Chapter Two:
The Motorcycle As American Icon
What is it about a motorcycle which so endears it to the male psyche? Attempts to analyze the bond between man and machine are similar: placed in opposition to the comfort and security of the all–too–confining automobile, it becomes the “very icon of wildness.” (1) In a ritual paean to the motorcycle, Robert Hughes preaches that a bike extends its rider “into the environment, all senses alert. . . . The bike flows into it in a state of heightened consciousness that no driver, with his windows and heater and radio, will ever know. It is the total experience.” (2) Of the Harley–Davidson “look” he helped create, Willie G. Davidson said, “The bike conveys a mechanical forcefulness — it’s not totally tamed. We don’t cover up the nuts and bolts because they’re part of the mechanical beauty of the bike.” (3)
A Harley is more than just nuts and bolts and transportation to fanatical owners. It is a lifestyle “embroidered into the fabric of Americana,” Carl Ciati writes in Popular Mechanics. “It’s a look, a sound, a riding position, a certain style.” (4) It is devotion to mechanical beauty which inspires such loyalty that men tattoo the Harley–Davidson bar and shield logo on their bodies. And, because it was for years the last vestige of the American motorcycle industry, the Harley myth incorporates a sense of pride and patriotism. When Honda reigned as sales leader, hardcore Harley loyalists stood firm, seeing in the “You meet the nicest people on a Honda” campaign a “veiled and underhanded swipe at the Harley rider, who was by implication somehow mad, bad and dangerous to know.” (5)
All of this excitement surrounds a machine that was, in truth, an accident, the happy result of early attempts to refine the internal combustion engine. And, as is often the case with technological innovations, no one person can take sole credit for the invention of the motorcycle. In the process of developing an air–cooled, four–stroke engine for automotive use, Gottlieb Daimler constructed a petrol–powered bicycle in 1885. Within a matter of a few years the motorrad appeared in large numbers in France and Germany and by 1896 these contraptions, flitting about at a top speed of about 24 mph, had taken on the familiar shape of the modern motorcycle.
Motorcycle historians Richard Hough and L. J. K. Setright note that the motorcycle has “suffered ever since from its self–imposed engineering limitations as well as from its despised social standing.” (6) That it survived at all in a world satisfied with the horse and wagon (and one in the process of developing a horseless carriage) they call a “pleasing paradox.” Those early machines were, after all, noisy and uncomfortable, and the engines were especially sensitive to every bounce and jiggle. Every trip was an adventure.
But its fickle temperament may have been the machine’s saving grace. Early motorcycles demanded great dedication and mechanical skill of their riders. Those first–generation bikers were up to the task, though, since they were often the machine’s designers and builders, well aware of the machine’s moods and limitations. Motorcycles were also not for the faint–hearted. Early riders earned their reputations as “iron men.” In return, motorcycles provided “a very special delight, a unique amalgam of rigour and exuberance, the paradox of detachment from the world and yet intimate engagement with it.” (7) Who cared that the over–powered bicycles were temperamental, noisy, dirty, painful and completely anti–social — they were fun. (8)
The first two decades of this century were a period of technical innovation that redeemed some of the least appealing aspects of cycling. Up to that point, riders pedaled or ran alongside their bikes to get them started. Because of the cycle’s low power, riders often had to jump off and push them up hills. Even more damaging to the industry was the fact that there were too many manufacturers, too few mechanics and too many designs. When it became standard practice to incorporate a small four–stroke engine into a standard safety bicycle frame, replacing the bottom bracket, the motorcycle’s future brightened. This design improved the motorcycle’s balance by lowering the center of gravity and better distributing the weight of engine and rider.
Both rider and machine changed in the early years of this century. Hough and Setright identify a new type of man taking up motorcycling. The iron men became the minority, replaced by those looking for utility. “The new owner,” they note, “would entertain no romantic notions about his machine, and usually had no mechanical knowledge whatever.” (9) To that end, between 1905 and 1915, practically every modern motorcycle design feature appeared: spring forks for comfort; handlebar controls for mixing oil, fuel and air; improved dynamos for starting and lighting; V–belts and an occasional chain drive; and fat tires that could be repaired and changed in a matter of minutes rather than hours. “Here at last was a motorcycle which really looked like a motorcycle,” write Hough and Setright. “Here was the machine which was to spark off a wave of new manufacturers, a new sport, a new contribution to — or in some ways a new threat to — society.” (10)
With this semblance of standardization and organization came the necessity of racing, the tests of speed and endurance and of the rider’s skills. Prior to 1903 a handful of men would occasionally gather at horse tracks and bicycle velodromes to race their machines at speeds in excess of 30 mph. In this country, 1903 saw the formation of the Federation of American Motorcyclists, which in 1908 put together its first organized event, a two–day endurance run around New York City and Long Island. The president of the Harley–Davidson Motor Company, Walter Davidson, mounted an early Harley to face off against and defeat 84 other riders representing 22 different makes of motorcycle.
The first Harley–Davidson had rolled out of the one–room Milwaukee machine shop operated by Bill and Walter Davidson and William Harley in 1903. A year earlier the first Indian motorcycle sprang out of Springfield, Massachusetts. These two manufacturers, along with Henderson and Excelsior, would come to define motorcycling in the United States and pretty much reign over racing and endurance contests early in the century. Harley–Davidson’s famed Wrecking Crew dominated the sport between 1916 and 1921. But 1921 also saw sales of Harley–Davidsons slump, prompting the company to pull out of racing. The FMA itself had collapsed in 1919, replaced in 1923 by the American Motorcyclists Association (AMA).
