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Drawing of a competetitve pedestrian walking in the late 1800s with spectators watching.

America’s Earliest Sports Stars Were … Professional Walkers?

Walking needs no publicist. The simplest, most accessible form of exercise has been around since humans first foraged and traveled on the ground.
by Jackie Mansky via Zócalo Public Square on October 18, 2024
A group of Black women in swimsuits and caps gather in a group in a pool.

The Intimacy of Exercise: Sensuality and Sexuality in Black Women’s Fitness History

How did the sensuality, sexuality, and homosociality of exercise create intimate possibilities for Black women in postwar America?
by Ava Purkiss via Nursing Clio on July 3, 2024
Women wearing early twentieth-century gym suits emblazoned with 1902, some women in baskets.

How Sports Clothes Became Fashion

The evolution of women's sportswear.
by Einav Rabinovitch-Fox via Nursing Clio on May 15, 2024

Why Did I Hike 50 Miles Through the Jersey Suburbs? Teddy Roosevelt Told Me To

The 26th president once demanded that military personnel be able to walk 50 miles in 20 hours. I set off on an ill-fated mission to see if I could do it myself.
by Tom Vanderbilt via Outside on December 20, 2023
Woman leading a group of twelve other women in floor exercises.

Fit Nation

A conversation about "the gains and pains of America’s exercise obsession."
by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Lara Freidenfelds via Nursing Clio on September 27, 2023
The Milwaukee Turners acrobatic team, 1866.

Socialist Gym Rats Fought to End Slavery in America

Veterans of the 1848 German revolution immigrated to America with three passions burning in their hearts: barbells, beer, and socialism.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via Jacobin on August 9, 2023
Native American and Black girls tossing around a medicine ball in a circle.

Right Living, Right Acting, and Right Thinking

How Black women used exercise to achieve civic goals in the late nineteenth century.
by Ava Purkiss via Lapham’s Quarterly on April 17, 2023
Strongman Eugen Sandow poses in gladiator sandals and a bejeweled belt, standing on an intricately designed rug and leaning on a classical column, a setting designed to present him as civilized rather than as a “mere breaker of stones.”

Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America's Exercise Obsession

A century ago, physical fitness was part of a strange subculture, where strong bodies were extraordinary and meant to placed on pedestals for people to observe.
by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela via The Gotham Center on January 25, 2023
Collage of yoga, palm tree, police tape

The Birth of a New Brand of Exercise Fetish

From Bikram yoga to Tae Bo, the 1990s exploded with exoticized consumer fitness products.
by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela via The Nation on December 13, 2022
A diagram of early bicycle wheels.

Going Nowhere Fast

The strange past and even stranger future of the stationary bicycle.
by Jody Rosen via The Atlantic on May 18, 2022
Pink tinted photograph of women on the beach lifting barbells

Nevertheless, She Lifted

A new feminist history of women and exercise glosses over the darker side of fitness culture.
by Meghan Racklin via The Baffler on February 7, 2022
Diagram of a man swinging a wooden club.

Eastern Sports and Western Bodies: The “Indian Club” in the U.S.

Although largely forgotten today, exercise by club swinging was all the rage in the 19th century.
by Daniel Elkind via The Public Domain Review on April 1, 2020

The History of the StairMaster

The 1980s brought about America's gym obsession—and a machine that demands a notoriously grueling cardio workout
by Michelle Delgado via Smithsonian on January 31, 2020

The Fitness Craze That Changed the Way Women Exercise

Fifty years after Jazzercise was founded, it is still shaping how Americans work out—for better or for worse.
by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela via The Atlantic on June 16, 2019

From Oil to Oprah: An Oral History of the StairMaster

The untold origin story of an iconic workout machine, told one step at a time.
by Andy Wright via Medium on February 7, 2019

Working, Out

Homophobia at a CrossFit is a good time to remember that gym culture wouldn’t exist without queer people.
by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela via Slate on June 20, 2018

The Weight of the Presidency

Why the American public is infatuated with the relationship between physical fitness and the presidency.
by Deborah Levine via Nursing Clio on February 20, 2018

Selling American Vigor

The Cold War and the President’s Council on Physical Fitness.
by Rachel Louise Moran via Process: A Blog for American History on February 13, 2018

Shouldn’t You Be in California?

The western frontiers of national wellness culture.
by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela via Boom California on January 9, 2018
Cover of the U.S. Physical Fitness Program book, featuring silhouettes of people doing calisthenics.
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Run DNC, Run RNC

When the federal government began to claim a stake in the public’s physical fitness, and the origins of the Presidential Physical Fitness Test.
via BackStory on July 10, 2015
Political Carton of President Theodore Rossevelt boxing his 1904 election opponent Alton Parker.

The Strenuous Life: Theodore Roosevelt's Mixed Martial Arts

Almost a century before mixing martial arts became popularized, the 26th President was boxing, wrestling, and training judo in the White House.
by Sarah Kurchak via Vice on May 4, 2015

The Origins of Cybex Space

Cybex fitness equipment fills gyms around the world. Where did it come from?
by Carolyn Thomas de la Peña via Cabinet on March 21, 2008
Eugen Sandow flexing his bicep.

The Evolution of the Alpha Male Aesthetic

If you've noticed a certain look common to the manosphere, you're not mistaken. A visual identity has taken hold, with roots that trace back decades.
by Derek Guy via Bloomberg on April 22, 2025
A drawing of the book "Fat is a Feminist Issue" by Susie Orbach with a magnifying glass in front of it.

Was “Fat Is a Feminist Issue” Liberating? Or Weight-Loss Propaganda?

Susie Orbach’s 1978 book is a fascinating snapshot of diet and physical culture in a very different era.
by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela via The New Republic on December 5, 2024
Skeletons in a museum posed with varying postures, as if they are performing different tasks.

Why Americans Are Obsessed With Poor Posture

The 20th-century movement to fix slouching questions the moral and political dimensions of addressing bad backs over wider public health concerns.
by Zoe Adams via The Nation on November 20, 2024
1937 ad showing three women in underwear.

From Torpedo Bras to Whale Tails: A Brief History of Women’s Underwear

The popular reception of thongs, bras, boy shorts and other intimate items.
by Nina Edwards via Literary Hub on October 24, 2024
The American summer camp tradition arguably began in 1861 with Connecticut educator Frederick Gunn's "Gunnery Camp," where children fished, foraged, and practiced military drills.

The Anxious History of the American Summer Camp

The annual rite of passage has always been more about the ambivalence of adults than the amusement of children.
by Ashley Stimpson via Atlas Obscura on June 20, 2024
A photograph of four children standing, one is slouching.

Are You Sitting Up Straight? America’s Obsession with Improving Posture

In Beth Linker’s new book, she applies a disability studies lens to the history of posture.
by Laura Ansley via Perspectives on History on May 9, 2024
Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts shaking hands at Super Bowl 57.
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It Took Until 2023 for Two Black QBs to Start in a Super Bowl. Here’s Why.

Ideas dating back to slavery have minimized opportunities for Black quarterbacks in the NFL.
by Kate Aguilar via Made By History on February 12, 2023
The son of Robert "Whitey" Fuller, director of publicity for Dartmouth athletics, and other children playing football, Dartmouth, 1946.

'Hit the Line Hard'

During the cold war, football’s violence became precisely its point.
by Jake Nevins via New York Review of Books on February 12, 2023
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