Trick Cyclist Nicholas Kaufmann, Rochester, New York, 1884

Nicholas Kaufmann was a world famous trick bicyclist in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this 1884 photograph, Kaufmann balances on a monocycle -- one of many wheeled props he used to entertain audiences. He won numerous medals for his mastery of the bicycle. A showman as well as an athlete, he later traveled the theater circuit and managed other bicycle acts.