The United States motorcycle industry had run up against a new obstacle, the automobile, and it did not fare well. By 1919 sales figures had faltered and “motorcycling in America had almost died.” (11) The composition of motorcycle ridership changed with the times as well. Cycling became “proletarian” as those who could afford them took to automobiles. More importantly for the industry, however, motorcycling essentially became a man’s hobby:
There remained a sizable number of gentlemen, young and not so young, who regarded poodle–faking and the weather protection of the motor car with scorn. Believing “he that travels fastest travels alone,” they managed to satisfy themselves — if nobody else — of their sturdy masculinity by bestriding a good lusty motorcycle. (12)
Ridership, because of increased competition from other modes of transportation, was being whittled down to a hard core of riders who truly enjoyed the sensation and rigour that only the motorcycle could provide. Technical skill and mechanical knowledge were still important, but not essential; potential buyers needed transportation that was reliable and versatile. The best bikes survived, barely, and after World War I they provided cheap and utilitarian transportation. Despite technical advances that improved speed, handling and comfort, the domestic market for motorcycles became increasingly narrow.
Motorcycles fared better in Europe, possibly because of the industry’s infrastructure and less intense competition from automobile companies. From the beginning, in America, the Harley–Davidson Motorcycle Company stressed service. Its efforts to establish a national network of dealers and parts suppliers, along with its intrinsic conservatism, may have been what kept the company afloat during the lean years between the wars. European firms also had the advantage of years of experience, and could take advantage of geographical and climatic differences. To survive, Harley–Davidson pitched its line of reliable, heavy–duty bikes to its two prime markets: police departments and the military. (13) The Department of the Interior used Harleys to patrol Yellowstone Park, and delivery drivers and rural lettercarriers went about their jobs on servicars and sidecar–equipped motor bikes.
European manufacturers, especially those in Great Britain and Germany, dominated the youthful motorcycle market. (14) Industry histories concentrate on European designs and innovations; Harley–Davidson, Indian and other American makes rate only brief asides. The explanation for this focus is fairly simple: the look of a motorcycle is of equal importance to manufacturing and sales. Even slight changes in design, like the placement of the gear shift or the location of the speedometer, become major issues. Hough and Setright concentrate almost exclusively on European bikes, and Vic Willoughby’s Classic Motorcycles offers an in–depth look at 40 European machines he considers “yardsticks” of motorcycle engineering. (15)
Styling was not an immediate concern in this country, however. Size and power were what mattered most. After introducing a V–twin (two–cylinders mounted in a V shape) in 1909, Harley–Davidson came to dominate the American market. As T. A. Hodgdon points out in Motorcycling’s Golden Age of the Fours, big bikes, twins and fours (four cylinders), came to define this country’s motorcycles. And despite flirtation with smaller bikes and fours, Harley–Davidson’s conservative focus on large–displacement twins (750–1,400 cc’s) earned it a reputation for intractability and stagnation. German and British firms concentrated on speed and handling and perfecting their small–bore single and twin–cylinder engines.
To Europeans, stodgy Harleys and Indians were huge and unwieldy; Willoughby goes so far as to call them “agricultural.” (16) Only in America did the styling of hogs and Super Chiefs come to be considered “classic.” There was an obvious reason for this focus, however. In competing against automobiles, American motorcycle manufacturers had to offer some semblance of comfort on roads that by and large would not be paved until the 1950s. Also, motorcycles had to travel farther than smaller European models between fuel stops. If American manufacturers needed a rationale for big bikes, that was it.
A cross–country endurance run by Wells Bennett in 1922 pointed up many of the hazards faced by this country’s early bikers. Riding a Henderson four, Bennett left Los Angeles and within 50 miles ran out of paved road. From there on, one–third of his route was composed of sand and gravel cut with deep ruts: “Plugging along in second gear mile after mile, Bennett had trouble keeping his balance. It was necessary to cross from one side of the road to the other many times, in order to keep in the furrows. This was very strenuous work and just a sample of what was to come.” (17) With Flagstaff behind him he was in the mountains bouncing “over 68 miles of assorted rocks, chuck holes and sand,” only occasionally getting out of low gear. (18)
Outside of Winslow, Arizona, he fell into a dry wash and his 450–pound bike sank into the sand. The trip continued in a similar vein, with the occasional sand dune thrown in for variety, until he hit Emporia, Kansas, after 100 hours in the saddle. From St. Louis to New York City he had the advantage of paved roads, but cold October nights wearied him and a brush with street car rails left him bruised and battered on the side of a New Jersey highway. He managed to set a transcontinental record — six days, 15 hours and 13 minutes — an improvement of some seven hours over the previous mark, but only because the weather had been dry and his bike suffered no damage more serious than a series of flat tires.
Before World War I, to attempt a lengthy trip on a small bike with a limited range was folly. When Hough and Setright acknowledge that American manufacturers went in for bulk rather than mechanical innovation, it is because that is what worked. In the 1920s and 1930s a cyclist could hope for, at best, 5,000 miles before having to discard an off–brand bike that was either out of production or just unfixable. (19) The dependability offered by Harley–Davidson and Indian was an increasingly important issue, as was the dealer’s mechanical support. Added to the mix in the United States was that the automobile quickly became a symbol of middle–class striving. A car in the garage, or more likely on the curb, was a sure sign of success. The motorcycle’s working–class image is one it has never completely overcome.
