Walk This Way

Our next story has to do with a sport that I recently learned was America’s most popular spectator sport of the 1870s and 1880s. Brian, any guesses to what that sport might be?

BRIAN: Oh come on, Ed, this is, first of all, out of my century. I’m going with horse racing.

ED: OK, and what’s your logic on that?

BRIAN: There were a lot of horses back then, we hadn’t invented the car, I don’t know.

ED: OK, that’s a very presentistic perspective. So let me give you some hints. This is a sport that involves competitions lasting several days on end. It was so taxing, in fact, that many of the athletes who participated in it died young.

BRIAN: Wow, would you like to refine your answer? So taxing, well that rules out golf. You know I’m going to forget curling, too. You better tell me what it is.

ED: Competitive walking. You laugh. No, and it was– perhaps you would laugh less if you knew it was called Pedestrianism. In the most popular version of the sport, competitors would walk on an indoor track for six days straight.

BRIAN: Oh my god. Historian Matthew Algeo told me about the huge numbers of people packing into arenas to watch the walking matches.

MATTHEW ALGEO: Most of the big races took place at Madison Square Garden, the first Madison Square Garden, in New York. And because the race was continuous, people were coming and going all day, day and night. And so total attendance for the week might be 100,000 or more.

ED: These races were so popular that kids would imitate the walks of their favorite pedestrians. One of the most famous walkers was Edward Payson Weston. He was known for walking with exaggerated swinging hips, wearing flashy outfits, and carrying a gold-tipped cane.

Now, he made a name for himself by walking up and down and around the east coast. But in 1875, he lost a big race out in Chicago, and that’s when Weston decided to take his act overseas. He sailed to London to challenge William Perkins, the champion Pedestrian of Britain, to a 24-hour race.

MATTHEW ALGEO: Now the British really considered themselves the originators of the sport of Pedestrianism. There’d been a Scottish guy named Captain Barclay who famously walked 1,000 miles– one mile every hour for 1,000 consecutive hours– something like 41 days.

ED: Wow.

MATTHEW ALGEO: This was in 1809. It’s many years later, but the Brits still considered themselves the inventors of the game, so to speak. And they were very suspicious of Weston. For one thing, they didn’t believe some of the records that he had claimed to set, walking 100 miles in 24 hours, for instance.

They just thought maybe these were outright fabrications or there could be a problem measuring distance or time, that sort of thing. And also, Weston got on their nerves because he embodied everything that the Brits hated about Americans. He was flashy, he was cocky, he would play the coronet while he walked. And he was kind of like the Muhammad Ali of his era– very divisive figure. And would really play it up to the crowd, ham it up. Again, this was really not considered sportsmanlike by the Brits, and so it further added fuel to the fire of anti-Weston sentiment.

ED: And the British were also suspicious of American stamina and athleticism in general, right?

MATTHEW ALGEO: Yeah there was an article in The Lancet, which is a medical journal, scientific journal– still published today– just before the first Western race in London. And I’m just going to read here, the Journal said, American athletes were “far beyond other nations in their hygienic unwholesomeness, living habitually in their close, stove-heated rooms, bolting their food at railway speed. Year by year, Americans growth thinner, lighter, and shorter-lived.

ED: Wow.

MATTHEW ALGEO: So, I don’t think the thinner part really applies anymore today. But we do probably still eat too quickly. But definitely– The Lancet, I mean that’s a fairly respected medical journal, even in 1876. And they were pretty unequivocal that Americans were inferior in many ways, especially at athletics.

ED: So Weston’s bringing quite a heavy burden, not only of his fancy clothing and gold-tipped cane, but also of suspicion that the United States never really would produce great athletes. So he shows up there, 1876, challenges the English champion pedestrian, and then what happens?

MATTHEW ALGEO: Well, this is a match– it was a 24-hour race. And the long and the short of it is, Weston won. He defeated Perkins. Perkins quit after just 65 miles. Weston went on to walk 109 miles. It was said Perkins’ feet were so blistered and he was so footsore that it was literally impossible for him to keep walking.

And so this really stunned the British. They were flabbergasted, really, not only that Weston had won but that he had won so decisively.

ED: And did this change their mind? After this, did they kind of slap the side of their heads and say, oh, we were mistaken, Americans, in fact, are wonderful natural athletes. Which I think Americans today would believe. That there’s something about our landscape, the vast open spaces, the the shoulder room, that would actually make us more athletic. Was Pedestrianism a turning point in that, do you think?

MATTHEW ALGEO: It was a little bit, actually. Because after Weston had his very successful series of exhibitions in London, one of the newspapers came out and basically apologized and said it’s true that Mr. Weston is no chicken. And it was interesting to see this gradual changing of attitudes. I think Weston had a lot to do with that. He proved Americans could compete on the international stage.

ED: Did people in the states show as much interest in the Weston-Perkins race as the Brits did?

MATTHEW ALGEO: Yes, they did. The first transatlantic cable had been laid– I think it was about 10 years before. And newspapers would print extra editions or have big chalkboards out front that they would do lap-by-lap updates of where the competitors stood in international athletic contests that you could follow in real time on both sides of the Atlantic.

ED: Well, you know, I supposedly am a historian of 19th century America and I must admit, Matthew, this is the first that I’ve ever heard of this. Why is that– how has this fallen out of our consciousness if it was so popular?

MATTHEW ALGEO: A couple of things. One, it was hurt by gambling scandals. There was also a doping scandal. Weston, when he was in London, he was found to be chewing coca leaves during a race. And he just insisted this was on doctor’s orders, it was not meant to give him any advantage, of course.

But there were reports of other racers were using strychnine to stay awake. So it became almost a public health issue. There was a backlash. Ministers began sermonizing against Pedestrianism. They thought it was excessive and abusive to the competitors.

But the real answer to your question is that in the mid 1880s, around 1885, a British guy– John Starley was his name– he invented the first safety bicycle, the bicycle we still use today. And these were fun to race for six days. And almost overnight, six-day bicycle racing replaced Pedestrianism as the most popular endurance sport.

You know, I say Pedestrianism was NASCAR at four miles an hour. Well, with the six-day bicycle race was NASCAR, now it was up to 15, 20 miles an hour, and you could have crashes. It was much more fun to watch, especially the fifth or sixth day when everybody was so out of their mind with sleep deprivation.

ED: Matthew Algeo is the author of Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk was America’s Favorite Spectator Sport. Matthew spoke to us from his home in Mongolia.