The American Motorcycle Girls 1900 -1950 by Christine Sommer Simmons

‘Coffee table’ books can go one of two ways. The first is just to be a glossy tome that can just be superficially flicked through with glossy images that fill in the odd five minutes. Or, the other way is to combine superb photography that educates as well as entertains and is itself something of a work of art as much as the pictures contained within. 

It has just got to be said that this latest book from the American Parker House Publishing is very much in the second category. A book that just oozes quality from cover to cover, but has you studying each large page of stock art paper in detail before moving on to another of the 240 pages containing 350 period images. 

The books author, Christine Sommer Simmons, could easily have been one of the pioneering women featured in the book and if an update for the second half of the 20^th century were to be done, she would feature heavily. As a result of her own high-profile motorcycling background (that has seen her inducted in to several Motorcycle Halls of fame in the US), she has known exactly what to look for a she has trawled through numerous photo collections and period magazines.  

Having picked her images, she has then researched their origins to give a snapshot (sic) of the women shown. Period adverts are also used to bring alive the whole theme of women on motorcycles at a time when they were the exception, rather than accepted as riders of their own bikes as they are today. 

This is no feminist rant though and the superb black and white (sometimes sepia) images show that many were just as attractive as they were talented riders. A large number too achieved some pretty impressive records, riding some very long distances on roads that were there long before the freeway came to town and more akin to the Wild West horse tracks.  

It is book you feel you should keep on writing about to encourage people to read, but perhaps it is best to leave it with the observations made by Karen Davidson of Harley Davidson (the great grand-daughter of co-founder William Davidson).  

She quite rightly points out in her forward, that today’s modern female riders owe a debt to the many women whose stories are told in the words and pictures within who blazed the trail and made society realise that motorcycling was for everyone!

It is an excellent quality item and worth the £35.00 cover price that should be left on the table for those visitors who have not yet worked this out as well as having a worthy place on any enthusiast’s bookshelf!