Venus with biceps: a pictorial history of muscular women PDF
Preview Venus with biceps: a pictorial history of muscular women
s u n e V s p e c i B h t i w A Pictorial History of Muscular Women DAVID L. CHAPMAN & PATRICIA VERTINSKY s u n e V s p e c i B h t i w Cover Illustration: The lovely lady in the ostrich-plumed hat who flex- es her impressive biceps is Laverie Vallee, better known by her stage name of Charmion. She was a suc- cessful performer in circuses and vaudeville theaters, and starred in an early movie by Thomas Edison. Few women in the first decade of the twentieth century had such impressive musculature, and even fewer would dare to display it for the camera for fear of appearing too uppity and manly. As Charmion clearly shows, a woman can have muscles and still appear feminine. This photo is dated 1904; the pho- tographer was Frederick Whitman Glasier. (From the collection of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art Archives.) Venus with Biceps A Pictorial History of Muscular Women DAVID L. CHAPMAN & PATRICIA VERTINSKY Arsenal Pulp Press | Vancouver VENUS WITH BICEPS Copyright © 2010 by David L. Chapman; Introduction © 2010 by Patricia Vertinsky Images © by the artists All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a license from Access Copyright. ARSENAL PULP PRESS Suite 101, 211 East Georgia St. Vancouver, BC Canada V6A 1Z6 arsenalpulp.com The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council for its publishing program, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit Program for its publishing activities. Efforts have been made to locate copyright holders of source material wherever possible. The publisher welcomes hearing from any copyright holders of material used in this book who have not been contacted. Front cover illustration, oritingally black & white (see page 2), is used courtesy of The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. Colorized by David Berryman. Book design by Shyla Seller Editing by Susan Safyan All images courtesy of David L. Chapman; image restoration by David Berryman Printed and bound in Hong Kong Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Chapman, David L., 1948- Venus with biceps [electronic resource] : a pictorial history of muscular women / David L. Chapman with Patricia Vertinsky. Includes bibliographical references and index. Type of computer file: Electronic document in PDF format. Also available in print format. ISBN 978-1-55152-385-9 1. Women bodybuilders--History. 2. Women bodybuilders--Pictorial works. I. Vertinsky, Patricia Anne, 1942- II. Title. HQ1219.C53 2010a 306.4’613 C2010-902978-X Contents 7 | Foreword 11 | Introduction 21 | Muscularity and the Female Body Patricia Vertinsky 47 | Foremothers 135 | Pumping Wood 195 | Pursuing the Healthy Life 233 | Wonder Women 293 | From Figure to Physique 347 | Conclusion: Let’s Get Physical 357 | Index Acknowledgments In writing and assembling this book, I have been helped by many people. Mi- chael Murphy of Westerly, Rhode Island, supplied both moral and material sup- port throughout the process. Larry Aumann of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, assisted me continually with both photographs and encouragement. Laurie Fierstein of New York City was always ready with wise advice, factual clarification, and friendly support. One of the most important scholars of muscular women, Jan Todd of the University of Texas at Austin, gave me generous help and advice. The greatest assistance came from my patient and long-suffering partner, David Berryman. He used his technological skills to turn many dim and tat- tered photographs into the wonderful images that appear in this book. I often handed him some scuffed and frayed illustration and asked, “Do you think you can make this look good?” He invariably could. FOREWORD David L. Chapman Contemporary female bodybuilders tend to elicit pretty strong reactions; some of these responses are positive, but most range anywhere from disgust to in- credulity. My own interest in female muscularity was inspired by two seminal events, the first of which occurred in California in 1987 and the second a dozen years later in New York City. Muscle Beach was once one of the most important venues in Southern Cali- fornia for bodybuilding. The little strip of sand between Santa Monica Pier and Venice Beach was made famous in the 1940s and ’50s by the gymnasts, acrobats, and high vaulting adagio dancers, who regularly put on free balancing and ath- letic shows for the public. It was a place you could go to on summer afternoons (and summer is a very long season in Los Angeles) and find superbly muscled athletes in brief attire practicing their jumps, handstands, and human pyramids there on the warm and forgiving sands. It was also one of the few places in the world, outside of a circus, where you could find muscular women—girls who had sculpted their physiques to a fare-thee-well by lifting weights or sup- porting partners on their generous deltoids—female athletes like Relna Brewer, Paula Unger, and (most wonderful of all, to me) Abbye