to the white middle class. Consequentially, the working class, people of color, and immigrants were often left behind in the race to achieve this new feminist model. Woman writers belonging to these marginalized communities often critiqued the way in which their newfound freedom regarding their gender came at the expense of their race, ethnicity, or class. Although they acknowledged and respected the independence of the New Woman, they could not ignore the issue that the standards for a New Woman of the Progressive Era could, for the most part, only be attained by white middle-class women. Cycling The bicycle had a significant impact on the lives of women in a variety of areas, not least in the area of Victorian dress reform, also known as the "rational dress movement". The greatest impact it had on the societal role of women occurred in the 1890s during the bicycle craze that swept American and European society. The bicycle gave women a greater amount of social mobility. The feminist Annie Londonderry accomplished her around-the-globe bicycle trip as the first woman in this time. Elizabeth Robins Pennell, who started her writing career with a biography of Mary Wollstonecraft, pioneered bicycle touring with her travelogues around England and Europe in the late nineteenth century. Due to the price and the various payment plans offered by American bicycle companies, the bicycle was affordable to the majority of people. However, the bicycle impacted upper and middle class white women the most. This transformed their role in society from remaining in the private or domestic sphere as caregivers, wives, and mothers to one of greater public appearance and involvement in the community. Literature Literary discussions of the expanding potential for women in English society date back at least to Maria Edgeworth's Belinda (1801) and Elizabeth Barrett's Aurora Leigh (1856), which explored a woman's plight between conventional marriage and the radical possibility that a woman could become an independent artist. In drama, the late nineteenth century saw such "New Woman" plays as Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879) and Hedda Gabler (1890), Henry Arthur Jones's play The Case of Rebellious Susan (1894) and George Bernard Shaw's controversial Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893) and Candida (1898). According to a joke by Max Beerbohm (1872–1956), "The New Woman sprang fully armed from Ibsen's brain" (an allusion to the birth of Athena). Bram Stoker's Dracula makes prominent mention of the New Woman in