The Rambler is an American bicycle brand manufactured by the Gormully & Jeffery Mfg. Co.

Gormully & Jeffery

Gormully & Jeffery was an American bicycle company, founded in Chicago by Thomas B. Jeffery and R. Phillip Gormully in 1878. It marketed bicycles under the Rambler brand, was at one time the second largest bicycle manufacturer in the US, and was sold to the American Bicycle Company in 1900....

, in Chicago from 1878 to 1900. This bicycle brand was created by Thomas B. Jeffery

Thomas B. Jeffery

For the government official in colonial Nova Scotia see Thomas Nickleson JefferyThomas B. Jeffery was an inventor and manufacturer of bicycles and early automobiles.-Early life:...

 and was the predecessor to Jeffery's Rambler automobile.

In 1897 Jeffery built his first automobile, it was a simple single cylinder car with bicycle wheels. It was a forerunner of the 1901 Rambler Model A.

In 1900 Thomas B. Jeffery sold his successful bicycle company to focus on Rambler automobiles after the exhibition of a $900 Runabout at auto shows got favorable responses.

The Rambler was still a proud piece of machinery when low prices took precedence over high quality. Its body featured flared metal tubing for extra strength at the joints, which were brazed

Brazing

Brazing is a metal-joining process whereby a filler metal is heated above and distributed between two or more close-fitting parts by capillary action. The filler metal is brought slightly above its melting temperature while protected by a suitable atmosphere, usually a flux...

 by immersion in molten brass. These techniques continued even after Gormully & Jeffery (G&J) and Rambler became names of the American Bicycle Company

American Bicycle Company

American Bicycle Company was an American bicycle company. American Bicycle was founded by Albert Augustus Pope, owner of the Columbia Bicycle. In 1898, the U.S. bicycle industry was caught in a downward spiral of market saturation, over-supply and intense price competition. Pope issued an affidavit...

, or Bicycle Trust, which was not known for the best manufacturing techniques in all of its lines.