How did the penny farthing wheel help society?

Answer 1

The Penny Farthing as such didn't do much for society, it was too expensive and tricky to use to become particularly wide spread.

But the shortcomings of the Penny Farthing lead to the development of the "safety bike" which was a huge improvement and looked pretty much as bikes do today. And the Safety Bike had a huge impact on the mobility of everyday people, it was the first affordable means of personal transportation.

Answer 2

The penny farthing as such didn't help much, it was too expensive and frankly too impractical to ride. But it didn help indirectly by paving the way for the "safety bike" i.e. the chain driven bicycle that looked very much like our modern bikes. And that bicycle became the first personal transportation device that was afforable for for pretty much anyone, and made it possible for people to work, study and date outside of walking distance from their homes.

Answer 3

The Penny-Farthing was too expensive and too impractical to be very important by itself, but it was important in a roundabout way by leading up to the invention of the chain driven bike, which turned out to be really important.

Answer 4

Not much really.

The Penny-Farthing was too expensive and too impractical to be important in itself. But it did lead to the development of the modern, chain-driven bicycle.