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Dudley Allen Sargent: Health Machines and the Energized Male Body Carolyn De La Peña, the University of California at Davis

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Dudley Allen Sargent: Health Machines and the Energized Male Body Carolyn De La Peña, the University of California at Davis October 2003 Iron Game History Dudley Allen Sargent: Health Machines and the Energized Male Body Carolyn de la Peña, The University of California at Davis tion, they have done so in the service of dramatically dif- "I developed manhood." ferent ends. —Dudley Allen Sargent We tend today to view machines as tools to improve physical performance. For casual users this "Every man who has not gone through such a means using specific machines to build arms that lift course, no matter how healthy or strong he may be by more and legs that run faster. For serious athletes, it nature, is still an undeveloped man." means using machines as integrated systems in pursuit of —Advertisement for Sandow's Physical bodies that continuously surpass human limits.1 Sargent, Development for Men on the other hand, sought machines to celebrate the lim- Those who would argue that sports science its of the human body rather than surpass them. For Sar- began in the twentieth century have forgotten Dudley gent this meant developing a complex system of Allen Sargent. As a nineteenth-century fitness educator, machines and measurements which, when combined, inventor, and advocate, Sargent worked to codify a sys- allowed every man and woman to reach a universal "per- tem of mechanized physical science whereby individu- fect" muscular form. Sargent saw the ultimate goal of als, with the help of machines, would build their bodies machine training as taking the body to a state of health to a state of maximum physical energy. Sargent, one of and equilibrium. Only machines, he argued, could build the first creators of systematic methods for mechanized a body of sufficient muscular strength to handle the physical training, helped to make possible the quantum increasing mental efforts of twentieth-century life. By advances in athletic performance that have resulted from exploring the philosophies of their inventor, the twentieth-century machines such as the SB II racing bike machines he created, and the bodies those machines or the Cybex training system. Yet this nineteenth-centu- helped generate, it becomes possible to argue that ry innovator would have seen little resemblance between machines were once designed to make bodies fully the results he hoped for and those of the systems in human. If today we encourage bodies to increasingly which we currently immerse our bodies. For while both resemble the machines that train them, it is not due to a nineteenth- and twentieth-century machine systems have technological imperative. By excavating the original stressed muscular development and scientific quantifica- intentions of this health machine creator we can better 3 Iron Game History Volume 8 Number 2 understand the unique twentieth-century relationship Little about Dudley Allen Sargent's early expe- that has developed between human and machine. rience suggested he would, in the words of one historian, exert "a greater influence on the development of physi- Turning to Machines: Dudley Allen Sargent cal training in American colleges and schools than any In 1869 Sargent laced up his boxing gloves, other."4 He was, however, fascinated with muscle build- climbed into the ring, and set about proving his man- ing early on while growing up in the 1850s in the small hood. He had already been hired by the president of town of Belfast, Massachusetts. Sargent's early experi- Bowdoin College to serve as its new gymnasium direc- ences with physical conditioning encompassed several tor. The president, however, was not the one that Sargent of the most popular mid-century systems. As a young needed to impress. For while he may, at only nineteen, boy, he first learned of physical development through a have proven himself intelligent and experienced enough school hygiene program. While a teenager in the early to win over the school's head administrator, it was the 1860s, he came across Thomas W. Higginson's article students who would have the final say over his employ- 'Gymnastics' in the Atlantic Monthly. [Ed. Note: at that ment status. They selected the strongest and quickest of time the term "gymnastics" referred to other forms of their peers to put Sargent to the ultimate test: ten rounds exercise than the floorwork, ringwork, and vaulting, etc. of boxing after which only the victor could claim the that comprise modern gymnastics.] Higginson offered loyalty of Bowdoin's troops. As his students crowded readers a description of various exercises, including the around the ring to watch, Sargent successfully proved his equipment necessary to perform them. Sargent, like strength and agility by making short work of his student many small-town readers, used materials like Higgin- challenger after only a few rounds.2 Everyone agreed: son's article to educate himself