Bernarr Macfadden

Macfadden posing as Michelangelo's “David” in 1905

Bernarr Macfadden (16 August 1868 – 12 October 1955) was an influential proponent of physical culture, a combination of bodybuilding with nutritional and health theories. He also founded the long-running magazine publishing company Macfadden Publications.

Biography

Born Bernard Adolphus McFadden in Mill Spring, Missouri, Bernarr Macfadden changed his first and last names to give them a greater appearance of strength. He thought "Bernarr" sounded like the roar of a lion, and that "Macfadden" was a more masculine spelling of his name.

As a young child, Macfadden was weak and sickly. After being orphaned by the time he was 11, he was placed with a farmer and began working on the farm. The hard work and wholesome food on the farm turned him into a strong and fit boy for his time. When he was 13, however, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri and took a desk job. Quickly his health reverted again and by 16 he described himself as a "physical wreck". He started exercising again with dumbbells, walking up to six miles a day and became a vegetarian. He quickly regained his previous health.

Macfadden founded Physical Culture magazine in 1899, and was editor up to the August 1912 issue. He eventually grew a publishing empire, including Liberty, True Detective, True Story, True Romances, Dream World, Ghost Stories, the once-familiar movie magazine Photoplay, and a trashy tabloid newspaper, The New York Graphic. He was a celebrity who was an acquaintance of Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Will Rogers, and Rudolph Valentino. At the peak of his career, he owned several hotels and a major building in New York.

He attempted to found a "Physical Culture City" in Monroe Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey, which folded after a few years and became the vacation-cabin neighborhood, and, later, suburban development of Outcalt.

Macfadden contributed to many articles and books including The Virile Powers of Superb Manhood (1900), MacFadden's Encyclopedia of Physical Culture (1911–1912), Fasting for Health (1923), and The Milk Diet (1923).

Macfadden made an unsuccessful attempt to found a religion, “cosmotarianism”, based on physical culture. He claimed that his regimen would enable him to reach the age of 150.

Nicknamed “Body Love Macfadden” by Time—a moniker he detested—he was a flamboyant personality who inspired millions of people around the world to live healthful and vigorous lives. He was branded a “kook” and a charlatan by many, arrested on obscenity charges, and denounced by the medical establishment. Throughout his life, he campaigned tirelessly against “pill-pushers,” processed foods and prudery.

Macfadden's magazines included SPORT, a preeminent sports magazine prior to Time, Inc.'s Sports Illustrated.

Macfadden was married four times and had eight children, seven of whose names began with the letter "B".

Macfadden established many “healthatoriums” in the eastern and midwestern states. These institutions offered educational programs such as “The Physical Culture Training School”. Although he gained his reputation for physical culture and fitness, he gained much notoriety for his views on sexual behavior. He viewed intercourse as a healthy activity and not solely a procreative one. This was a different attitude than most physicians had at the time.

Macfadden's Macfadden Foundation established two boarding schools for young boys and girls in Westchester County, New York, the Macfadden School in Briarcliff Manor (Scarborough) and the Tarrytown School in Tarrytown. The Macfadden School took the younger children, with some being as young as 3. On March 7, 1943, the advertisement in The New York Times Magazine for the Tarrytown School read: "To Meet the Needs of a Nation at War." The boys at the Tarrytown School wore uniforms and were subject to military type discipline. The Macfadden School operated from 1939 to 1950, the Tarrytown School from 1943 to 1954.

Macfadden popularized the practice of fasting that previously had been associated with illnesses such as anorexia nervosa. He felt strongly that fasting was one of the surest ways to physical health. Many of his subjects would fast for a week in order to rejuvenate their body. He claimed that “a person could exercise unqualified control over virtually all types of disease while revealing a degree of strength and stamina such as would put others to shame” through fasting. He saw fasting as an instrument with which to prove a man's superiority over other men.

Macfadden had photographs of himself taken before and after fasts to demonstrate their positive effects on the body. For example, one photograph showed Macfadden lifting a 100 pound dumbbell over his head immediately after a seven day fast. He also promoted fasting by appealing to racial prejudices, suggesting that fasting was a practice of self-denial that only civilized white men would choose to embrace. Macfadden acknowledged the difficulties of fasting and did not support it as an ascetic practice but rather because he believed its ultimate benefits outweighed its costs.

Macfadden died of a urinary tract infection in 1955 in Jersey City, New Jersey, after refusing medical treatment. Upon his death, Edward Longstreet Bodin became the president of the Bernarr Macfadden Foundation.

