work, "An Elegy for a Miscarried Foetus", describes Muldoon's ordeal standing under the Gateway Arch after his wife telephoned and informed him that the baby they were expecting had been miscarried.
-- Percy Jackson encounters Echidna and the Chimera in the Gateway Arch in The Lightning Thief, after he, Grover Underwood, and Annabeth Chase visit the Arch during their trip to California to recover the Master Bolt. Percy faces the Chimera, jumps out of the Arch, and falls into the Mississippi River.
-- A damaged Gateway Arch is prominently featured in Defiance, a science fiction television series. The apex is used as a radio station studio, with the arch itself acting as the station's antenna.
Vandalism and Maintenance of the Arch
The first act of vandalism against the Arch was committed in June 1968: the vandals scratched their names on various parts of the Arch. In all, $10,000 was spent that year in order to repair damage from vandalism. The Arch was first targeted by graffiti artists on the 5th. March 1969.
In 2010, signs of corrosion were reported at the upper regions of the stainless steel surface. Carbon steel in the north leg has been rusting, possibly a result of water accumulation, a side effect of leaky welds in an environment that often causes rain to enter the skin of the structure.
Maintenance workers use mops and a temporary setup of water containers to ease the problem. According to NPS documents, the corrosion and rust pose no safety concerns.
A more comprehensive study of the corrosion had been suggested as early as 2006 by architectural specialists studying the Arch, and reiterated in a 2010 Historic Structure Report.
In September 2010, the NPS granted Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. a contract for a structural study that would:
"Gather data about the condition of the
Arch to enable experts to develop and
implement the right long-term solutions."
Stain samples were taken from the west face of the Arch on the 21st. October 2014 to determine the best way to clean it. The cleaning was estimated to cost about $340,000.
In 1984, structural engineer Tibor Szegezdy told the Smithsonian Magazine that:
"The Arch will stand for considerably
less than a thousand years before
collapsing in a wind storm."
Motto suggested for New Jersey by Calvin Trillin
HGGT!! HDT!! Exploranimous!!
dragonfly, blue dasher, brookside gardens, wheaton, maryland
Give me a desert tray any day
Linda Hartong Photography. ©All Rights Reserved. 2008 Do not use, copy or edit any of my photographs without written permission.
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
...here are some of my favourite food quotes:
This comes from someone who works in a hospice...me not Mortimer silly :P
"I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There's no pleasure worth foregoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward." John Mortimer
"The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found." Calvin Trillin - Thank God my mother at least only does it ocassionally, that is show us the original meal :P
"Some things you have to do every day. Eating seven apples on Saturday night instead of one a day just isn't going to get the job done". - Jim Rohn [But it helps with the guilt :)]
There are plenty more (i love food:P) but i think you've had enough :D Cheers!
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
Hunting after sundown, I took this foto. Hope you like it; but I need to add these three items to contemplate as many ready to give THANKS for Mankind's blessings from ABOVE.
This handheld foto made facing east into the twilight resulted in unintended sights to see. In getting this one ready to upload, I ran across the very uplifting fotos at
www.flickr.com/photos/9162270@N03/page3/
Missbeautifull's lastest upload of church buddies quotes this from Psalm 128:1
"Happy are those who respect the Lord and obey him." Please join the joy and leave your tracks all over her brillant stream. Thanks so much for all you do for all of us others. Explore would not find anyone's best fotos without your visits, comments, and faves.
On imagination, I learned below at www.quotegarden.com/imagination.html
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras, 1942
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. ~Michelangelo
I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities. ~Dr. Theodore Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss
Nothing encourages creativity like the chance to fall flat on one's face. ~James D. Finley
Some stories are true that never happened. ~Elie Weisel
It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. ~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
My alphabet starts with this letter called yuzz. It's the letter I use to spell yuzz-a-ma-tuzz. You'll be sort of surprised what there is to be found once you go beyond 'Z' and start poking around! ~Dr. Seuss
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact. ~William Shakespeare, Mid-Summer Night's Dream, 1595
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea. ~Francis Bacon
Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! ~Ted Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!
A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant. ~Author Unknown
The Possible's slow fuse is lit
By the Imagination.
~Emily Dickinson
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. ~George Smith Patton, War as I Knew It, 1947
The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more destructive, a lot madder and a lot saner, than the average person. ~Frank Barron, Think, November-December 1962
You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. ~Mark Twain
Don't expect anything original from an echo. ~Author Unknown
I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them. ~Pablo Picasso
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. ~Jack London
There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds. ~G.K. Chesterton
Imagination and fiction make up more than three-quarters of our real life. ~Simone Weil
Personally, I would sooner have written Alice in Wonderland than the whole Encyclopedia Britannica. ~Stephen Leacock
Sometimes imagination pounces; mostly it sleeps soundly in the corner, purring. ~Leslie Grimutter
Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence. ~Norman Podhoretz
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. ~Edgar Allan Poe, "Eleonora"
He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet. ~Joseph Joubert
Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. ~Lewis Carroll
There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept. ~Ansel Adams
Things are only impossible until they're not. ~Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation
When you are describing,
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don't state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things,
With a sort of mental squint.