Inherent design limitations also hurt the motorcycle’s American marketability. It could not comfortably transport a family (unless the rider had a sidecar). As Hough and Setright mention, cycling was a solo adventure for men. Motorcycles were at the mercy of weather. Early on cars had similar problems and “automobilists” stored their vehicles in the winter, but by 1914 some cars had roll–up windows and heaters, and the Fisher Closed Body Corporation turned out 150 enclosed chassis in 1910. (20) Henry Ford’s Dearborn, Michigan, assembly line hit its stride in the 1920s, churning out cars that for $245 compared favorably to the cost of a two–wheeler. In the end, affluent Americans turned their backs on bikes. Harley–Davidson’s production of motorcycles dropped by almost two–thirds — 28,189 to 10,202 — from 1920 to 1921, and it would not top that 1920 sales figure again until 1942. (21)
Motorcycling’s image and the nation’s waning interest in racing was further damaged by the deaths of a number of high profile racers in the 1920s. Motordromes, which were often just steeply banked wooden tracks, were regularly referred to as “murderdromes.” By the 1930s flat track and dirt track racing had lost their luster, and road construction and the automobile made cross country runs less than riveting. Outside of delivery drivers and police officers, motorcycling became the province of the eccentric and the anti–social. Harley–Davidson, always a wizard at advertising and public relations, began to stress respectability and recreational themes in pitching its product. The company used its in–house publication, The Enthusiast, to promote safe riding. It was, and still is, “a publication that cultivates and celebrates much of what is good about riding in the company of like–minded people.” (22)
The AMA, propped up financially by Harley–Davidson since 1928, sanctioned nearly 300 motorcycle clubs in the 1930s, but they were on the decline amid Depression hardship. Harley–Davidson historian David Wright observes that “those who were in clubs became more and more a subculture, wearing clothes available only from a motorcycle dealer.” (23) As Martin Norris argues, these clubs represented the “responsible” riders. They “had their own strict dress codes, and members wore uniforms that were almost military in appearance.” (24) Yet they were the ones who were, and still are to some extent, overlooked when people think of bikers. Organized clubs sponsored mixers, charity events, races and hill–climbing contests. And, like The Enthusiast, AMA clubs promoted responsible motorcycling as a family activity.
Before the end of World War II, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI and various other government agencies were preparing the country for an inevitable spate of juvenile delinquency and crime. Deciding who would lead the fight against the approaching menace and resolve the techniques to be used in the coming battle were hotly contested by sociologists and criminologists. In A Cycle of Outrage, James Gilbert documents both the growing public awareness of delinquency, beginning in 1943, and a series of Senate hearings which focused national attention on the battle between the Justice Department and the Children’s Bureau, setting the tone for the next decade. The result of the war years, he concludes with some irony, was that the country was prepared for the worst — and got it.
According to Gilbert, the 1940s and 1950s were characterized by a variety of threats to the middle–class family. Changes in youth culture inspired confusion and fear in older Americans unprepared and unwilling to accept such rapid social change. The end result was hostility and suspicion between generations, and the belief that teenagers had somehow lost their moral bearings: “In the postwar world, the changing behavior of youth, in terms of speech, fashions, music and mores, appeared to erase the boundaries between hijinks and premature adulthood and even delinquency.” (25) Taken together, events of the era validated increased concern, as well as increased expenditures for adolescent counseling, education and law enforcement.
In The Fifties David Halberstam paints a friendlier, if no less disconcerting, portrait of America. Conformity and materialism were the rule and deviance came at a pretty price. His snapshot descriptions of McDonalds, Holiday Inns, suburban Levittowns and television sitcoms reveal a society inconducive to and increasingly intolerant of non–conformists, free spirits and rebels. The Beats, exemplified by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, looked outside “the system” for freedom. The growing youth culture that idolized Marlon Brando, Elvis Presley and James Dean identified with being misunderstood, especially by parents. There was, Halberstam concludes, a “blandness, conformity, and lack of serious social and cultural purpose in middle–class life in America,” and those with the temerity to turn their backs on it were “the pioneers of what would eventually become the counterculture.” (26)
Perceptions of increased delinquency, the growing popularity of rock and roll music and hot–rodding, the new social mobility and economic independence of adolescents, and changing definitions of right and wrong dovetailed with the older generation’s Cold War hysteria and fear of anarchy and conspiracy. What Gilbert calls a premature adult culture, “thrust upon the American public by communications media that emphasized everything new and threatening,” (27) could easily have been mistaken for radical change. The situation was no less confusing for adolescents who had to adapt to new technology, which was “changing their lives every day in ways obvious and not so obvious; that’s why they were afraid.” (28)
In 1954 Newsweek offered a special report on violence in America. Crimes of violence — manslaughter, assault, murder — were up 33 percent from the years 1937 to 1939. Rapes were up 80 percent. Juvenile delinquency and youth gangs were singularly menacing: “More and more they are going in for big–time crime. They carry guns, and they’re even quicker than adult criminals to kill.” (29) Criminologists blamed the moral breakdown on global tensions; the only cure was “a stiffening of the moral fabric of the nation and a spiritual renaissance.” Los Angeles and its overburdened police force become the focus of the story, but capsule summaries of crime in nine cities revealed the issue to be of nationwide concern. (30)
But violence and street gangs have always been a part of American culture, we just choose to ignore them whenever possible. (31) In the 1950s Harrison Salisbury coined the term the “shook–up generation” to describe the growing incidence of gangs and youth violence. His concern is summarized in one sentence: “What are we going to do about our young people?” (32) Though focused on New York City street gangs, Salisbury sheds light on the changing nature of gangs and what concerned Americans at the dawn of a new decade. Most disturbing to him is the potential violence presented by future generations of suburban teens. With fathers spending too much time at work, Salisbury describes isolated homes and emotionally starved children: “In too many homes the mother is too busy with an eternal round of social activities to have any real relationship with her children. The end result is unhappiness in the midst of plenty.” Where mothers took charge of the home, Salisbury suggests boys rebelled and displayed “extreme masculine attitudes, violence and even sadism.” (33)
Rootlessness, mobility and a burgeoning population also figured into Salisbury’s equation. “People are pouring into California from all parts of the United States. They represent a mixture of ethnic groups and cultural backgrounds. The result of this heavy population movement is identical with the New York picture — friction between the newcomers and old–timers . . . .” (34) James Q. Wilson addresses the mixture of disparate peoples and changes in community standards in an article in The Public Interest. His survey of 1,000 Boston homeowners in 1968 found that the “urban problem” ultimately consisted of a failure of accepted community standards. (35)
Cars and motorcycles provided one outlet for alienated young men and motorheads who might have felt unfairly constrained, isolated, or just out of place in post–war America. Richard Reeves, describing his own experience in the fifties, allows the ‘55 Chevy “historical significance by pointing out that putting a big engine in a small car meant that for the first time the poor (or at least the middle class) could drive as fast as the rich.” (36) In hot–rod culture, with its roots running as far back as the Model T, kids bought stock automobiles and tinkered until they had the most unique machine possible, one that would reflect who they were or who they wanted to be. If they could shut down someone else’s rod, all the better.
