Strength & Health

Strength & Health was a bodybuilding/fitness/Olympic weightlifting magazine, one of the earliest magazines devoted to fitness and bodybuilding. Until the late 1960s, it was the most popular weightlifting magazine in the United States.[1] It was published between 1932[2] and 1986 in 54 Volumes, a volume a year in 6 parts, published every 2–3 months.[3]

Strength & Health
May 1937 issue
FounderBob Hoffman
Founded1932
Final issue
Number		1986 (1986)
54
CompanyYork Barbell Company
CountryUSA
Based inYork, Pennsylvania
OCLC2251991

The magazine was published by York Barbell Company, which was established by Bob Hoffman.[4]

In the 1940s, several early gay physique photographers, including Bob Mizer, contributed photos to the magazine and advertised homoerotic (sometimes nude) photographs in its back pages. This eventually gave rise to physique magazines designed for gay audiences, starting with Mizer's Physique Pictorial in 1951. In an article titled "Let Me Tell You a Fairy Tale", the editors of Strength & Health decried the emergence of "homosexual magazines", warning of their corrupting influence on youth.[5]

Its first editor was Lithuanian-born weightlifter Walter Zagurski.[6] Managing editors during the magazine's history included: George F. Jowett, Gord Venables, Jim Murray, Ray Van Cleef, Harry Paschall, Bob Hasse, John Grimek, Terry Todd, Tommy Suggs, and Jan Dellinger.[1]

References
  1. Todd, Jan; Roark, Joe; Todd, Terry (1991). "A Briefly Annotated Bibliography of English Language Serial Publications in the Field of Physical Culture" (PDF). Iron Game History.
  2. Dominic Gray Morais (May 2023). Strength in numbers: "Strength & Health" brand community from 1932-1964 (PDF) (PhD). University of Texas. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
  3. "Strength & Health". Muscle Memory. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  4. Kimberly Beckwith; Jan Todd (August 2005). "Strength. America's First Muscle Magazine: 1914-1935" (PDF). Iron Game History. 9 (1). Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  5. Johnson, David K. (2019). Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-18911-8.
  6. "Wally Zagurski". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on April 18, 2020. Retrieved March 3, 2019.
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