Timeline

From the circus strongmen of the 1860s to the founding of York Barbell

Roughly a century in ten parts. The chronology is approximate at the edges and crowded in the middle. Where individual figures are covered in more detail, they are linked.

Decade IThe 1860s

The decade in which strength becomes a public spectacle in the modern sense. The American Civil War and the unification of Italy and Germany rearrange the entertainment circuits of the Atlantic world; the touring circus and the music hall, both products of the same expansion of urban audiences and railway networks, become the venues where strongmen perform for paying audiences with measurable equipment. Donald Dinnie, the Scottish Highland Games champion, is reputed to have carried the Dinnie Stones across the Potarch Bridge in 1860, the earliest of the open-challenge implement traditions to be documented. Louis Cyr is born in Québec in 1863; Eugen Sandow in Königsberg in 1867. Carl Abs, the German strongman who would later teach the Saxon brothers, is at his peak. The American "physical culture" movement, which would sit alongside competitive lifting for the rest of the century, has its first popular advocate in Dio Lewis.

Decade IIThe 1870s

The first generation of modern strongmen reach maturity. Dr Vladislav von Krajewski, a physician of Polish-Russian background, opens his apartment gymnasium in Saint Petersburg in 1885 (the precise opening is at the end of the next decade, but his correspondence with European lifters begins in this period). In Britain, the Highland Games circuit consolidates around Donald Dinnie. Louis Uni is born in 1862, and Edmond Desbonnet, who will become the central French chronicler of the Iron Game, is born in 1867; the two will dominate the French scene for the next forty years. The amateur athletic tradition begins to formalise on both sides of the Atlantic, with the founding of the AAA in Britain (1880) and the AAU in the United States (1888) closing the decade and the next.

Decade IIIThe 1880s

Professor Attila — born Louis Durlacher — is the central teacher of the early strongman tradition. He instructs Sandow in Brussels in 1887 and stages the bent press as the headline lift of the music hall. Charles Sampson holds the British music-hall stage as the strongest man in the world, with chain-breaking and dumbbell stunts that would later be revealed as partly trick. On 2 November 1889, Sandow defeats Sampson at the Royal Aquarium in London (see Feats); the Sampson era ends overnight. Apollon begins his Paris stage career around 1886. Cyr wins his first major American match against David Michaud in 1885. The implement that will define the next forty years of grip strength — the railway-axle dumbbells Apollon will perform with — is forged late in the decade.

Decade IVThe 1890s

The most concentrated decade of the music-hall era. Sandow tours North America under Florenz Ziegfeld and is featured at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893. Cyr performs his celebrated 4,337-lb back lift at Sohmer Park, Montréal, in 1895 (see Feats) and tours North America and Britain with Ringling and Barnum & Bailey from 1894. George Hackenschmidt wins the Russian amateur championship in 1898 and clean-and-jerks 361 lb in Vienna the same year (see Feats). Edmond Desbonnet's La Culture Physique begins publication in Lille in 1898; the same year, Sandow founds Sandow's Magazine of Physical Culture in London — the first periodicals devoted to the field. Arthur Saxon and his brothers form the Saxon Trio in 1897 and base themselves in England by 1900.

Decade VThe 1900s

The Iron Game becomes industrial. Alan Calvert founds the Milo Barbell Company in Philadelphia in 1902 and begins manufacturing the Milo Triplex, the first widely available adjustable plate-loaded barbell in the United States. Sandow's Royal Albert Hall "Great Competition" — generally considered the first major bodybuilding contest — is held on 14 September 1901, judged in part by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; the prize is a bronze statuette of Sandow himself. Arthur Saxon's 371-lb bent press in London, 1905 (see Feats), is the high-water mark of the lift. Thomas Inch begins his music-hall tour in Britain. Saxon's The Development of Physical Power (1905) and Hackenschmidt's The Way to Live (1908) appear, the two most coherent training books of the era. Hackenschmidt wins the world catch wrestling championship in 1905 and loses it to Frank Gotch in 1908.

