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

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910820561703321
• Autore: Algeo Matthew
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Chicago, Illinois : , : Chicago Review Press, , 2014; ©2014
• ISBN: 1-61374-398-X
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (276 p.)
• Classificazione: HIS036040SPO050000
• Disciplina: 820.90091
• Soggetti: Walking - United States - History - 19th century; Spectators - United States - History - 19th century
• 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