Mr. America: How Muscular Millionaire Bernarr Macfadden Transformed the Nation Through Sex, Salad, and the Ultimate Starvation Diet [Hardcover]

Mark Adams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 17, 2009

During two feverish decades between the world wars, Bernarr Macfadden did more to educate the world about healthy eating, alternative medicine, regular sexual activity, and exercise than anyone in history. His disciples included Upton Sinclair and Charles Atlas; among his employees were Walter Winchell, Ed Sullivan, and Eleanor Roosevelt. He launched the worst newspaper in U.S. history, founded a whole-grain utopian community in the New Jersey suburbs, trained fascist cadets for Mussolini, and came within a hair's breadth of being elected senator from Florida—running on a physical fitness platform. Yet today few have heard of this larger-than-life entrepreneur who changed American society. In Mr. America, Mark Adams illuminates Macfadden's captivating, ambitious, and unparalleled life.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this entertaining, briskly written biography, journalist Adams rescues from obscurity the history of Bernarr Macfadden, a man whose life would seem almost implausible if it were not true. An orphan born in 1869 Missouri and raised in abject poverty, Macfadden's discovery of the power of exercise led him to start a wildly successful fitness magazine, Physical Culture, that championed a range of health programs that today would be known as alternative therapies—as well as introducing muscleman Charles Atlas (an immigrant from Calabria, Italy, named Angelo Siciliano) to the world—creating the template for every fitness magazine published today. But Adams also carefully delineates how Macfadden's growing passion for publishing turned his various magazines into a $30-million empire. Central to this success was True Story, devoted entirely to nonliterary, factual stories told in the first person. And while his New York Evening Graphic was less successful than competing tabloids, Macfadden can claim to be the first person who hired and spotlighted the gossip columns of Walter Winchell and Ed Sullivan—creating another huge impact on American culture to which Adams gives proper due. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In the first half of the twentieth century, Bernarr Macfadden was central to American popular culture. Publisher of Photoplay, True Detective, and his flagship magazine, Physical Culture, not to mention the New York Evening Graphic, home of gossip columnist Walter Winchell and “widely considered . . . the worst newspaper in U.S. history,” Macfadden tirelessly advocated strenuous exercise, a diet high in vegetables and milk, and frequent sex for health and recreation. He discovered, groomed, and marketed Charles Atlas, creating a ubiquitous public face of fitness in the media. Macfadden was so well known that as a mystery guest on What’s My Line? in 1951 he was obliged to “ridiculously distort” his voice, lest the celebrity panelists recognize him from his long-running radio show on exercise. In his declining years, he fell into poverty, rather ironically, given that he had poured money into establishing a foundation for spreading clean living and exercise. He died broke and forgotten, which only underscores his dramatic life. Bravo to Adams for enabling the rediscovery of this phenomenal American. --Mike Tribby

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1 edition (March 17, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060594756
• ISBN-13: 978-0060594756
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #984,817 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mr. America Tells an Amazing Story, March 17, 2009

By 

James M. Bennett (Cincinnati, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mr. America: How Muscular Millionaire Bernarr Macfadden Transformed the Nation Through Sex, Salad, and the Ultimate Starvation Diet (Hardcover)

As the creator of the [...] web site and an avid collector of Macfadden memorabilia, I was eager to read Mr. America, a biography of Bernarr Macfadden.

Mr. America tells the rags-to-riches story of an incredibly interesting and multi-faceted individual, Bernarr Macfadden, a true self-made man and self-promoter (who even coined his own name). Macfadden was a larger-than life personality who, starting out as a poor and sickly orphan, became an icon for health and strength as well as a multi-millionaire entrepreneur. He had a monumental influence on shaping several industries, from bodybuilding to health foods and exercise to publishing. He was internationally famous during the first half of the twentieth century, but, incredibly, is virtually unknown today.

Mr. America is a comprehensive and well-researched biography, but, more than that, it captures the amazement one is sure to experience when "discovering" Macfadden for the first time. It is exciting to read about such Macfadden "firsts" as promoting the first public bodybuilding contests in America, campaigning against prudery and corsets, battling with censors and the medical profession, advocating natural foods and exercise, publishing the longest-running health magazine in history (nearly 60 years), and launching a whole genre of pulp magazines (True Story, etc.) from which he created a multi-million dollar media empire.

One thing that makes this biography especially enjoyable is how Mr. Adams has tied parts of Macfadden's amazing story to the people and things that the reader is familiar with (such as Jack LaLanne and Nike shoes). Although this book is meticulously researched, it does not read like a stuffy history textbook. Instead, the author tells this amazing story in a conversational style that makes his book especially fun to read.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book Is A Revelation, March 17, 2009

By 

Zach Knight "BMore BookLover" (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mr. America: How Muscular Millionaire Bernarr Macfadden Transformed the Nation Through Sex, Salad, and the Ultimate Starvation Diet (Hardcover)

Bernarr Macfadden is my new personal hero. Mr. America is a real revelation , one of those rare glimpses into a forgotten piece of history that shaped this nation. Or at least this nation's fascination with fitness. Yoga? Macfadden was on to it. Body Building? Macfadden helped popularize it. Dieting, daily workouts, strange and exotic body cleanses,? Macfadden pioneered the trends. He was where it all began.

With such a strong character to guide his biography, Mr. Adams wouldn't need to work very hard to craft a compelling read. But he does work hard, incredibly so, and that's what makes Mr. America the gem that it is. Adams has sorted through personal documents, talked to as many sources as he could find, and synthesized what must have been a mountain of information into a simple but hugely entertaining portrait of an eccentric and well-connected publishing magnate who made Americans care about fitness.

The writing is strong and clear, and Adams has a sharp wit that he does not hesitate to employ. By far, Mr. America is the most fun I've had with a biography in a very, very long time.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Read About An Astonishing Character, April 14, 2009

By 

Robert Moritz "consumate giver" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mr. America: How Muscular Millionaire Bernarr Macfadden Transformed the Nation Through Sex, Salad, and the Ultimate Starvation Diet (Hardcover)

If you've never heard of Bernarr MacFadden -- as I hadn't prior to stumbling upon this book -- he's the man invented tabloid culture (without him there would be no TMZ, Access Hollywood or Perez Hilton), introduced America to the concept of "physical fitness", created the first "fad diet" and drew up the blueprints for the "sexual revolution". I could go on and on about everything else McFadden managed to pack into his years on the planet... In short (I know, too late), this is one of those books that proves truth can be way more entertaining than fiction. During the week or so I spent reading it, I found myself relaying one amazing MacFadden story after another to everyone I knew because, truthfully, I couldn't believe that such a bizarre, wild, eccentric personality could have been forgotten for half a decade without at least a Ron Howard bio-pic making it to the screen. If this sounds like a rave, I guess it is. It was an unexpected read that most definitely exceeded my expectations.