Harley–Davidsons similarly attracted men and boys who wanted to express themselves mechanically but could not afford an automobile. The bikes were familiar to World War II vets, and by design Harleys were rugged and fairly cheap. With a bit of work they could also be quite fast. But even more important for later generations of cyclists, Harley 74s (74 cubic inches), the bike of choice for the early outlaw clubs, were easy to repair and easy to personalize. Harley enthusiast Alf Walle writes that Harleys were revered by motorcycle clubs because they could be stripped down to their essentials with a minimum of tools and experience, and could easily reflect the rider’s personality through customized paint jobs and an array of bolt–on parts. (37)
It was within this motorcycle subculture that a more focused outlaw subculture took shape in the 1940s and 50s. Randal Montgomery contends that a “delinquent subculture is organized so as to render certain skills [fighting, avoiding authority] as focal points of status achievement.” (38) Those skills that early outlaw motorcycle clubs valued emphasized mechanical skill and the ability to ride. Clubs and club members also put a priority on toughness, excitement and autonomy, and the objective of intentionally seeking out trouble was to demonstrate hyper–masculine toughness.
Since most members of early outlaw clubs were unskilled or semi–skilled laborers, J. Mark Watson, a former member of a club himself, believes they escaped otherwise dull lives through the excitement generated by the club. (39) The motorcycle provided mechanically inclined, working–class youths a level playing field on which to compete in those skills which were important to them. They suspended competition in a game they could not win — middle–class striving — by creating and emphasizing an artificial culture in which they made their own rules. (40)
Daniel Wolf’s The Rebels offers a slightly different analysis of outlaw clubs. (41) As a full member of a small Canadian club, Wolf, a sociologist, looks at the involved process of becoming an outlaw and the members’ search for identity and community. Stressing the club members’ working–class alienation, he finds the Rebels to be fairly sensible and rational in their reasons for choosing such a dangerous lifestyle. He also puts an interesting spin on other discussions of outlaw bikers. The Rebels Motorcycle Club is not as intent on violence and crime as those clubs that make the news, filling in gaps left by the American media’s focus on sensationalistic aspects of club behavior. The Rebels might, in fact, be more representative of smaller American clubs. Wolf offers interesting insight into the economic realities of clubs focusing on their use of barter and their regulation of other groups’ noncriminal activities.
Considering the range of skills and social status represented by riders, racers and mechanics, bikers and motorcycle enthusiasts could never be considered a homogenous group. Hough and Setright, looking askance at American motorcycle culture, note that except for Harley–Davidson, Vincent and Indian, which “had their reasons for continuing in their severely egregious ways,” biking was dying. By the 1950s, society pegged motorcycles as anti–social and “the gentleman rider was not much in evidence.” (42) The AMA recognized there were riders and clubs that were gaining media attention for their ill–mannered behavior, but believed they represented only one percent of all motorcyclists. Those clubs which did not abide by AMA bylaws became, by definition, outlaws. The advent of these “one–percenter” clubs offered at least one proof that the FBI’s predictions of a flood of juvenile delinquency and crime had indeed come to pass.
Who exactly comprised the original outlaw clubs remains something of a mystery. In Hell’s Angels, journalist Hunter Thompson argues that the Southern California chapters were the offspring of “Okies” and “Arkies” who fled the Dust Bowl during the Depression. Harley historian Martin Norris and others believe they were Air Force veterans who stepped off troop trains in California and decided to stay. That Harley–Davidson produced about 90,000 motorcycles during World War II, then trained servicemen to ride and repair them, would seem to support the contention that veterans, familiar with Harleys, would continue to ride them upon their return to civilian life. (43) Why they would take up a vagabond and sometimes outlaw lifestyle is another question.
