1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910463688203321

Autore

Algeo Matthew

Titolo

Pedestrianism : when watching people walk was America's favorite spectator sport / / Matthew Algeo

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago, Illinois : , : Chicago Review Press, , 2014

©2014

ISBN

1-61374-398-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (276 p.)

Disciplina

820.90091

Soggetti

Walking - United States - History - 19th century

Spectators - United States - History - 19th century

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front Cover; Title Page; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Preface; 1 Wiskey in His Boots or He's the Man; 2 Walking Fever or Perhaps a Foreigner Could Do It; 3 The Expo or Not an Absorbingly Entrancing Sport; 4 Coca or Nature Should Not be Outraged; 5 Rematch or Not Silly Little Female Cigarettes Either; 6 The Astley Belt or More Talked About Than Constantinople; 7 Pedestriennes or Pioneers; 8 Terrible Blows or A Crackling Was Heard; 9 Comeback or A Game Old Ped; 10 Black Dan or A Dark Horse; 11 Anti-Pedestrianism or Bodily Exercise Profiteth Little; 12 The National Pastime or King of Harts

13 Hippodroming or The Suspicion Was Very General 14 Bicycles and Baseball or Too Free Use of Stimulants; Epilogue: The Last Pedestrians or Now About Everybody Rides; Acknowledgments; Chronology; Sources; Bibliography; Index; About the Author; Back Cover

Sommario/riassunto

Strange as it sounds, during the 1870's and 1880's, America's most popular spectator sport wasn't baseball, football, or horseracing-it was competitive walking. Inside sold-out arenas, competitors walked around dirt tracks almost nonstop for six straight days (never on Sunday), risking their health and sanity to see who could walk the farthest-more than 500 miles. These walking matches were as talked about as the weather, the details reported in newspapers and



telegraphed to fans from coast to coast. This long-forgotten sport, known as pedestrianism, spawned America's first celebrity athlete