Terry Todd began collecting books and magazines in the field of physical culture as a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin in the early 1960s. He was encouraged in this effort by his weightlifting coach, Professor Roy J. McLean, who shared Todd’s love for the history of strength training. Professor McLean had accumulated...
Mack Brown served as head coach of the University of Texas Longhorns Football Team from 1998 until 2013. During his career at UT, Brown was named the 2005 NCAA Coach of the Year, the 2008 Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year, and coached the Longhorns to a 2005 national championship win. The materials in the...
Joe Weider is the most successful publisher of weight training/fitness magazines in the 20th century. He began his publishing career in 1940 with Your Physique and went on to launch many other magazines, including Muscle Power, Muscle & Fitness, Flex, Shape, and Men’s Fitness. He also had a successful food supplement business and, with his...
Eliason was a gym owner in the 1930s and 1940s, a writer, a collector, and a lifelong physical culturist and organic gardener who also promoted bodybuilding and weightlifting competitions in the New England area.
A Wichita Falls, Texas native, William B. Ward was an avid sports fan and collector of sports memorabilia. Reflected in the contents of this collection is Mr. Ward’s lifelong passion for all sports, but particularly those of Texas and California, the two states in which he lived. The Ward Book Library (searchable via the UT...
Stout Jackson was a traveling strongman from Texas who toured the western US in the early part of the twentieth century, generally appearing in small towns and county fairs. He later settled in south Texas, designed and built several outdoor theaters and drive-in movies, and sometimes gave strength exhibitions.
Naturopath Herbert Shelton published more than 35 books in the fields of vegetarianism and alternative medicine and founded, in 1939, a monthly journal, Dr. Shelton’s Hygienic Review. He was also an avid collector of books and magazines in the fields of nutrition and alternative medicine. For some years after his death, Dr. Shelton’s collection resided at the...
Father of donor Jackie Berry, Maczuga, a weightlifter and Rhode Island native, was a prolific collector of weight training and gymnasium equipment.
Professional strongman Louis Attila trained Sandow, moved to America in 1893, and opened a gym in New York City. His son-in-law, Siegmund Klein, took over the gym in the 1920s and managed it until 1974.
