Lewis New Gymnastics For Ladies Gentlemen And Children And Boston Journal Of Physical Culture

Todd (kinesiology and health education, U. of Texas, Austin) discusses the diverse spectrum of women's exercise in the antebellum era-- especially exercise systems related to an ideal of womanhood--and the ways that purposive training influenced American women physically, intellectually, and emotionally. She also considers the contributions of several physical education figures: Sarah Pierce, Mary Lyon, William Bentley Fowle, Catherine Beecher, David P. Butler, Dio Lewis, and the phrenologist Orson S. Fowler. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

The Evolution of Aesthetic and Expressive Dance in Boston provides a regional history of the physical education pioneers who established the groundwork for women to participate in movement and expression. Their schools and their writing offer insights into the powerful cultural changes that were reconfiguring women's perceptions of their bodies in motion. The book examines the history from the first successful school of ballroom dance run by Lorenzo Papanti to the establishment of the Braggiotti School by Berthe and Francesca Braggiotti (two wealthy Bostonian socialites who used their power and money to support dance in Boston). The Delsartean ideas about beauty and the expressive capacity of the body freed upper-class women to explore movement beyond social dance and to enjoy movement as artistic self expression. Their interest and pleasure in early "parlor forms" engaged them as sponsors and advocates of expressive dance. Although revolutionaries such as Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis also garnered support from Boston and New York's social sets, in Boston the relationship of the city's elite and its native dancers was both intimate and ongoing. The Braggiotti sisters did not use this support to embark on international tours; instead they founded a school that educated the children of their sponsors and offered performances for their own community. Although later artists, Miriam Winslow and Hans Weiner, did tour nationally and internationally, the intimate relationships they maintained with the upper echelon of Boston society required that they remain sensitive to the needs of their students and their community. Through the study of these schools, the reader is offered a unique perspective on the evolution of expressive dance as it unfolded in Boston and its environs. The Evolution of Aesthetic and Expressive Dance in Boston is an important book for those interested in dance history, women's studies, and regional histories.

This case study of health reform in Boston between 1830 and 1900 combines medical and social history to analyze the conflicting messages--both feminist and conservative--projected by the concept of "able-bodied womanhood."

Roberta J. Park has been throughout her distinguished career a scholar with a mission - to win academic recognition of the significance of the body in culture and cultures. Her scholarship has earned her global esteem in the disciplines of Physical Education and Sports Studies for its penetrating insights. This selection of her writings is a well-deserved tribute to her interpretive originality, her intellectual acuity and her ability to inspire colleagues and students. To explore unexplored patterns has been her extraordinary strength. The result has been continual originality of insight. These writings are thus a unique compilation of scholastic creativity of major interest to scholars and students in Sports Studies, Physical Education, Health Studies, Sociology and Social Psychology. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.