One publication states the clubs were composed of veterans who could not adjust to the boredom of civilian life; others simply “rejected the accepted values of going back to prewar patterns.” (44) And since they were still few in number, they tended to band together. California provided perfect weather as well as a developing interstate highway system ideal for motorcycle riding. (45) In the 1950s, motorcycling and the culture surrounding it meant excitement as well as a sense of camaraderie: “The West Coast became the mecca for gangs of ten to thirty young men on powerful machines who roamed the highways in search of adventure, and where none could be found, they created their own.” (46)
Outlaw clubs were difficult to ignore as they took to disrupting AMA–sanctioned events. Life magazine and Hollister provided the country its initial image of these clubs in 1947. The July 4 Hollister hill climb and races also provided the turning point for motorcycling in America, forever changing the image of all bikers for the worse. Descriptions of what exactly occurred that weekend in an isolated California community differ depending on who does the telling. AMA officials said they registered 1,500 riders, but as many as 3,000 cyclists turned up for the event, which also featured drinking, carousing and cycle hooliganism. Some suggest the violence began when the local police interceded and arrested cyclists who were racing their bikes drunkenly on city streets. Another account reports that about 750 bikers “tore the community apart” when police refused to release the prisoners. (47)
Leading up to the event, the Hollister Free Lance reported that police anticipated trouble and brought in other agencies to help enforce the law. The paper’s Monday, July 7, edition bears out details of carousing and drunkenness, reporting that 30 California Highway Patrolmen “clamped informal martial law” on the community, arresting about 50 participants. A group of riders succeeded in breaking into the jail Saturday to free some of those who had been arrested Friday. An AMA official “offered the explanation that many of the motorized groups that had converged on the town were not sanctioned by the association,” and that “there were many ‘screwballs’ riding motorcycles.” (48)
How out of control the situation was and how much damage the town actually suffered is in dispute. It either took as many as 400 local and state police, or as few as 29 local officers to quell the disturbance. (49) Whatever the reality of those three days, permanent damage was done to cycling’s image. The San Francisco Chronicle flew in a reporter and a photographer to cover the event, and it was the Chronicle’s Barney Peterson who snapped the memorable photo of a beer–bellied biker that eventually appeared prominently in Life magazine. (50) Mainstream media reported similar disturbances at other events, duly documenting every outrage as well as the success police had in keeping the outlaw menace under control. In the next 20 years similarly violent incidents transpired in Angels Camp, California, in 1957; Porterville, California, in 1963; Laconia, New Hampshire, and Monterey, California, in 1964; and Weirs Beach, New Hampshire, in 1965.
The immediate result for bikers was increased police scrutiny of motorcycle club activities — legal and illegal alike. Wright believes Hollister divided bikers into separate camps. One side doted on full–dress touring bikes, presenting a positive image; the other comprised “an outlaw element, riding bikes in various stages of modification, ready to perform violent or outrageous behavior.” (51) Such a split had obviously already occurred since the bikers who disrupted Hollister were believed to be members of recognized clubs, either POBOBs (Pissed Off Bastards of Bloomington) or Booze Fighters. These clubs, along with the Market Street Commandoes and the Galloping Gooses, provided the foundation for the most feared and respected of all outlaw clubs, the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club, sometime in the 1950s.
Though the Hell’s Angels constitute just one of many outlaw clubs, their place in the subculture must be considered separately. Society was introduced to the club by William Murray’s 1965 Saturday Evening Post article. Without a lot of bluster he describes the Angel lifestyle and philosophy and explains the various outlaw symbols (pins, badges, tattoos and Nazi paraphernalia), focusing on the Angels’ interest in shocking “squares” and “citizens” in order to gain and maintain their freedom. While he concludes they were unpredictable and dangerous as a group, Murray’s overall picture suggests chronic malcontents whose outlaw image was exaggerated. (52) It also supports his image of a shallow lifestyle with no identifiable boundaries between moral and immoral, one which a certain segment of society found attractive: “Clearly the Angels appealed very successfully to some peculiar and not very admirable psychic drives of their own and of many elements in square society.” (53)
Despite efforts by the AMA and the motorcycle industry to maintain a positive image of two–wheeled life, public fear received another jolt from disaffected magazine journalist Hunter Thompson. His musings on biker culture first appeared in Nation and Esquire, (54) and later a more cynical full–length book, Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. At first Thompson’s texts offer an indictment of mainstream news media tagging along for a peek at the “hoodlum circus.” His “life styles” piece in Esquire begins with the assertion that “for everyone who’d seen a Hell’s Angel in the flesh there were half a thousand more who’d been frightened silly by the whooping of the news media.” (55) He then recounts how a Hell’s Angels run attracts an unreasonable amount of police, media and public attention. His tone is not so much ambivalent as ironic. Everyone, it seemed, was just playing a role.
That sense of irony changed sometime during his continuing research for Hell’s Angels, however. His criticism of news reports and police bias against bikers remains in the text, but Thompson also suggests that the media failed to fully comprehend the dangerous implications bikers represented. Thompson chronicles the sense of difference consciously cultivated by Angels to keep the public at a distance. Through the skillful use of fear and violence outlaw clubs gained what they truly wanted: to be left alone. He recognizes as well that the media were part of the frenzy. By the end of the book any romantic notions of two–wheeled outlaws he once might have held are gone, overwhelmed by a band of ill–mannered thugs bent on violence and sexual depravity. That such deviance existed was bad enough, but that some elements of society would find the outlaw clubs’ brand of violence attractive was at least disconcerting to Thompson.
Thompson’s association with the Hell’s Angels coincided with the release of the California Attorney General’s “The Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club,” also known as the Lynch Report. Attorney General Thomas Lynch, acting on the request of State Senator Fred Farr, investigated the activities of outlaw motorcycle clubs operating in California. The request followed the alleged rape of two Monterey girls, age 14 and 15, by a number of Hell’s Angels. Four club members were arrested but the charges were later dropped for lack of evidence. The 16–page report made an impressive splash when it was released in 1965. Time, Newsweek and the New York Times, as well as many other news organizations, picked up on the fledgling story and gave it national prominence. According to Murray and Thompson, the media succeeded only in exaggerating the report’s importance and its accuracy.
