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Ah, the strongman. He is an icon of the American cultural landscape, from the circus sideshow days to the ladies' exercise guru Jack LaLanne to the silver-screen personas of Arnold Schwartzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. In these hedonistic days of physical self-improvement, we are constantly bombarded by TV ads for Buttmasters, Thighmasters, Ab Sliders, Nautilus machines, weight machines, rowing machines, etc., etc., etc. Aiiee! With just the click of your TV remote, a speedy dial to an 800 number, and the procurement of some patent-pending device, you can be assured of a newer, slimmer, trimmer you . . . in only X amount of time. Or can you?
This site does not intend to glorify these wanton displays of personal self-gratification (or at least the acquisition of machines guaranteed to provide such). No, ladies and gentlemen, our intent is to take you back to a simpler time, when the strongman image really meant something, when scrawny young boys tore cheesy ads from the back of Popular This or Popular That magazines or from the sickly yellow pages of pulpy comic books and sent away their life savings of a dollar or two with the hopes of escaping their fate as the stereotypical 97-pound weakling and becoming . . . a STRONGMAN. We have reproduced here for your enjoyment the original illustrations and texts of a variety of advertisements from those "institutes of physical development" from the 1920s through the 1940s, sacred places operated by the likes of Charles Atlas, George F. Jowett, and Lionel Strongfort.
So, take a leisurely tour through yesteryear, but don't get sand kicked in your face! Enjoy, and may Dynamic Tension be with you!
George F. Jowett 1 (1930)
George F. Jowett 2 (1943) . . . . . George F. Jowett 3 (1944)
George F. Jowett 4 (1945) . . . . . George F. Jowett 5 (1945)
Earle Liederman 1 (1926) . . . . . . Earle Liederman 2 (1930)
Bob Hoffman (1946) . . . . . . . . . .Lionel Strongfort (1926)
Prof. Anthony Barker (1920s) . . . . . Prof. H.W. Titus (1926) . . . . . Harry Good (1940s)
For an interesting site on early bodybuilders, click here.
Visit Sandow Museum, another site on early bodybuilders: click here.
Contact us.
© 2001
Posted 3/25/2001
Site maintained by D.W. Skrabanek
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