From the 1930s to the 1980s, the capital of weightlifting in America was York, Pennsylvania, the home of the York Barbell Company. Bob Hoffman, the founder of York Barbell, propagated an ideology of success for Americans seeking physical improvement. Often called the "Father of World Weightlifting," Hoffman was a pioneer in marketing barbells and health foods. He popularized weight training and inaugurated a golden age of American weightlifting. Muscletown USA - part biography, part business history, and part sports history-chronicles how Hoffman made York the mecca of manly culture for millions of followers worldwide.
Learn How It All Started
Hoffman created his so-called muscle empire out of an oil-burner business that he started in the early 1920s. Within a decade, his passion for sport exceeded his need to produce oil burners and by the outset of the Great Depression he began manufacturing barbells at the factory. He soon discovered a willing public of aspiring weightlifters like himself who would buy not only barbells but also health and fitness products. Hoffman soon recruited a remarkable group of athletes, whom he tagged his "York Gang" to engage the public. He gave these men jobs in the factory, where they trained for national and international meets. Gradually, Hoffman emerged as one of the most prominent muscle peddlers in America, using his fame and fortune to promote competitive weightlifting, bodybuilding, and powerlifting. Muscletown USA reveals other innovations in which Hoffman played a major role, including weight training for athletes, health foods, bottled spring water, exercise for convalescent and geriatric patients, isometrics, and women's weightlifting. Even anabolic steroids, first used by weightlifters in the early 1960s, were a direct outgrowth of the fitness culture spawned by Hoffman.
A Monumental Task In Research
Relying on books and magazines published by York Barbell Company and its competitors since 1932, interviews with nearly 70 individuals associated with Hoffman and his movement, and Hoffman’s personal papers and company records, Fair has assembled the most comprehensive work on the most important phenomenon in the history of the iron game.
Meticulously researched and engagingly written, Fair's book will appeal to a wide range of readers, including anyone fascinated by American sport history and the iron game.
About the Author
John D. Fair is professor of history and chair of the Department of History and Geography at Georgia College & State University in Milledgville, Georgia. He is the author of two books on modern British history. He has competed in over fifty Olympic and powerlifting meets, coached several teams, taught weight-training classes, staged meets, been a national referee, served on the national weightlifting committee, and even judged a Mr. America contest.
Yours for greater strength,
Bill Hinbern
P.S. Order a copy of this 6 x 9, softcover book with 420 pages and 50 illustrations today.
Muscletown USA by John D. Fair
Only $ 29.95 + $ 8.00 S&H.
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BONUS! Order Muscletown USA today and receive a FREE souvenir bookmark in the form of a genuine mint condition ticket from the 1947 World’s Weight Lifting Championships held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania over 60 years ago!
This offer is for a limited time only and while the supply lasts! When they’re gone THEY ARE GONE!
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Muscletown USA
by John D. Fair
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Read what the following authorities have to say about
Muscletown USA:
"For anyone interested in the inside story of the iron game in this century, the publication of Muscletown USA is the event of the year, perhaps the decade."
Clarence Bass
Ripped Enterprises
"Muscletown USA will quickly be viewed as THE standard reference work for people interested in the modern history of weight training. It fills a large void in our knowledge of twentieth-century American sports."
Jan Todd
University of Texas, Austin
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