page_title: Tillie Anderson
section_title: Relationships Built at the Wheel
hierarchical_section_title: Tillie Anderson / Relationships Built at the Wheel
caption_attribution_description: English: The St. Louis Republic, December 13, 1897
context_page_description: Tillie Anderson was a road and track cyclist. Tillie, a Swedish immigrant and, from all accounts, an extremely strong-willed individual, outpaced the best of the best on the wheel, with times that are still impressive today. Born in Skåne, Sweden in 1875, Tillie emigrated to Chicago in 1891 at the age of 16. At 18, she had saved enough money working as a seamstress to buy her first bicycle. During the summer of 1895, she took part in the race over the Elgin-Aurora century course and broke the century record. She later traveled around the country taking part in six-day bicycle races for women, which involved racing at top speed two hours each evening for six consecutive days. Tillie was 20 years old when the League of American Wheelmen recognized her as the best woman cyclist in the world. In June 2000 - 105 years later - Tillie was posthumously inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame, an undisputed champion and a true pioneer in women's athletics.
context_section_description: At the height of her career, Tillie Anderson married her trainer and manager, J. P. "Phil" Sjöberg, in December 1897.  Phil, a former racer himself, gave up his racing career to manage Tillie's.  Race managers trained their athletes, found sponsors to pay expenses, scheduled races and didn't let go at the starting line until they had given their cyclist the strongest push they could muster.  Sjöberg developed tuberculosis shortly after their marriage and died in 1901.  Tillie, widowed at age 26, never remarried.
caption: The St. Louis Republic, December 13, 1897
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