On A Donkeys Hurricane Deck A Tempestous Voyage Of Four Thousand And Ninety Six Miles Across The American Continent On A Burro In 340 Days And 2 Hou

Author : Lyell D. Jr. Henry
Publisher : University of Iowa Press
ISBN 13 : 1609389808
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (93 download)

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Download or read book Trekking across America written by Lyell D. Jr. Henry and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2024-10-30 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For several decades following the end of the Civil War, the most popular sport in the United States was walking. Professional pedestrians often covered 500 miles or more for up to six grueling days and nights in pursuit of large money prizes. Walking was also a favorite amateur sport; newspapers often noted a “pedestrian mania” or “walking fever” that only began to give way in the mid-1880s to fast-rising crazes for baseball, bicycling, and roller skating. As competitive walking faded, a new kind of spectacle walking, which had also begun in the late 1860s, came to full flower. Between 1890 and 1930, hundreds of men, women, even children and entire families were on the nation’s roads and railroad tracks trekking between widely separated points, sometimes moving in unusual ways such as on roller skates or by walking barefooted, backward, on stilts, or while rolling a hoop. To finance their attention-seeking journeys, many sold souvenir postcards. The public usually found these performers entertaining, but public officials and newspaper editors often denounced them as nuisances or frauds. Tapping vintage postcards and old newspaper articles, this is the first book to bring back to view this once-familiar feature of American life.