about fitness; in his auto- the question of whether he was qualified to teach had biography, Sargent remembered cutting out the article to been settled. save and study.5 After acquiring elementary knowledge The story emphasizes the dramatic difference of both gymnastics and boxing techniques, Sargent between the world of physical training that Sargent organized his own boxing and gymnastic club in Belfast. encountered when he began his career in the 1860s and Like many nineteenth-century strongmen, Sar- the world of physical training that he would help create gent soon brought his skills before an audience.6 He by the time it ended in the early twentieth century. organized his fellow Belfast gymnasts into a troupe to Along with individuals like Swedish inventor Gustav put on fund-raising performances and outfitted a local Zander, Sargent helped change the definition of barn with parallel bars, a pommel horse, and rings to "strong" men from those who won boxing matches to develop the muscle behind their maneuvers. Soon "Sar- those who won machine-generated, balanced physiques. gent's Combination," as he called his group, brought For Sargent, this meant making a career out of augment- their feats to neighboring towns on an informal tour. At ing the traditional gymnasium offerings of boxing rings, the age of eighteen, in 1867, Sargent decided to perma- high bars, and standard rings with sleek, hand-built nently take his talents beyond Belfast. He joined a vari- weight machines of his own design. Under his tutelage ety show that he had seen travel through his town, rea- at Bowdoin, later at Harvard, or indirectly at one of the soning that his own skills were at least as good as the tens of other institutions that adopted the "Sargent sys- featured tumblers. While on the road, he alternated tem," students were led to believe that real, energy- between performing with various circuses and training at enhancing strength could only be built with the help of gymnasiums to build strength. By 1869, Sargent grew machines.3 With the help of Gustav Zander, whose tired of circus life and what he called "the company of developing machines were installed in resorts and health loafers."7 Seeking a way to further his education and clubs at the turn of the century, this lesson extended far pursue his gymnastics interests, he took a job as the beyond university walls. Together these machines made Director of Gymnastics at Bowdoin College.8 their middle- and upper-class users a compelling, three- At Bowdoin, Sargent first had a chance to theo- part offer: energetic redemption from physical obsoles- rize about mechanized muscle building. He had ample cence, integration into a mechanized modern world, and time to ponder such theories, for few students ever representation as efficiently "balanced" masculine entered the decaying former dining hall that then served physiques. as the gymnasium. Bowdoin's equipment, like that in 4 October 2003 Iron Game History most gymnasiums, had not been improved since the ear- had worked in Belfast worked at Bowdoin; after ly nineteenth century: high bars, rings, and a horse made installing several of these "developing appliances," Sar- up most of the collection, reflecting the Turnen empha- gent saw results that he claimed "seemed magical."14 sis on upper-body athleticism.9 The only grounded Students who had previously believed their strength was equipment was heavy pulley weights and a rowing inferior now ventured into the gym to try Sargent's machine. And while all students would have been able building machines. According to his own accounts, Sar- to use the rower, most of the equipment was usable only gent saw his class enrollment triple after installing his by those especially skilled in the high bars or of signifi- machines. By 1872, Sargent's success convinced the cant upper-body strength. The few weights that might faculty to make gymnastic development, and by associ- have helped users build that strength were too heavy for ation machine training, compulsory for all students.15 most students to budge.10 According to Sargent, Bow- Bowdoin gave Sargent two important resources doin's equipment was, for most students, "a form of tor- for his later career: a college degree and a philosophy of ture."11 mechanized human development. Sargent received the Ironically, Sargent came to believe that first by taking classes part time, and the second by machines were necessary in physical training by elimi- observing his own students over years of teaching. In a nating them. With little budget and university support, speech entitled "The Limits of Human Development," Sargent tried to build a program the cheapest way possi- delivered as part of his junior oration, Sargent explained ble, with Indian clubs and light dumbells.12 While these his new view of body development influenced by lighter weights did allow more students to begin train- machines. "Perfection of man on earth," he explained, ing, Sargent found that many students wanted heavy "whatever may be his condition hereafter, comes not apparatus.
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