RARE “Health & Fitness Guru" Bernarr MacFadden Hand Signed 3X5 Card COA for Sale

RARE “Health & Fitness Guru" Bernarr MacFadden Hand Signed 3X5 Card COA For Sale

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RARE “Health & Fitness Guru" Bernarr MacFadden Hand Signed 3X5 Card COA:
$149.99

Up for sale "Health & Fitness Guru" Bernarr MacFadden Hand Signed 3X5 Card. This item is authenticated By Todd

Mueller Autographs and comes with their certificate of authenticity.

ES-3137

Bernarr Macfadden (born Bernard Adolphus McFadden, August 16, 1868 – October 12, 1955) was an American proponent of physical culture, a combination of bodybuilding with nutritional and health theories. He founded the Publications. He was the predecessor of Charles Atlas and Jack LaLanne; together they shaped the American cultural trend of "obsession with diet, health and fitness". However, Macfadden himself thought it best "to live a wholesome, rational life, and to forget the body as much as possible. Born in Mill Spring, Missouri, Macfadden changed his first and last names to give them a greater appearance of strength He thought "Bernarr" sounded like the roar of a lion, and that "Macfadden" was a more masculine spelling of his last name. As a young child, Macfadden was weak and sickly. After being orphaned by the time he was 11, he was placed with a farmer and began working on the farm. The hard work and wholesome food on the farm turned him into a strong and fit boy. When he was 13, however, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri and took a desk job. Quickly his health reverted again and by 16 he described himself as a "physical wreck". He started exercising again with dumbbells, walking up to six miles a day with a lead weight in his clothes, and he became a vegetarian. He quickly regained his previous health. Macfadden founded Physical Culture magazine in 1899, and was editor up to the August 1912 issue. Aided by long-time Supervising Editor Fulton Oursler, Macfadden eventually grew a publishing empire, including Liberty, True Detective, True Story, True Romances, Dream World, Ghost Stories, the once-familiar movie magazine Photoplay, and the tabloid newspaper, The New York Evening Graphic. Macfadden's magazines included SPORT, a preeminent sports magazine prior to Time Inc.'s Sports Illustrated. Ghost Stories was a nod in the direction of the rapidly growing field of pulp magazines, though it was a large-size magazine that preserved Macfadden's confessional style for most of its stories. In 1928, Macfadden made more overt moves into the pulps with, for example, Red Blooded Stories (1928–29), Flying Stories (1928–29), and Tales of Danger and Daring (1929). These were all unsuccessful. In 1929, Macfadden underwrote Harold Hersey's pulp chain, the Good Story Magazine Company. Macfadden titles like Ghost Stories and Flying Stories continued as Good Story publications. Other intended Macfadden pulps, like Thrills of the Jungle (1929) and Love and War Stories (1930), originated as Good Story magazines. In 1931, Macfadden purchased the assets of the Mackinnon-Fly magazine publishers, which gave him the pioneering sci-fi pulp Amazing Stories, and several other titles; they were published under the Teck Publications imprint. This apparently made Good Story expendable and financial support was withdrawn almost immediately. The Teck titles lasted under Macfadden control until being sold in the late '30s, after which Macfadden was absent from the pulp field.Macfadden also contributed to many articles and books including The Virile Powers of Superb Manhood (1900), MacFadden's Encyclopedia of Physical Culture (1911–1912), Fasting for Health (1923), and The Milk Diet (1923). Macfadden popularized the practice of fasting that previously had been associated with illnesses such as anorexia nervosa. He felt strongly that fasting was one of the surest ways to physical health. Many of his subjects would fast for a week in order to rejuvenate their body. He claimed that "a person could exercise unqualified control over virtually all types of disease while revealing a degree of strength and stamina such as would put others to shame" through fasting. He saw fasting as an instrument with which to prove a man's superiority over other men. Macfadden had photographs of himself taken before and after fasts to demonstrate their positive effects on the body. For example, one photograph showed Macfadden lifting a 100-pound dumbbell over his head immediately after a seven-day fast. Macfadden acknowledged the difficulties of fasting and did not support it as an ascetic practice but rather because he believed its ultimate benefits outweighed its costs. He was particularly opposed to the consumption of white bread, which he called the "staff of death". Macfadden established many "healthatoriums" in the eastern and midwestern states. These institutions offered educational programs such as "The Physical Culture Training School". Although he gained his reputation for physical culture and fitness, he gained much notoriety for his views on sexual behavior. He viewed intercourse as a healthy activity and not solely a procreative one; this was a different attitude than most physicians had at the time. He also attempted to found a "Physical Culture City" in Monroe Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey, which folded after a few years and became the vacation-cabin neighborhood, and, later, suburban development of Outcalt. Nicknamed "Body Love Macfadden" by Time – a moniker he detested – he was branded a "kook" and a charlatan by many, arrested on obscenity charges, and denounced by the medical establishment. Throughout his life, he campaigned tirelessly against "pill-pushers", processed foods, and prudery. Macfadden made an unsuccessful attempt to found a religion, "cosmotarianism", based on physical culture. He claimed that his regimen would enable him to reach the age of 150.

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