Stockton, known to her friends as “Pudgy.” Unfortunately, the seaside idyll at Muscle Beach ended after sex scandals, sleazy conduct, and a general distrust of athletes and the people they attracted caused the area to be closed down starting late in 1958. Almost thirty years after closing it down, the city of Santa Monica agreed to put up a sign marking the site of the old Muscle Beach. Since expensive beachfront properties had now sanitized the neighborhood, the city organized a commemoration of the beach’s former glory, and invited a number of the old denizens back to celebrate 8 | VENUS WITH BICEPS David L. Chapman and Abbye “Pudgy” Stockton, Muscle Beach, California, 1988. the erection of the historical marker. I got word that the celebration would take place and was determined to go so that I could meet some of the old-time body- builders whom I had long admired. At the time, I was a writer for a couple of bodybuilding magazines, so it wasn’t hard to finagle an invitation. At the event, I was not disappointed; there were many stars in attendance whom I was happy to meet. The greatest thrill of the day came when I encoun- tered a beautiful and elegantly muscular woman who had acquired the unde- served nickname of “Pudgy.” I was particularly thrilled to meet her because of the role that she had played in the history of bodybuilding, especially women’s. Pudgy led the way. For many years, the diminutive lady with whom I was mer- rily chatting at Muscle Beach had been one of the few brave enough to buck the trend against strongly muscled women. Her photos in Strength and Health (the premiere fitness magazine of the 1940s and ’50s) and other periodicals proved conclusively that exercising with weights would not make a woman “overly” muscular or mannish. After talking with Pudgy, I happened to see another unmistakable and highly original character who’d played a part in both the fitness revolution and women’s exercise: Jack LaLanne. There he was, right in front of me, an animated and obviously fit little man offering opinions, clowning around, and generally having a great time at the center of a group of admirers. I had known of him since the 1950s when my mother religiously watched his mid-morning 9 | Foreword exercise program on television. It was largely thanks to LaLanne that women all over North America learned the rudiments of fitness and good eating habits. My mother was something of an exercise fanatic, and she would never dream of missing his show. She had somewhat mixed opinions on Jack’s nutritional advice, and she agreed with almost everyone that he was eccentric in his speech and behavior, but she still loved him. My interest in muscular women received another impetus in the year 2000 when the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York mounted an extraor- dinary exhibition of modern and vintage art related to strongwomen called “Picturing the Modern Amazon,” which was something of a turning point in the study of female bodybuilders. Prior to the show, I met an extraordinary woman named Laurie Fierstein, who was one of the curators of the exhibition. She was both a physique athlete of magnificent proportions and an eloquent and intelligent historian who helped me to understand the meaning and impor- tance of female bodybuilders. Laurie looked at my collection of photographs and chose several items for the show. Later, I was invited to give a lecture at the Museum on the iconography of strong women in historical images. Laurie Fierstein, photo courtesy www. This was the first time that I had the opportunity to meet and talk with WPWMagazineOnline.com women who had honed their physiques to an unprecedented size and mass. I found most of them to be pleasant company, confident (but aware of their faults), and enthusiastic, but not aggressive. In short, they were pretty normal for athletes at the upper end of their chosen field. I wanted to know why they spent hours in the gym building bodies that most people (men and women) found unattractive. The answer was almost always the same: they did it for themselves. Building muscles made them feel better about themselves. Accord- ing to Leslie Heywood in her excellent book Bodymakers, most contemporary women bodybuilders don’t care if we like the way they look or not. They aren’t building their bodies for us, anyway. The question is not whether they are sexu- ally appealing for others but whether they excel at what they do for themselves. In the end, it is an issue of self-fulfillment. It was a simple explanation, but it made me wonder about the women who had tried to build their bodies in pre- vious generations. Did they worry about gender-identity issues a hundred or more years ago? Did these muscular females agonize over their mesomorphic genes and their need to express themselves? Who can answer these questions? All I know for sure is that, then as now, they were individuals who chose to be themselves regardless of what others thought or said, and as such they ex- panded and redefined femininity itself.
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