Mead Cycle Company?

[Cooper S.]

According to this UK history website, the first ad was in chicago in 1902, and the first ad in liverpool in 1903.
https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Mead_Cycles

 

[Cooper S.]

I found on Northwestern Universities archives website that it was founded in 1889. As well, they include a 1924 advert that shows the factory and main sales buildings in Chicago. Both buildings are still there if you look on google street view. https://sites.northwestern.edu/bicycles/bike-advertising/

 

[Ohdee]

Hello folks, my name is Barry Gray. You may or may not know I've been working on a book about the many different head badges found on prewar Schwinn bicycles and the dealers who sold them.
I'm down to my final editing and check lists on companies I need a little more information about.

Mead Cycle Company is one of them. Of course I know they were a mail order company and had lots of badges including Albatross, Amazon, Argonaut, Cossack, Crusader, Hurrycycle, Hurry Up, Iroquois, Kennebee, Ladies Sentinel, Lincoln, Majestic, Montrose, Newport, Pathfinder, Prince, Princess, Ranger, Roman, Royal, Sentinel & Windsor.

I've found lots of ads and photos of bikes, the problem is finding any history about the founding of the company. I can't find anything!

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Barry

 

[Ohdee]

Are you still needing information on James L. (Bunny) Mead?

 

[barneyguey]

Are you still needing information on James L. (Bunny) Mead?

I'm always wanting to learn more about Mead and others. Thank you. Barry

 

[Ohdee]

James L. (Bunny) Mead of the Mead Bicycle Co. was from Kansas. His parents had trading posts in Salina, Towanda and Wichita, Ks. His father, James R. Mead was one of the four original founders of the city of Wichita and the one who named the city of Wichita. James L. (Bunny) Mead was from James R. Mead’s first marriage to Agnes Barcome. Bunny’s father was a trader and buffalo hunter, among other things. There is a biography of the family and their broad history in Kansas called “Hunting and Trading in the Great Plains 1859 -1875”, that was written by James R. Mead and edited by the grandson of James R. Mead, his name is Schuyler Jones. Schuyler was also the curator and head of the Pitt Rivers Museum and Department of Ethnology and Prehistory in Oxford University in England. I highly recommend this book, it is a first hand account of the Mead family and day to day life while they settled the Great Plains of Kansas.

 

[barneyguey]

Cool! Thank you very much for the information. Barry

 

[jrapoza]

I have almost every mead catalog ever produced. Is there something I can find for you.

 

[Cooper S.]

Any chance you got a 1913 catalog?

I have almost every mead catalog ever produced. Is there something I can find for you.

 

[jrapoza]

Yep, how can I help you.