The Lynch Report did succeed in feeding the media’s frenzy to disclose the particulars of biker deviance. Lynch’s survey of California’s police and sheriff’s departments documented 18 instances that, taken together, were meant to reveal an insidious and threatening cancer growing in the state’s poorer neighborhoods. The report offered a short history of outlaw clubs, detailed their interest in drug trafficking, theft, assault and rape. But the incendiary section was titled “Hoodlum Activities.” Arrogant outlaw bikers raped, robbed and pillaged with abandon, threatening anyone who stood in their way. Few charges were brought against them because their victims were always too afraid to testify against their tormentors. Thompson described the report as “sex, violence, crime, craziness and filth — all in one package.” (56)
In a final section, titled “Recommendations by Law Enforcement Officials,” the report suggests response options for law enforcement officials. The most effective action, one police chief notes, is to meet force with force: “‘Our experience indicated that rigid enforcement of the law backed by adequate strength is the best deterrent to group misconduct such as has been engaged in by the Hell’s Angels.’” (57) The report also acknowledges that law enforcement officials have found success in “intensive enforcement activity and frequent citations for Legitimate Code violations.” (58)
Regarding the inability to find witnesses against the Angels, the document notes that the club exploits the “gangster’s code”; there is strong loyalty to the group and the club works to intimidate anyone who stands against them. The report also notes, however, that much of the club’s terrorism was aimed at those who “exist in the same environment as do the Hell’s Angels,” and that “witnesses frequently are not of the higher social strata and thus are vulnerable to the mores of ‘saloon society.’” (59) In other words, the club members’ violence was aimed at those who, like themselves, were lower class and might be engaged in illegal activities, and therefore lacked strong faith in the legal system
Thompson minimizes the content of the report, calling it “colorful, interesting, heavily biased and consistently alarming — just the sort of thing to make a clanging good item for the national press.” (60) That it did. His strongest criticism is aimed at Time’s article, which said members of the club raped the two girls in Monterey without acknowledging that the charges had been dropped. That was “dull stuff,” however, and the article chose instead to use the Lynch Report’s questionable statistics and, in Thompson’s somewhat biased interpretation, demanded that the club “be taught a lesson by hard and ready minions of the Establishment.” (61) In summarizing the events that transpired after the release of the Attorney General’s report, Thompson writes that the news reports demonstrated the “awesome power of the New York press establishment. The Hell’s Angels as they exist today were virtually created by Time, Newsweek and the New York Times.” (62)
By documenting the bikers’ brutality, Murray, Thompson and the mainstream media outraged readers and left them hoping the leather–clad losers and miscreants, caught in a downward spiral of violence, would simply disappear. But outlaw clubs survived the attention of law enforcement officials despite, or possibly because of, media exposure which kept them in the public eye. Their outrageous behavior made them a regular feature on the local, national and international level. Entertainment media further romanticized the lifestyle and fed outlaw clubs recruits, even when the images were meant to illustrate the evil of biker culture.
Romantic notions of free–spirited iconoclasts on bikes were severely tarnished in 1971 when the Rolling Stones hired the club as security for the Altamont music festival, which was expected to be a second Woodstock. The reality, however, was somewhat different as documented in the film Gimme Shelter. The Hell’s Angels took their job seriously. During the course of the concert a group of Angels stomped and stabbed a young black man who, depending on whose story you read, either threatened a gang member with a gun or vandalized their motorcycles. The murder was caught on film, and the glare of publicity not only helped bring an end to the age of Aquarius but incited drastic changes in the public’s perception of biker culture. (63)
The media succeeded in making bikers bona fide sensations. Thompson noted in 1967, however, that the initial incentive for the formation of outlaw clubs had gone. No longer did they band together out of a sense of brotherhood and freedom of the open road, or to protect their privacy and a way of life. Instead, they simply lived up to the deviant image they themselves had promoted. The early 1970s saw the Angels begin their takeover of other clubs, incorporate, and set their course for the future. Out of necessity they cut their ties to the media and removed themselves as much as possible from the public eye. This, combined with an invasion of high quality Japanese imports, allowed the motorcycle industry and the AMA to begin a concerted effort to clean up their image and make cycling a hobby and sport for the entire family.
After Hollister the image of the motorcycle, never especially well received by polite middle–class society, sank even lower. Harley–Davidson tried to disassociate itself from outlaw bikers as well, but it was difficult, maybe suicidal, when one considers that it was the hard core of Harley enthusiasts and outlaws which kept the company solvent through its most turbulent years. No longer could Harley–Davidson depend on the military or police departments to keep it in business. With the encroachment of Japanese motorcycles beginning in 1959, Harley embarked on a long and arduous climb back to the top.
Honda’s early marketing plan was to emphasize what it did best, small–bore motorcycles and scooters, in order to establish a beachhead in America. A new market of young people, especially college students, was attracted to these bikes as cheap and easy transportation. Only later, as their share of the market grew, would Japanese manufacturers challenge Harley–Davidson’s superiority in heavyweights and touring bikes. Unfortunately, Harley–Davidson ignored the growing influence of Japanese models. Its scramble to develop engines that could match the technologically advanced fourstrokes and produce more stylish models came too late. In 1968, to evade a hostile takeover, Harley–Davidson was sold to American Machine & Foundry (AMF) to bolster its recreational products line.
AMF, however, made its own mistakes in facing the Japanese challenge. It attempted to change the company’s emphasis to lightweights, but despite success on racetracks, Harley faithful would not accept the new bikes and dealers simply turned their backs and focused only on the hogs of earlier days. AMF added to its problems by increasing production without improving quality control. Consequently, dealers had to service and repair a majority of new bikes before they could even go on the sales floor. Just at the point that AMF was succeeding in mending its relationship with dealers and with motorcyclists, and with a new engine design in development, the company changed its corporate strategy away from recreational products.
