Caspar Whitney

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Caspar Whitney

Caspar William Whitney (born September 2, 1864 in Boston , Massachusetts , † January 18, 1929 in Irvington , New York ) was an American writer , publisher , adventurer, war correspondent and member of the International Olympic Committee .

Life

He studied at Saint Mathew's College in California and subsequently worked for Harper's Magazine . During the Spanish-American War he was a war correspondent from Cuba . At the battle of Las Guasimas he accompanied the cavalry of General Samuel Baldwin Marks Young. From this time his friendship with the future American President Theodore Roosevelt results . In his descriptions, Whitney heroized the Rough Riders , Theodore Roosevelt's favorite project. The maps published by Whitney were the most reliable of the war.

In 1900 he bought the monthly Outing Magazine , with which he promoted life in the great outdoors, sports and adventure through reports and short stories as editor-in-chief . Its authors included Jack London and Clarence E. Mulford . He was a founding member of The Explorers Club (1904) after expeditions through North and South America . In 1910 he went bankrupt .

As a sports journalist, he maintained a strict separation between amateurs and professionals . He was a member of the International Olympic Committee (1900-1905) and the American National Olympic Committee (President from 1906 to 1910). As an IOC member, he was jointly responsible for organizing the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis . Here his ideas came into conflict with those of Coubertin. Since Pierre de Coubertin did not come to this, instead had to earn money in Le Touquet-Paris-Plage , Whitney tried to build up William Grenfell, 1st Baron Desborough as an opposing candidate for the presidency of the IOC. Since he had characterized Coubertin unfavorably ( Coubertin is a well-meaning, fussy, and incompetent little Frenchman, who has certainly done something in stirring up an athletic spirit in France, but that's no reason why we should permit the IOC to be a fad of his ... I am going to propose the organization of an entirely new international committee ) ("Coubertin is a well-meaning, confused and incompetent little Frenchman who has certainly done a lot to increase the sporting interest in France, but it is not Reason why we should allow him to pursue the IOC like his hobby ... I'm going to propose an entirely new international committee ”), and failed, he resigned from the IOC and was the editor of the influential The American Sportsman's Library , 16 volumes, the American answer to the badminton Library wanted to be. After the end of the First world War he coordinated the American aid to Belgium . he has invented the all-star teams at the end of the season for Harper's and is considered to be the one who gave the heroic a special voice in American sport .

Books by Caspar Whitney

  • Sporting Pilgimage (1895)
  • On Snow-Shoes to the Barren Grounds (1896)
  • Hawaiian America (1899)
  • Musk-Ox, Bison, Sheep and Goat (1904) (with George Bird Grinnell and Owen Wister)
  • Jungle Trails and Jungle People (1905)
  • Flowing Road (1912)
  • What's the Matter with Mexico? (1916)
  • God with Us - the Boche Delusion (1918)
  • Hunt Clubs and Country Clubs in America (1928)
  • Charles Adelbert Canfield (1930)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/Outing/Volume_35/outXXXV06/outXXXV06m.pdf
  2. ↑ Arnd Krüger : Neo-Olympism between nationalism and internationalism, in: Horst Ueberhorst (ed.): History of physical exercises , Vol. 3/1, Berlin: Bartels & Wernitz 1980, 522-568.
  3. ↑ http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/JOH/JOHv8n1/johv8n1g.pdf
  4. ↑ http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/JOH/JOHv8n2/johv8n2h.pdf
  5. ^ SW Pope, Patriotic Games. Sporting Traditions in the American Imagination, 1876-1926 (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1997), p. 34.
personal data
SURNAME Whitney, Caspar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Whitney, Caspar William (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American sports official, entrepreneur, writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 2, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH January 18, 1929
Place of death Irvington , New York