We at the Stark Center would like to offer our support to those courageous folks currently seeking solutions to the racial injustices which have plagued this nation since its founding. These deep-rooted issues permeate all facets of American life, including public health, as we’ve seen during the current COVID-19 pandemic, but also the realm of...
One of the most iconic images of the Stark Center, aside from the Farnese Hercules, is undoubtedly the Thomas Beecham collection of paintings. Done by the painter Thomas Beecham for Joe Weider, Beecham’s painted several portraits of famed bodybuilders from the 1960s to 1980s. Eight in total, the paintings depicted the awarded winning physiques of...
Born in Rochester, New York in 1910, Christopher Gian-Cursio was one of America’s most outspoken, popular and reviled commentators on alternative medicine. Trained at Dr. Benjamin Lust’s American School of Naturopathy, Gian-Cursio came to practice what he termed Natural Hygiene for several decades. Like many practitioners of alternative medicine at this time, Gian-Cursio was against...
One of the amazing things about working at the Stark Center is the opportunity to see and interact with materials related to the amazing athletics programs at the University of Texas at Austin. As one of the most storied programs in sports history, the University of Texas football program is a phenomenal resource for archival...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
