Object Details
- Description (Brief)
- Sandow's Spring Grip Dumb-Bell, a strength training tool with its original metal box. The dumbbell consists of seven springs surrounded by a handle. There are screws at each end that hold the dumbbell together. The dumbbell was squeezed together for hand strengthening exercises. The metal box has a red and white label printed on the top surface with illustrations of Sandow’s arm, the dumbbell, and, printed at the top, “SUPPLIED TO KING EDWARD VII By Royal Letters Patent.”
- Eugen Sandow was a pioneering bodybuilder and showman known as “the father of modern bodybuilding." Born Friedrich Wilhelm Müller in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad) in 1867, he joined the circus to avoid military service and traveled Europe as a strongman. He adapting his mother’s Russian maiden name Sandov to take the stage name Euden Sandow. Under the mentorship of bodybuilder Ludwig Durlacher (also known as Louis Attila), Sandow excelled in strongman competitions and began touring as a headlining stage performer, posing to reveal his physique and performing feats of strength. Showman and impresario Forenz Ziegfeld began managing Sandow and helped refine his performance, making him an international star with appearances at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, in early Thomas Edison films, and on increasingly prominent stages. By the late 1890s, Sandow began advocating for physical fitness, opening Institutes of Physical Culture where he encouraged improved diet and exercise, sponsored gymnasia, began publishing health books and the periodical Physical Culture, and marketed licensed exercise equipment. In 1901 he organized the first international bodybuilding competition, held at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Sandow’s exercise instruction and advocacy for strength training sparked a physical fitness revolution that resonated with turn-of-the-century American fears of overcivilization and declining virility.
- ca 1900
- ID Number
- 2001.0179.01
- accession number
- 2001.0179
- catalog number
- 2001.0179.01
- Object Name
- dumbbell, fitness
- Physical Description
- brass (overall material)
- organic material (unspecified) (overall material)
- paint (overall material)
- paper (overall material)
- iron (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 18 cm x 16 cm x 6.5 cm; 7 3/32 in x 6 5/16 in x 2 9/16 in
- container: 7 in x 6 1/4 in x 3 1/4 in; 17.78 cm x 15.875 cm x 8.255 cm
- part: weight: 6 5/8 in x 3 in x 2 in; 16.8275 cm x 7.62 cm x 5.08 cm
- place made
- United Kingdom: England, London, City of London
- See more items in
- Culture and the Arts: Sport and Leisure
- Exhibition
- Entertainment Nation
- Exhibition Location
- National Museum of American History
- National Museum of American History
- web subject
- Sports
- name of sport
- fitness
- level of sport
- recreational
- Record ID
- nmah_1696143
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746b4-cb34-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