~Lewis Carroll
When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars. ~Vincent Van Gogh
The theoretician believes in logic and believes that he despises dreams, intuition, and poetry. He does not recognize that these three fairies have only disguised themselves in order to dazzle him.... He does not know that he owes his greatest discoveries to them. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wartime Writings 1939-1944, translated from French by Norah Purcell
I think the world really boils down to two types of people - those who see shapes in cloud formations, and those who just see clouds. ~Danzae Pace
Trust that little voice in your head that says "Wouldn't it be interesting if..." And then do it. ~Duane Michals, "More Joy of Photography"
Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun. ~George Scialabba
It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see. ~Henry David Thoreau
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
~Emily Dickinson, Poems
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. ~Albert Einstein
Anyone who can be replaced by a machine deserves to be. ~Dennis Gunton
Really we create nothing. We merely plagiarize nature. ~Jean Baitaillon
Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures. ~Jessamyn West
People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind. ~William Butler Yeats
I remembered a story of how Bach was approached by a young admirer one day and asked, "But Papa Bach, how do you manage to think of all these new tunes?" "My dear fellow," Bach is said to have answered, according to my version, "I have no need to think of them. I have the greatest difficulty not to step on them when I get out of bed in the morning and start moving around my room." ~Laurens Van der Post
I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant. ~Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language of the Night
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. ~Albert Szent-Györgyi
I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see. ~Duane Michals, Real Dreams
I never did very well in math - I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn't meant my answers literally. ~Calvin Trillin
Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training. ~Anna Freud
To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted. ~George Kneller
When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge. ~Tuli Kupferberg
It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block. ~Paul Gauguin
EXPLORE # 386 on Thursday, November 22, 2007, for 11-21.
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
Editorial illustration I did for Random House's magazine, Hazlitt.
Read the full article here:
www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/feature/checking-calvin-trilli...
I figured I could afford to upload one more Yellow Headed Blackbird Photo to end off my avian uploads for a while.
Again I chose to leave some highlight hotspots in order to get more detail in the dark areas for an exposure of this fella. As Sony H50 ++ has mentioned they have less than great voices while trying to attract females. In fact... an unoiled squeeky barn door has a better sound than these birds do while courting... but what they don't have in a singing voice... they make up for in sheer will power to be the loudest male!!
This one found the tallest reed and continually fluttered from it to other ones trying to keep his area free of other males. It was still two weeks before the females would arrive at this particular wetland (typically the males arrive two to three weeks ahead of the females) but that didn't stop the males from claiming their territory.
My Book, Cards, and Prints of ANY of my images are available at larsphotography.com
Definitely best viewed Large
We came across this abandoned mansion when we were exploring Astoria in 2007. It a wreck even then, but the windows hadn't been boarded and the overgrown landcaping, since cleared, lent it an air of genteel decay.
Astoria's pride and joy is the other Flavel mansion, an enormous and extravantly ornate Queen Anne style Victorian at the other end of town. It is exquisitely preserved.
Word in town is this mansion, too, was built by the Flavel family, whose patriarch made his fortune as the first Columbia River bar pilot.
In fact, this mansion was built in 1901 by Captain Flavel's son. Since I last saw the place, the City of Astoria has taken steps to do something about the place. According to Oregon Live, the online version of Portland's Oregonian:
====================================================
The city of Astoria has taken control of a 111-year-old mansion whose history traces the rise of a family prominent in the city's maritime and banking enterprises and the family's eventual decline.
The last occupant known to be alive, Mary Louise Flavel, hasn't been heard from recently, say city officials. They don't know whether she's alive, although they say they can't find evidence that she has died.
Late last month, after invoking a derelict building ordinance passed a year ago, city officials toured the house, the Daily Astorian reported.
They found it crammed from top to bottom with newspapers and magazines from the last century in layers 3 feet thick, among other items that included a 1950s-era woman's swimsuit hanging in an all-pink bathroom, an IRS notice about unpaid taxes for 1979, and what appeared to be the remains of a dog in a refrigerator.
It was the community's first hard information about a local landmark that has long been a source of mystery.
"I grew up in the neighborhood, and Harry was kind of like our Boo Radley from 'To Kill A Mockingbird,'" said City Council member Karen Mellin. "We always wondered what was behind that door."
"Harry" was Harry S. Flavel, last in a line of prominent Astorians whose history and escapades gained national attention when Calvin Trillin wrote an article about the family for the New Yorker in 1993.
The home was built in 1901 by Capt. George Flavel, son of the first bar pilot of the Columbia River. Bar pilots perform the risky work of guiding oceangoing vessels over the mouth of the Columbia River, long known as a graveyard for ships.
