Manufactured by Narragansett Machine Company of Providence, R.I. around the turn of the twentieth century, this pair of stationary exercise bikes are relics of the “bike boom” that swept the country in the 1890s. Each bike connects to a color-coordinated hand on the nearly 4-foot diameter dial measuring distance; the first rider to cover the...
Published by the Italian physician Hieronymous Mercurialis in the sixteenth century, De Arte Gymnastica has long been cited by historians as a pivotal moment in the revival of European gymnastics. Coming at a time when interest in Greco-Roman culture was growing, Mercurialis’ work was one of the first monographs to focus almost exclusively on exercise and...
Born in 1952 in Long Beach, California, Cathy Rigby was a popular American gymnast whose fame extended beyond the sport. The highest scoring American gymnast at the Mexico City Olympic Games of 1968, Rigby’s sporting prowess was beyond reproach. She followed her ’68 Olympic performance with United States National Championships in 1970 and 1972. Fun...
To wish you all a Happy Valentine’s Day, we thought we’d share this 1950s children’s Valentine depicting a strongman and his weightlifting pooch. The card, collected by Jan and Terry Todd, is one of several dozen twentieth-century greeting cards in their collection depicting children as weightlifters. Measuring only 2.5 x 4 inches, the card was...
Fifth-year PhD candidate Andrew Hao recently returned to Austin from two weeks at the Olympic Studies Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he completed research on the Asian Games Federation’s admission of the Chinese Olympic Committee in the early 1970s. Andrew’s research was funded by the International Olympic Committee itself. He was one of just six...
Painting, oil on canvas. At first glance, there is something curious in Bill Wiman’s “Portrait of a Powerlifter,” a familiarity in the subject’s muted facial expression, which grasps a viewer’s attention like the apparition of celebrity in a crowd. I wrongly assumed the powerlifter was someone famous, someone I’d seen in the movies. As it...
Donated to the Stark Center by Phyllis Jowett, the Jowett Anvil belonged to the late George F. Jowett. George, as many individuals are aware, was a British-Canadian physical culturist who, among other things, helped further the cause of American bodybuilding and weightlifting. A strong man in his own right, Jowett’s claim to fame was...
