Muscles, Sex, Money, & Fame

Bernarr Macfadden (1868 - 1955) was the one person in the early twentieth century most responsible for creating a health and fitness consciousness across America and helping Americans emerge from a puritanical mentality. Macfadden was the self-proclaimed ＂Father of Physical Culture,＂ and a flamboyant personality, true visionary, millionaire publisher, and life-long advocate of physical fitness, natural food, outdoor exercise, and the natural treatment of disease. He was branded a ＂kook＂ and a charlatan by many, was arrested on obscenity charges, denounced by the medical establishment, and campaigned tirelessly against ＂pill-pushers,＂ processed foods, and prudery. This pictorial history of Macfadden’s extraordinary life - from his earliest years as a sickly child through the years of his fame and success, contains hundreds of rare photos from the pages of his books and magazines, as well as pictures of his health sanitariums, a failed Utopian health community, and his ＂physical culture＂ family.