Coulter was a vaudeville strongman, author, and collector. As his vaudeville days came to a close, he moved into supporting and documenting competitive weightlifting. Along with George Jowett, he helped form the first weightlifting association in the United States (see the Coulter-Jowett Correspondence Finding Aid below), the American Continental Weight Lifting Association (ACWLA) and accumulated...
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...
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.
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.
Abbye “Pudgy” Stockton played a central role in popularizing physical culture and exercise for women in the mid-Twentieth Century. She was born Abbye Eville on August 11, 1917, and lived most of her long life in Santa Monica, CA. In the late 1930s, she began working out with friends at Muscle Beach and quickly became...
Jowett was a strongman, promoter, author, and magazine editor whose career spanned the period 1910-1960. With David Willoughby and Ottley Coulter, he helped found the ACWLA, and also helped Bob Hoffman start Strength & Health magazine. He later aided Joe Weider during Weider’s early days as a magazine publisher. The contents of the Jowett Collection include scrapbooks,...
