I’ve been in isolation ever since I returned on March 9th from directing the 2020 Arnold Strongman Classic (ASC). Like other fans of Strongman, I’ve watched with sadness as show after Strongman show got canceled last month as the coronavirus spread around the globe. In recent weeks, I’ve been listening with yet more dismay to...
Month: April 2020
Barbells & Bios: The Sportswoman Magazine
Published for several decades, beginning in the 1920s, The Sportswoman marks one of the earlier, and indeed, most fascinating insights into female sport in America in the first half of the twentieth century. Part of the Stark’s Anna Hiss Collection, the magazine covered a range of women’s sports including, but not limited to field hockey, lacrosse, badminton...
Barbells and the Brooklyn Strong Boy
Warren Lincoln Travis began his strongman career as the “Brooklyn Strong Boy,” but quickly graduated to circuses and vaudeville and also worked long stints at Coney Island. Travis was America’s most famous strongman in the early years of the twentieth century. Most other touring professionals of the era were Europeans or Canadians – Sandow, the...
Barbells & Bios: Giovanni Belzoni, Strong Man Egyptologist
Published by Colin Clair in 1957, Giovanni Belzoni – Strong Man Egyptologist is a dramatized account of one of the nineteenth century’s most fascinating characters. An early strongman by trade who travelled around Britain and Ireland, Belzoni made his fame as exploring Egypt and reporting back to the British press. Based primarily on Belzoni’s own travels accounts,...