George Flavel's son, Harry M. Flavel, inherited the mansion and took over his father's position as president of the bank. Harry M. Flavel's second wife was a schoolteacher named Florence Sherman. The couple had a son and a daughter, Harry Sherman Flavel and Mary Louise Flavel. Harry M. Flavel died in 1951.
/ / /
Harry S. Flavel was sometimes known as "Hatchet Harry" for a fit of teenage rage in which he was said to have "chopped the banister to bits with a hatchet," according to Astoria Fire and Rescue Lt. Bob Johnson. Johnson said his father was a doctor who sometimes made house calls to the Flavel home. The brother and sister never wed or had children. They lived in the home with their mother, Florence, until they fled in 1990.
That was a result of an incident in 1983, when Harry Flavel was accused of attacking a man. He hit the man's car with a dog chain, saying it was going too fast. The driver tracked Flavel to a dark walkway and demanded to know his name. Flavel stabbed him.
Police and the district attorney at the time, Steven Gerttula, stood on the front porch of the Flavel home while the Flavels talked to the city manager on the telephone. They never let police in. But a few days later, Harry S. Flavel surrendered to the police. He pleaded not guilty and was found guilty of assault but acquitted of attempted murder.
The assault charge could have carried a 20-year sentence. He was given probation and launched appeals, which were exhausted in 1990, which would have meant jail time for a man in his 60s.
Mellin, the council member, said her mother lived across the street from the mansion and watched the family leave: "She saw them pile into the car -- Mary, Harry and their 90-year-old mother, and a couple of dogs."
In October 1990, Harry was arrested in Pennsylvania for stealing hotel towels but fled.
In 1991, a maintenance man told the FBI the Flavels had a temporary residence in Massachusetts, and Flavel was sent to jail in Astoria. He served more than a year, was released and disappeared.
Local historian John Goodenberger wrote that he returned to Massachusetts.
The mother died soon after his release from jail, after a two-year stint on life support. The siblings returned to Oregon, Goodenberger wrote, and no one knew it. Harry S. Flavel died in 2010.
As for Mary Louise Flavel, city officials say they're at a loss.
Since a derelict building law went into effect, the city has issued several citations to her and her last-known attorney, who told the city he no longer represents her and doesn't know whether she's alive.
So, the city says, it will now wait for her or an attorney for her to make a claim on the building.
The house itself can be salvaged, city officials said after the tour. It needs a lot of work, but it's structurally sound. Workers will cover the roof with tarp and the windows with boards. Vegetation outside that creates a fire hazard is being cleared.
The papers, publications and belongings crammed in the upper floors may have even helped preserve things by soaking up rainwater, said Jack Applegate, a building inspector.
The city will file a lien on the home and preserve the contents for whoever steps forward to take control of the home, even if that someone is Mary Louise Flavel.
www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2012/...
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
Who knew! that "the old lady in Dubuque" ... turned out to be none other than a British born lady named Tina Brown, who was the first woman editor of this American cultural icon.
Hey, who knew ?
I recently completed reading this fascinating history of THE NEW YORKER magazine, lovingly written by Ben Yagoda, and I learned a lot, about Modern American Literature, from the Lost Generation gang to David Remnick current New Yorker's editions, in the process.
Always Trust your friendly baker:
I also learned from "the old lady in Dubuque" (pp. 39-40) that daring and novel ideas, in publishing, do succeed, and can rise as fast as highly active yeast. It was Raoul Fleischmann, from the General Baking Company family (pp. 32-33), who, in the summer of 1924, backed Harold Ross and Jane Grant own's $20,000.00 savings, with an initial $25,000.00 investment, in cash, to start THE NEW YORKER. Hence, Raoul Fleischmann, and his heirs, were Publishers of THE NEW YORKER from 1924 to 1985, when S.I. Newhouse, of Advance Publications, bought the property. (pp. 408-409)
So I recommend reading this volume with a 10/10 star rating !!
jacket Illustration by Harry Bliss
www.amazon.com/About-Town-Yorker-World-Made/dp/0306810239...
(496 pages, DA CAPO PRESS, 2001, ISBN-10: 0306810239)
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A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA
A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.
In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.
Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.
OVERVIEW
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.
In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.
Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.
It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.
DESCRIPTION
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.
In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:
... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'
The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
AFRICA
EAST AFRIKA
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.
MADAGASCAR
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.
NAIROBI
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.
South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.
ASIA
CHINA
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."
Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:
Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
HOG KONG
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.
INDIA
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.
SERVICE AVAILIBILITY
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."
Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.
Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.
When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.
The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.
LEGISLATION
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.
JAPAN
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.
MALAYSIA
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.
PAKISTAN
Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.
SINGAPORE
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.
NORTH AMERIKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.
CANADA
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.
WIKIPEDIA