IRON GAME HISTORY THE]OURNAL OF PHYSICAL CULTURE Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 November/December 2015 REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE DEFINING OUR FIELD AND PROTECTING ITS INTEGRITY In the spring of 2015, Reaktion Press in Great Todd's many articles on the history of the game were not Britain published The Temple ofPerfection: A History of mentioned except for the interview he and I did with the Gym by Eric Chaline.' I became aware of the book Steve Reeves.s "The Last Interview," as we called that when a colleague fmwarded to me a lengthy review from piece, was heavily used by Chaline as one of his main the Irish Times, which declared in the sources on Muscle Beach. His other headline that the book was an sources for that important moment in "Exhaustive History" that "Takes Us our sportive history consisted in toto from Ancient Greece to the Birth of of a Muscle Beach website, my IGH Global Fitness."2 After reading nov­ article on Pudgy Stockton, and an elist Rob Doyle's positive review, obscure 1980 book titled Muscle which explained Chaline's attempt to Beach, authored by Ed Murray, encapsulate 2800 years of physical describing the "Muscle Beachniks."6 culture history into 245 pages, I Murray's 147-page book has no ordered a copy for the Stark Center's sources, and describes a "Muscle library. Several days later, when I Beach" totally unfamiliar to most received the book, I did what most Iron Garners. His book is not about historians do and turned to the people like Pudgy and Les Stockton, "selected bibliography" in the back to Russ Saunders, Jack LaLanne, or see what Chaline had used as sources. Harold Zinkin. Among Murray's cast Although it was flattering to be listed of characters are "The Heap, The more times than any other author Face, Myron the Dancer, and their (seven), I was surprised to see that lawyer Suing Sydney. "7 The choice Chaline included only some of my of Murray's book as a major source Iron Game Histmy articles in his bibliography, and did for the history of Muscle Beach is beyond lamentable. not list my book on women's exercise which has a lot to Given the existence of Harold Zinkin's first-person say about gymnasiums in the nineteenth century.J As I memoir of his days at Muscle Beach; Marla Matzer looked further, I saw that John Fair's IGH articles on Rose's first-rate Muscle Beach: Where the Best Bodies in bodybuilding and weightlifting were also not mentioned the World Started a Fitness Revolution; the innovative and, even more astonishingly, that there was no mention 2014 dissertation written by University of Texas scholar of Fair's seminal Muscletown USA: Bob Hoffman and Tolga Ozyurtcu; and, of course literally hundreds of the Manly Culture of York Barbell.4 Similarly, Terry newspaper and magazine articles published over the Iron Game History Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 years; Chaline's decision to use none of these sources in which gyms and the significant role they played in the a supposedly "exhaustive history" is, frankly, unpardon­ careers of the authors are discussed.9 Even David Chap­ able.s man is slighted. While Chapman's Sandow the Magnif­ Also missing from Chaline's bibliography, how­ icent is included, none of Chapman's other books on ever, are any references to books or articles by such strongmen, strongwomen, or physique photography are well-known iron game authors as David P. Webster, mentioned at all.IO Given this paucity of sourcing, the David P. Willoughby, Randy Roach, or Bill Pearl. fact that Chaline also fails to use anything by historians Pearl's three-volume Legends of the Iron Game would Patricia Vertinsky, Roberta Park, Martha Verbrugge, have been a great help to Chaline. Chaline also never Kenneth Dutton, Caroline de la Pena, or Kim Beckwith mentions Joe and Ben Weider's Brothers of Iron, Dick is hardly surprising. However, how he also missed using Tyler and Dave Draper's West Coast Bodybuilding as sources Roberta Sassatelli 's 2010 Fitness Culture: Scene, or any number of autobiographical books written Gyms and The Commercialization of Discipline and by weightlifters and bodybuilders in recent years in Fun; Shelley McKenzie's Getting Physical: The Rise of !RON GAME HISTORY: PATRON SUBSCRIBERS THE jOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CULTURE Mike Adolphson Ray Knecht Ted Thompson Vol. 13 Nos. 2 & 3 November/December 2015 John Balik Norman Komich Tom Townsend Regis Becker Werner Kieser Stephen R. Turner I. Reflections on Physical Culture ............... J. Todd Laszlo Bencze Jack Lano Ron Tyrrell Dean Camenares George Lock Betty Weider 9. The USA vs The World, Part III..... ..... .. .. J. Fair Kevin Collins James Lorimer Steve Wennerstrom Robert Conciatori Don McEachren Kim & John Wood 37. Shifting Gear.. J. Todd, D. Morais, B. Pollack & T. Todd Michael Corlett Lou Mezzanote Frank Zane 57.Weighing the Options .. D. Morais, B. Pollack & J.Todd Chris Dickerson Richard Migliore Lucio Doncel David Mills In Memory of: 66. Prelude to Big Time Football .... T. Ozyurtcu & J. Todd Dave Draper James Murray Joe Assirati Colin Duerden Graham Noble John Leitgeb 79. Remembering Louis Martin . ...... ... .. D. Webster Salvatore Franchino Ben Oldham Louis Martin Mike Graham Rick Perkins Grover Porter Co-Editors ............................ Jan & Terry Todd Bill Henniger Pittsburgh Sport Steve Reeves Associate Editor .......................... Kim Beckwith Chester Hicks Barnet Pugach Terry Robinson Assistant Editors......... • ..... Florian Hemme, Thomas Hunt, John V. Higgins Frederick Schutz Chuck Sipes Jason Shurley, Ben Pollack, Tolga Ozyurtcu, and Dominic Morais Jarett Hulse David Small Les & Pudgy Stockton Production............•.•.... Brent Sipes and Caroline Jones lvanko Barbell Bert Sorin Dr. AI Thomas Company Richard Sorin Joe Weider Editorial Board: John Balik (Santa Monica, CA), Jack Berryman (Univ. ofWash­ Daniel John Edward Sweeney Jack "Bronro" Woodson ington, Seattle), Simon Br01mer (Penn State, Harrisburg.), David Chapman (Seattle, Irving Kirsch Harold Thomas WA), Paul Dimeo, (University of Sterling, Scotland), John Fair (University of Texas at Austin), Charles Kupfer (Penn State, Harrisburg.), Joe Roark (St. Joseph, IL), and David Webster (Irvine, Scotland). FELLOWSHIP SUBSCRIBERS Bob Bacon Thomas Lee Rev. Jim Schwertley Iro11 Game History is published under the auspices of The HJ Lutcher Clarence Bass Robert McNall Travis Smith Stark Center at The University of Texas at Austin. U.S . subscription rate: Alfred C. Berner Carl Miller Dr. Victor Tejada $25.00 per four issues, $40.00 per eight issues . McLean Fellowship sub­ scriptions $60.00 per eight issues; Patron subscriptions $100.00 per eight Bill Clark George Miller Zenta Thomas issues. Canada & overseas subscriptions: $30.00 per four issues and $45.00 John Corlett H. Movaghar Lou Tortorelli per eight issues. U.S . funds only. Address all correspondence and sub­ John Crainer Bill Nicholson Michael Waller scription requests to: Iron Game Histmy, H.J. Lutcher Stark Center, NEZ Alton Eliason Kevin O'Rourke Ted Warren 5.700, 03600, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas, 78712. A a ron Foster David Pelto Dan Wathen Don Graham William Petko Reuben Weaver Go to: www.starkcenter.org and select Iron Game HisfOI)' to sub­ scribe online. David Hartnett Earl Riley Howard Havener John T. Ryan /roll Game Hist01y is a 11011-projit e11terprise. Jack Hughes Tom Ryan Daniel Kostka George Schumacher Postmaster: Send address corrections to: /GH, NEZ 5.700, 03600, Uni- versity of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712. (ISSN 1069-7276) 2 November/December 2015 Iron Game History Fitness Culture in America; and Alan Klein's landmark machines, all of which had therapeutic applications.!? study of 1980s gym culture- Little Big Men- truly Why should we worry about a book like this? boggles the imagination. II Why not just ignore it, a reader might ask. I raise these A "selected bibliography" is not necessarily the criticisms because, unfortunately, until someone comes full list of sources used in the production of a book, and along and writes an accurate, well-researched history of it is hue that Chaline includes a few other sources in his gyms, the unknowing public and even many academics, footnotes - although nearly all of those sources are will tum to Chaline's book as a trustworthy source on websites. His very brief discussion of gym innovators physical culture history. The fact that it is so riddled Joe Gold, Vic Tanny, Ray Wilson, and their respective with errors, however, may well mean that Chaline's mis­ health club chains, for example, is taken strictly from information will continue to be passed forward to new web sites.l2 As for Jack LaLanne, an iron game figure, readers, and will undermine the integrity of the emerg­ about whom more may have been written in the last cen­ ing field of physical culture studies within the academic tury than almost anyone except Arnold Schwarzenegger, community. Chaline uses only one website and a single LaLanne I can easily imagine a future, for example, in book to tell the story of his long life in physical cul­ which a student cites Chaline's assertion on page 64 that ture.IJ when the Famese Hercules was unearthed during the As for the book's content, Chaline pays almost Renaissance, Cardinal Allesandro Famese asked a con­ no attention to the early twentieth-century until Muscle temporary sculptor to "replace its missing lower half." Beach begins in California. He devotes virtually no Chaline's book leads one to believe that half the statue space to Macfadden, says nothing about Attila's gym in was carved in the Renaissance, when in reality, the stat­ New York, never mentions Thomas Inch in London, and ue was only missing a leg from the knee down- a leg omits all discussion of York Barbell, Bob Hoffman, that was later found and replaced.IB Or, as Chaline John Grimek, and the famous Broad Street gym in York, asserts on page 181, will future scholars believe that Pennsylvania, which bears consideration as one of the Sandow "promoted" the career of Katie Sandwina, more significant gyms in history.