A group of Harley–Davidson executives and stockholders bought the company in 1981 and set it on the road to profitability. One aspect of Harley motorcycles the new owners had to deal with was the bike’s battered image. Quality control measures were instituted and ambassadors were assigned to regain customer good will. Establishing HOG (Harley Owners Group) as a means of emphasizing after–sales service was the most recognizable result of these efforts. Dealing with the leather and denim image was a bit more difficult. The new Harley owners took aim at dealers who they felt perpetuated a “bad–guy image.” Harley dealerships, the company felt, were too often in run–down areas and could not cater to the new family image Harley–Davidson sought. Dealers were told to clean up their acts, to stop treating owners of Japanese motorcycles (hence potential Harley owners) with contempt, and to reach out to new customers through its new product lines and “boutique” quality clothing. (64)
The Harley–Davidson Motorcycle Company edged into the black in 1983 and by 1986 was confident enough to support the removal of tariffs on Japanese bikes. Its status as the last manufacturer of American iron remained intact, and, as a result, motorcycling’s badboy image made a comeback. Once again it was cool to tool around on a Harley and wear a leather jacket. Unfortunately, Harley’s success priced even low–end Sportsters out of the reach of the most faithful of enthusiasts.
The company’s movement into the mainstream, and its emphasis on an expensive line of clothing and fashion accessories, likewise alienated those who created, championed and popularized the image being exploited by Harley–Davidson. The biker image was sanitized in an effort to make it safe for “rubbies” (rich urban bikers) and wannabe bikers. (65) Leather and denim, tattoos and beard stubble are still in evidence, as is a whiff of danger and deviance. But the Harley–Davidson company of the 1980s and 1990s preferred to accentuate patriotism, freedom and just a hint of non–conformity instead of emphasizing its outlaw roots. It even attempted to market the outlaw essence of motorcycling through a signature line of cologne.
For their part, organized outlaw clubs, the Hell’s Angels in particular, worked hard to clean up their media image. From a West Coast phenomenon of like–minded roustabouts, outlaw clubs became an iron and leather culture recognizable worldwide. In the late 1980s journalist Yves Lavigne numbered the Hell’s Angels at about 1,000 full–time members in 67 chapters in 13 countries on four continents. (66) But the loners and barroom toughs who characterized the club’s early days in California would eventually become an organized crime and drug syndicate, complete with high–tech communication and computer hardware. The savvy media manipulators who stage annual Toys for Tots drives bear little resemblance to the inarticulate Okies Thompson and Murray made familiar in the 1960s.
Maybe such a mainstreaming of what was once considered marginal is to be expected. Bikers, outlaw clubs, and the culture which surrounds them provide an opportunity for examining just those aspects of America’s muddled adoration of deviance individuality and masculinity which made possible the biker myth. Despite a marketing emphasis on utility and economy, the motorcycle continues to attract men with something to prove. Controlling 800 pounds of steel balanced on two wheels demands skill, strength and a certain fearlessness, as does opposing anxious and arrogant motorists who begrudge the highway to such intruders. The motorcycle industry successfully capitalizes on potential loss of life and limb by balancing it against the freedom of the open road, wind in the hair and the freedom to go where one pleases. Motorcycling remains an expensive and increasingly rare opportunity to escape from the mundane and the everyday. Such freedom comes at a cost, and it is a sign of masculine courage to choose to put one’s life on the line in order to seize a moment of “deviant” pleasure.
1. Jack McLean, “The Very Icon of Wildness,” The Herald (Glasgow), 17 July 1993, 12.
2. Robert Hughes, “Myth of the Motorcycle Hog,” Time, 8 February 1971, 74.
3. Peter C. Reid, Well–Made in America: Scenes from Harley–Davidson on Being the Best (New York: McGraw Hill, 1990), 42.
4. Carl Ciati, “Born to Ride,” Popular Mechanics, March 1992, 45.
5. Ibid., 45. Reid notes that Honda’s efforts to establish a group like HOG (Harley Owners Group) failed miserably: “Presumably, the same kind of camaraderie among Honda owners did not exist.” Reid, 92.
6. Richard Hough and L. J. K. Setright, A History of the World’s Motorcycles (London: Harper and Row, 1966), 7.
7. Ibid., 7.
8. This image has continued into the present, and is embraced by motorcyclists: “If you are alone, you are your own man. . . . Anti–social? Indeed, yes. And being so, a means to sanity. The motorcycle is a charm against the Group Man.” Hughes, 74.
9. Hough and Setright, 38.
10. Ibid., 30.
11. Ibid., 65.
12. Ibid., 86.
13. One 1944 Harley advertisement, pitched at police departments, featured the headline “It takes men on motorcycles to do these jobs RIGHT.” The practicality of motorcycles for some duties was, as the body copy suggests, “made to measure.” In addition, the advertisement touts the “psychological advantage gained by constant evidence of uniformed authority.” “It Takes Men on Motorcycles to Do These Jobs Right” (Advertisement), The American City, July 1944, 132.
14. In 1961, when Harley–Davidson entered an agreement with an Italian firm to produce a mid–size bike, Business Week commented, “The motorcycle is still important for family transportation in the underdeveloped parts of the world and even in highly industrialized Western Europe. It’s less expensive to buy than an automobile and cheaper to maintain and run.” “U. S. Motorcycle Maker Guns for Foreign Sales,” Business Week, 12 August 1961, 74.