Decade VIThe 1910s

The decade in which the field begins to formalise — and is interrupted by the First World War. The British Amateur Weightlifters Association is founded in 1911, providing the first set of standardised contest rules in English; in the United States, the AAU begins to recognise weightlifting as a regulated sport from 1929 onwards but the precursor work happens in this decade. Katie Sandwina joins Barnum & Bailey in 1911 and begins her decade-long run as the headline strongwoman of the American circus, lifting her husband nightly (see Feats). Calvert founds Strength magazine in 1914, the first American magazine devoted to lifting. The First World War interrupts continental careers — Hermann Saxon and Kurt Saxon are interned in England as enemy aliens; Hermann Goerner serves in the German army and loses the sight of one eye. Sandow is appointed Inspector of Physical Culture to the British Army.

Decade VIIThe 1920s

The richest decade for individual records and the decade in which the Olympic lifting programme begins to dominate. Goerner's 727-lb one-arm deadlift in Leipzig (8 October 1920; see Feats) is the standout figure of the decade, and arguably the standout figure of the century in pulling strength. Charles Rigoulot wins Olympic gold in the light-heavyweight class at Paris 1924 and sets multiple world records over the following years. Henry Steinborn emigrates to the United States and demonstrates the squat as a heavy lift to the American audience. George Jowett launches his mail-order strength businesses; Earle Liederman and Charles Atlas do the same. Sandow dies in 1925; Sigmund Klein takes over Attila's gymnasium in New York in 1924. The AAU adopts weightlifting as a recognised sport in 1929. Strength magazine declines after Calvert's departure.

Decade VIIIThe 1930s

The American consolidation. Bob Hoffman founds the York Barbell Company in 1932 and launches Strength & Health magazine the same year, beginning what will become a thirty-year dominance of the American lifting world. Hoffman acquires Milo Bar-Bell in the mid-1930s. Rigoulot performs his cleans of Apollon's Wheels in 1930, 1931, and 1933 (see Feats). The bent press is removed from the IWF Olympic programme; the modern three-lift contest (press, snatch, clean and jerk) consolidates. The first Mr. America contest is held by the AAU in 1939, won by Roland Essmaker, a pupil of Sigmund Klein. The Iron Game History journal will, much later, treat the 1939 contest as a watershed: physique judging detaches itself from contest lifting and begins to develop along its own lines.

Decade IXThe 1940s

Wartime suspends international competition; American lifting consolidates around York. John Grimek wins consecutive Mr. America titles in 1940 and 1941 — the AAU subsequently changes the rules to prevent repeat winners. The Second World War interrupts European training and competition; Goerner survives the war in Leipzig but his career effectively ends. Hoffman's lifters return from military service and the York team becomes dominant. John Davis wins the first post-war world weightlifting championship in 1946 and goes on to perform a clean and jerk of the original Apollon's Wheels in Paris in 1949 — the first known successful lift of the implement after Rigoulot. Klein's Gym in midtown Manhattan reaches its mature form, with John Grimek and Steve Stanko among its trainees.

Decade XThe 1950s

The end of the era covered by this archive, and the beginning of a different one. Hoffman is appointed head coach of the U.S. Olympic weightlifting team in 1948 and leads it through three Olympics (1948, 1952, 1956) of substantial American medal success. American lifters — Davis, Schemansky, Tommy Kono, Pete George, Chuck Vinci, Isaac Berger — dominate the international scene through the early 1950s. Edgar Mueller publishes Goerner the Mighty in 1951, the principal record of Goerner's career. Hackenschmidt is still alive and writing in London. The introduction of anabolic steroids to American Olympic lifting begins late in the decade, with consequences for the next several. The 1950s is also the decade in which the bodybuilding world begins to detach itself decisively from the lifting world: the Weider brothers' magazines and the IFBB begin to compete with Hoffman's Strength & Health for the same readers, and over the following twenty years the bodybuilding side wins the popular argument. The era of the music-hall strongman, the open-challenge implement, and the bent press is by now closed. The era of the gym franchise, the steroid, and the televised competition has begun.