A short history of men's bodybuilding in America:
The $1000 prize winner in Macfadden's 1921 contest for "The Most Perfectly Developed Man in America" was Angelo Siciliano, an Italian immigrant who achieved fame as "Charles Atlas." Mythologizing an experience he'd had as a teenager on a Coney Island beach--when a bully had kicked sand in his face--Atlas sold "Dynamic Tension" mail-order courses to generations of boys who wished to face down their own bullies.
Comments