15. Vic Willoughby, Classic Motorcycles (New York: Dial Press, 1975).
16. Ibid., 6.
17. T. A. Hodgdon, Motorcycling’s Golden Age of Fours (Lake Arrowhead, California: Bagnall Publishing, Co., 1973), 8.
18. Ibid., 8.
19. David Wright, The Harley–Davidson Motor Company: An Official Eighty–Year History (Osceola, Wisconsin: Motorbooks International, 1983), 23.
20. Ed Cray, Chrome Colossus (New York: McGraw Hill, 1980), 129.
21. Wright, 18.
22. Martin Norris, Rolling Thunder: The Harley–Davdison Legend (London: Quintet Publishing, 1992), 66.
23. Wright, 27.
24. Norris, 68.
25. James Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage: America’s Reaction to the Juvenile Delinquent in the 1950s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 12.
26. David Halberstam, The Fifties (New York: Villard Books, 1993), 295.
27. Ibid., 23.
28. Richard Reeves, “1954,” American Heritage, December 1994, 32.
29. “‘Best’ Police Force vs. Worst Crime Wave,” Newsweek, 8 February 1954, 50–51.
30. “A Spot Check of Lawlessness in Major U. S. Cities,” Newsweek, 8 February 1954: 50.
31. This is one conclusion of Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, eds, Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (New York: Bantam, 1969). The report submitted to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence was an attempt to give the decade’s racial and civil unrest historical perspective. Graham and Gurr write that collective protest and violence have functioned “as an integral part of the political process,” and “the American belief that it is abnormal, shared by many Europeans, is a consequence of selective historical recollection.” Graham and Gurr, 1.
32. Harrison Salisbury, The Shook–Up Generation (New York: Fawcett, 1959), 163.
33. Ibid., 94.
34. Ibid., 157.
35. James Q. Wilson, “The Urban Unease: Community vs. City,” in Violence: Causes and Solutions, Dr. Renatus Hartogs and Eric Artzt eds. (New York: Dell, 1970), 393. Wilson defined community as “a desire for the observance of standards of right and seemly conduct in the public places one lives and moves, those standards to be consistent with — and supportive of — the values and life styles of the particular individual.” Wilson, 393.
36. Ibid., 31.
37. Alf Walle, “Harley–Davidson: The Renegade Image Free at Last,” Journal of American Culture 7 (Fall 1984): 71–76.
38. Randal Montgomery, “The Outlaw Motorcycle Subculture: II,” Canadian Journal of Criminology and Corrections 19 (October 1977): 360.
39. J. Mark Watson, “Outlaw Motorcyclists: An Outgrowth of Lower Class Cultural Concerns,” Deviant Behavior 2 (October/December 1980): 41.
40. Another purpose for clubs, Montgomery argues, is that they are part of the process of conferring adulthood and masculinity in a society which has no formal rites, especially for lower socioeconomic strata. They are created out of frustration and adolescent males’ striving for the limited rights and privileges available to them. Randal Montgomery, “The Outlaw Motorcycle Subculture,” Canadian Journal of Criminology and Corrections 18 (October 1976): 332–342.
41. Daniel Wolf, The Rebels: A Brotherhood of Outlaw Bikers (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991).
42. Hough and Setright, 175.
43. Reid notes as well that postwar demand for Harleys, mostly from veterans, pushed sales to a record high. Sales fell off, however, when those same men turned their attention to supporting families and making house payments. Reid, Well Built in America, 9.
44. An Inside Look at Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (Boulder: Paladin Press, 1992), 3.
45. Life reported in 1943 that Los Angeles was already well on its way to becoming the car culture capitol of the USA and home to a number of drive–in businesses. The atmosphere also made it an attractive home for an “army of sick, lonesome and generally disarranged people from all over the country.” Roger Butterfield, “Los Angeles is the Damnedest Place,” Life, 22 November 1943, 112.
46. An Inside Look at Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, 3.
47. Ibid., 3
48. Jerry Smith, “Mountains from Molehills,” American Rider, Winter 1994, 48.
49. Norris, 67.
50. Some sources have suggested that the “snapshot of infamy,” as American Rider labels it, was posed. Smith addresses the issue, reporting that motorcyclists believe Peterson gathered up the bottles then told the biker to pretend to be drunk. Chronicle employees quoted by Smith attest to the accuracy of the photo and Peterson’s credibility. Smith, “Mountains from Molehills.”
51. Wright, 34.
52. William Murray, “The Hell’s Angels,” The Saturday Evening Post, 20 November 1965, 32–39.
53. William Murray, Previews of Coming Attractions (New York: The World Publishing Company, 1970), 76.
54. Hunter S. Thompson, “Motorcycle Gangs: Losers and Outsiders,” Nation, 15 May 1965, 522–526; Hunter S. Thompson, “Life Styles: The Cyclist,” Esquire, January 1967, 57–63.
55. Thompson, “Motorcycle Gangs,” 57.
56. Hunter S. Thompson, Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (New York: Ballantine, 1967), 38.
57. California Attorney General’s Report, “The Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club,” 1965, 13.
58. Ibid., 13.
59. Ibid., 14.
60. Thompson, Hell’s Angels, 37.
61. Ibid., 41.
62. Ibid., 51.
63. Richard Schickel, “Apocalypse at Altamont,” Life, 29 January 1971, 12. In reviewing “Gimme Shelter,” Schickel contends the actions of Mick Jagger and the Angels exposed the counter–culture as a product of media manipulators, “part of the problem of corruption, not of its solution.” Schickel, 12.
64. Reid, Well Built in America, 102.
65. Jon Krakauer, “A Hog is Still a Hog, but the ‘Wild Ones’ are Tamer,” Smithsonian, November 1993, 90.
66. Yves Lavigne, Hell's Angels: Three Can Keep a Secret if Two are Dead (New York: Carol Publishing, 1987), 61.