Bernarr Macfadden

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Franklin D. Roosevelt (left) and Bernarr Macfadden in Warm Springs, Georgia in 1931

Bernarr Macfadden , actually Bernard Adolphus McFadden , (born August 16, 1868 in Mill Spring , Missouri , † October 12, 1955 Jersey City , NJ) was one of the most important figures in the American physical culture movement.

Life

Bernard Adolphus McFadden gave himself the stage name Bernarr Macfadden because it would sound more masculine and powerful. As a weak boy, he was sent to a farm as an orphan at the age of 11, where he grew up and strong through hard physical work in the fresh air. At 13, he moved to St. Louis , Missouri, worked in the office, and his old physical problems came back. He started exercising with the dumbbell , hiked 10 km a day and became a vegetarian . So his strength came back.

Career

In 1899 he founded the journal Physical Culture , of which he remained editor-in-chief until 1912. Throughout his life he remained the owner of the Macfadden Publications , which he founded here , which addressed the taste of the general public with groschenheft, u. a. Liberty , True Detective , True Story , True Romances , Dream World , Ghost Stories . In addition, he published The New York Graphic, the most important sports newspaper at the time, which relied on images early on. He also stayed with his fitness and masculinity books such as The Virile Powers of Superb Manhood (1900), MacFadden's Encyclopedia of Physical Culture (4 volumes) (1911-1912), Fasting for Health (1923) and The Milk Diet (1923) in its original fitness industry. In particular, his publications on therapeutic fasting broke existing taboos at the time, as others relied on proper nutrition, especially since he claimed that the right man can only separate himself from soft male beings by fasting. He also turned against bread as a food and practiced the precursor to the raw food diet. His ideas about sex also contradicted the public opinion of the time. For him, sex was a healthy exercise, not just a reproductive necessity. His The Physical Culture Training School and the Healthatorium he founded soon disappeared and were only rediscovered by the wellness movement fifty years later . In 1902 he founded the first purely vegetarian restaurant (in 1911 there were already 20). He founded private schools in large cities in order to introduce children (from 3 years) to physical culture. Since he defamed doctors as pill dealers ( pill-pushers ), he had significant problems with the medical establishment that considered him a charlatan. He died of a urethral infection that he refused to seek medical treatment. He had eight children from four marriages. The media empire Macfadden Communications Group founded by him is still run in the family to this day.

Secondary literature

  • Ernst, Robert (1991): Weakness is a Crime. The Life of Bernarr MacFadden. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
  • MacFadden, Mary and Gauvreau, Emile (1953): Dumbbells and Carrot Strips. The Story of Bernarr MacFadden. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
  • Roach, Randy (2008): Muscle, Smoke, & Mirrors. Bloomington: Author House.
  • Scheller, Jörg (2013): The master of machinations. How the fitness prophet Bernarr MacFadden shaped the multi-optional, physiocentric lifestyle of postmodernism and the present in the first half of the 20th century, in: Elke Bippus, Jörg Huber and Roberto Nigro (eds.): Aesthetics of Existence. Life forms in conflict. Zurich: Voldemeer.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Arnd Krüger : History of movement therapy, in: Preventive medicine . Heidelberg: Springer Loseblatt Collection 1999, 07.06, 1 - 22.
  2. ↑ Whorton, James C .: Crusaders for fitness: the history of American health reformer. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1982
  3. ^ Robert Ernst: Weakness is a crime. The Life of Bernarr Macfadden. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8156-0252-9
personal data
SURNAME Macfadden, Bernarr
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McFadden, Bernard Adolphus (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American strength athlete, founder of bodybuilding and the fitness and health movement, media entrepreneur and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH August 16, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Mill Spring , Missouri
DATE OF DEATH October 12, 1955
Place of death Jersey City , USA