Partial bibliography

During his lifetime, Macfadden wrote over 100 books. This is a partial list of titles:

• Physical Training (1900)
• Fasting, Hydropathy, and Exercise (1900)
• Virile Powers of Superb Manhood (1900)
• Power and Beauty of Superb Womanhood (1901)
• Strength from Eating (1901)
• Strong Eyes (1901)
• Natural Cure for Rupture (1902)
• Vaccination Superstition (1902)
• Marriage: a Lifelong Honeymoon (1903)
• Building of Vital Power (1904)
• Creative and Sexual Science (1904)
• Health, Beauty, and Sexuality (1904)
• How Success Is Won (1904)
• A Perfect Beauty (1904)
• Physical Culture for Babies (1904)
• Strenuous Lover (1904)
• Muscular Power and Beauty (1906)
• Macfadden Prosecution- A Curious Story of Wrong and Oppression (1908)
• Vitality Supreme (1915)
• Brain Energy (1916)
• Manhood and Marriage (1916)
• Womanhood and Marriage (1918)
• Strengthening the Eyes (1918)
• Making Old Bodies Young (1919)
• Truth About Tobacco (1921)
• The Miracle of Milk (1923)
• Fasting for Health (1923)
• Constipation: Its Cause, Effect, and Treatment (1924)
• How To Raise a Strong Baby (1924)
• Physical Culture Cook Book (1924)
• Walking Cure, Pep and Power from Walking - How to Cure Disease (1924)
• Hair Culture (1924)
• Diabetes: Its Cause, Nature and Treatment (1925)
• Headaches: How Caused and How Cured (1925)
• Strengthening the Spine (1925)
• Tooth Troubles (1925)
• Asthma and Hay Fever (1926)
• Colds, Coughs, and Catarrh (1926)
• Foot Troubles (1926)
• Predetermine Your Baby's Sex (1926)
• Rheumatism, Its Cause, Nature and Treatment (1926)
• Skin Troubles (1927)
• Digestive Troubles (1928)
• Talks to a Young Man about Sex (1928)
• Tuberculosis (1929)
• Home Health Manual (1930)
• After 40 - What? (1935)
• Practical Birth Control (1935)
• Woman's Sex Life (1935)
• How to Gain Weight (1936)
• How to Reduce Weight (1936)
• Be Married and like It (1937)
• Macfadden's Encyclopedia of Physical Culture (several editions)

See also

• Bates method

References

• Fishbein, M., The Medical Follies: An Analysis of the Foibles of Some Healing Cults, including Osteopathy, Homeopathy, Chiropractic, and the Electronic Reactions of Abrams, with Essays on the Anti-Vivisectionists, Health Legislation, Physical Culture, Birth Control, and Rejuvenation, Boni & Liveright, (New York), 1925.
• Hale, A.R., "These Cults": An Analysis of the Foibles of Dr. Morris Fishbein's "Medical Follies" and an Indictment of Medical Practice in General, with a Non-Partisan Presentation of the Case for the Drugless Schools of Healing, Comprising Essays on Homeopathy, Osteopathy, Chiropractic, The Abrams Method, Vivisection, Physical Culture, Christian Science, Medical Publicity, The Cost of Hospitalization and State Medicine, National Health Foundation, (New York), 1926.

Further reading

• Weakness Is a Crime: The Life of Bernarr Macfadden by Robert Ernst. Syracuse University Press, 1991. ISBN 081562512X; ISBN 978-0815625124.
• Mr. America: How Muscular Millionaire Bernarr Macfadden Transformed the Nation Through Sex, Salad, and the Ultimate Starvation Diet by Mark Adams. HarperCollins, 2009. ISBN 9780060594756; ISBN 0060594756.
• Bernarr Macfadden: A Study in Success, by Clement Wood. Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2003. ISBN 0766143422; ISBN 978-0766143425.

External links

• BernarrMacfadden.com
• A Publishing Empire
• My Last Million Readers by Emile Gauvreau
• Bernarr Macfadden, the Father of Physical Culture
• Project Gutenberg: Vitality Supreme (1915) by Bernarr Macfadden
• Online archive of the covers of Physical Culture magazine
• SPORTmag.us: Sport magazine
• The Sport Gallery: Sport magazine
• "The Milk Diet: How to Use the Milk Diet Scientifically at Home" (1923) by Bernarr Macfadden
• MacFadden, Bernarr A. (1924). Strengthening the Eyes; A System of Scientific Eye Training. MacFadden Publications Inc.
• Template:Worldcat id
• "Strong Circulation: How a weight-lifting and diet fanatic built a publishing empire a century ago" from The Wall Street Journal (March 20, 2009)
• The Physical Culture Magazine collection provides electronic access to editions of Physical Culture from 1918 to 1948.