Library
What to read, where to read it
A short, opinionated bibliography. Primary sources are listed first, since most of them are in the public domain and freely readable; scholarship comes second; archives last. No affiliate links. No book-buying links. Citations and, where lawful, free reading links to the Internet Archive's holdings.
Part OnePrimary sources
Books written by the figures themselves, or by their immediate contemporaries. Most are out of copyright in the United States; the Internet Archive holds digitised copies of nearly all of them.
Strength and How to Obtain It
Sandow's first major training book. The training advice is dated; the prefatory material on the early stage career is closer to a primary source than anything else in print and has been mined extensively by Chapman. Available at archive.org.
Body-Building, or Man in the Making
The book that gave the term "body-building" to the language. Heavier on programme than its predecessor. Public domain; available at archive.org.
The Development of Physical Power
The most direct training book of the music-hall era. Saxon's writing on the bent press is still the principal English-language source on the lift. Public domain; available at archive.org.
The Way to Live in Health and Physical Fitness
The most coherent training text of the era. Compound exercise, restrained diet, walking, breathing, an early defence of the deep knee bend. Reissued by York Barbell mid-century and frequently in print since. Public domain; available at archive.org.
Les rois de la force
The standard French-language history of the early strongmen, by the man who knew most of them personally. Particularly important on Apollon, Rigoulot's teachers, and the Parisian school. Available in French at archive.org; English translation has been intermittent.
Super Strength
The most influential American training book of the 1920s. Direct, sceptical, and one of the earliest American books to give the squat a central place. Public domain; available at archive.org.
The Key to Might and Muscle
Jowett's most substantial training book. Useful introduction to the Olympic lifts and the bent press as practised in the 1920s. Public domain in the United States; available at archive.org.
Strongmen Over the Years
An early attempt at strongman biography by an insider. Useful for what was believed in 1940; should not be the only source for any individual figure. Out of print but findable second-hand.
Goerner the Mighty
The principal record of Hermann Goerner's career, by a German lifting writer who knew him. The source for almost every figure attached to Goerner. Out of print; held by the Stark Center and a small number of private collectors.
Strength & Health magazine
The dominant American lifting magazine for forty years. The complete run is held at the Stark Center and selected issues are at archive.org. Hoffman's editorial voice is partisan; the contest reporting is reliable.
Strength magazine
The first American magazine devoted to lifting. Calvert's editorial standards make this a more useful primary source than the magazines that followed. Complete run at the Stark Center.
Part TwoScholarly works
Books and journals produced by historians of physical culture, or by careful enthusiasts working to historiographical standards. The line between the two is blurry and that is fine.
Sandow the Magnificent: Eugen Sandow and the Beginnings of Bodybuilding
The standard scholarly biography of Sandow and, by extension, the most thoroughly researched account of the late-Victorian strongman tradition. University of Illinois Press; in print.
Muscletown USA: Bob Hoffman and the Manly Culture of York Barbell
The best account of the York period and the post-war American lifting world. Penn State Press; in print. The treatment of the steroid era is unusually careful.
Venus with Biceps: A Pictorial History of Muscular Women
The standard work on the strongwoman tradition, with Sandwina at its centre. Arsenal Pulp Press; in print.
The Iron Game: An Illustrated History of Weight-Lifting
The earliest substantial English-language history of competitive lifting, by a former British team coach. Out of print but the standard secondary reference for figures and dates before the academic literature caught up.
The Super Athletes
An assessment of historical strength records by a careful amateur statistician. Conservative in its treatment of contested figures and useful as a check on more exuberant accounts.
The journal of the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center
The academic journal of the field. Articles by Jan Todd, Terry Todd, John Fair, Joseph Roark, Conor Heffernan, and others. All issues are publicly available as PDFs at starkcenter.org/igh; the journal is the indispensable reference for any specific question about a figure or feat.
Articles in Sport in History, Iron Game History, and the Physical Culture Study blog
The most active living academic writer on early-twentieth-century strength culture. Particularly good on the British and Irish traditions and on the mail-order strength industry. physicalculturestudy.com.
The Strongest Man in History: Louis Cyr "Amazing Canadian"
The English-language reference biography of Cyr. Read alongside Paul Ohl's later French-language biography Louis Cyr: Une épopée légendaire (Libre Expression, 2005), which is more thorough on the Québec context.
Books and articles on the Hackenschmidt–Gotch matches
Chapman's Iowa-centred wrestling history is the standard reference for the Hackenschmidt era of professional wrestling, including the contested second Gotch match.
Part ThreeArchives and institutions
The institutional holdings, in order of importance to the field. The first is in a different category from the rest.
The H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports
At the University of Texas at Austin. Holds the Todd-McLean Collection (the founding holding), the Ottley Coulter Collection (the largest single donation), the Sigmund Klein papers, the David Webster collection, and the Joe Roark research files. Publishes Iron Game History. The single indispensable institution. starkcenter.org.
The Internet Archive — Physical Culture collection
Most pre-1928 American training books, much of Strength and Strength & Health, and a substantial portion of the European primary sources are scanned and freely readable here. archive.org.
USA Weightlifting Hall of Fame
Successor to Hoffman's Hall of Fame. Holds York Barbell ephemera, contest records, and a substantial photographic collection of the 1932–1980 American lifting era.
Musée de la Force / Académie Edmond Desbonnet collection
Holds Apollon's Wheels and a large body of Desbonnet's photographic archive. Visiting access is by arrangement.
The Potarch Hotel — Dinnie Stones
Custodian of the Dinnie Stones. Maintains the standing challenge and a register of successful lifters.
British Library, Bodleian, Library of Congress
The British Library holds substantial runs of Health and Strength and Superman. The Library of Congress holds Barnum & Bailey route books and programmes from the Sandwina era. The Bodleian holds the Sandow legal papers from the 1898 Saxon dispute.
Part FourVisual sources
Two filmed series of unusual care that are useful as introductions and that contain interview material with present-day historians.
Rogue Legends Series
Documentaries on Apollon's Axle, The Inch Dumbbell, Louis Cyr, The Dinnie Stones, and The Húsafell Stone. Well-researched, with interviews with the present-day Stark Center academics. The most accessible introduction to the implements. Free on YouTube.