Download or read book Pedestrianism written by Matthew Algeo and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Strange as it sounds, during the 1870s and 1880s, America’s most popular spectator sport wasn’t baseball, football, or horseracing—it was competitive walking. Inside sold-out arenas, competitors walked around dirt tracks almost nonstop for six straight days (never on Sunday), risking their health and sanity to see who could walk the farthest—more than 500 miles. These walking matches were as talked about as the weather, the details reported in newspapers and telegraphed to fans from coast to coast. This long-forgotten sport, known as pedestrianism, spawned America’s first celebrity athletes and opened doors for immigrants, African Americans, and women. But along with the excitement came the inevitable scandals, charges of doping and insider gambling, and even a riot in 1879. Pedestrianism chronicles competitive walking’s peculiar appeal and popularity, its rapid demise, and its enduring influence.
Download or read book Pedestrianism written by Matthew Algeo and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Strange as it sounds, during the 1870s and 1880s, America's most popular spectator sport wasn't baseball, football, or horseracing-it was competitive walking. Inside sold-out arenas, competitors walked around dirt tracks almost nonstop for six straight days (never on Sunday), risking their health and sanity to see who could walk the farthest-500 miles, then 520 miles, and 565 miles! These walking matches were as talked about as the weather, the details reported in newspapers and telegraphed to fans from coast to coast. This long-forgotten sport, known as pedestrianism, spawned America's first celebrity athletes. The top pedestrians earned a fortune in prize money and endorsement deals. The sport also opened doors for immigrants, African Americans, and women. But along with the excitement came the inevitable scandals, charges of doping-coca leaves!-and insider gambling. It even spawned a riot in 1879 when too many fans showed up at New York's Gilmore's Gardens, later renamed Madison Square Gardens, and were denied entry to a widely publicized showdown. Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America's Favorite Spectator Sport chronicles competitive walking's peculiar appeal and popularity, its rapid demise, and its enduring influence. In many ways, pedestrianism marked the beginning of modern spectator sports in the United States. Matthew Algeo is the author of Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure, The President Is a Sick Man, and Last Team Standing. An award-winning journalist, Algeo has reported from three continents for public radio's All Things Considered, Marketplace, and Morning Edition.
Download or read book The Lost Art of Walking written by Geoff Nicholson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-11-20 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How we walk, where we walk, why we walk tells the world who and what we are. Whether it's once a day to the car, or for long weekend hikes, or as competition, or as art, walking is a profoundly universal aspect of what makes us humans, social creatures, and engaged with the world. Cultural commentator, Whitbread Prize winner, and author of Sex Collectors Geoff Nicholson offers his fascinating, definitive, and personal ruminations on the literature, science, philosophy, art, and history of walking. Nicholson finds people who walk only at night, or naked, or in the shape of a cross or a circle, or for thousands of miles at a time, in costume, for causes, or for no reason whatsoever. He examines the history and traditions of walking and its role as inspiration to artists, musicians, and writers like Bob Dylan, Charles Dickens, and Buster Keaton. In The Lost Art of Walking, he brings curiosity, imagination, and genuine insight to a subject that often strides, shuffles, struts, or lopes right by us.
Download or read book America on Foot written by Kerry Segrave and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2006-03-15 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hippocrates, one of history's earliest known physicians, once asserted, "Walking is man's best medicine." Over the last three centuries, people have endorsed walking for a variety of reasons--health among them. Before the 1700s, people walked as an essential part of their lifestyle. With the coming of the transportation revolution--and the advent of such conveyances as horse-drawn coaches, railways and automobiles--walking became something that was done increasingly out of choice rather than necessity. England's fashionable society engaged in afternoon promenades as a stylish fad. While America's vast distances and sparse settlements made this activity impractical, Americans nevertheless took to walking in other ways, including engaging in long distance walking competitions complete with spectators and prize money. Thus, for most of the twentieth century, the activity of walking was much more than a means of transportation. Beginning with the history of walking as a social activity, the book discusses the various issues which have affected walkers, including increased automobile traffic, the attention of the marketing industry and pedestrian regulations. The work examines the contemplative, psychological and observational qualities of walking as well as famous personalities--including Leonardo da Vinci, William Shakespeare, John Keats and John James Audubon--who endorsed these intellectual qualifications. During the 1970s fitness boom, walking was reinvented yet again, becoming an activity of numbers and equations as participants fought to maximize health benefits. The book concludes with a legal analysis of pedestrianism as it relates to sharing space with the automobile.
Download or read book The Pedestrian written by Ray Bradbury and published by Samuel French, Inc.. This book was released on 1951 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Romantic Writing and Pedestrian Travel written by R. Jarvis and published by Springer. This book was released on 1997-08-04 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Romantic Writing and Pedestrian Travel is an exploration of the relationship between walking and writing. Robin Jarvis here reconstructs the scene of walking, both in Britain and on the Continent, in the 1790s, and analyses the mentality and motives of the early pedestrian traveller. He then discusses the impact of this cultural revolution on the creativity of major Romantic writers, focusing especially on William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Coleridge, Clare, Keats, Hazlitt and Hunt. In readings which engage current debates around literature and travel, landscape aesthetics, ecocriticism, the poetics of gender, and the materiality of Romantic discourse, Jarvis demonstrates how walking became not only a powerful means of self-enfranchisement but also the focus of restless textual energies.
Download or read book Pedestrian Dynamics written by Pushkin Kachroo and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-10-03 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Homeland security, transportation, and city planning depend upon well-designed evacuation routes. You can’t wait until the day of to realize your plan won’t work. Designing successful evacuation plans requires an in-depth understanding of models and control designs for the problems of traffic flow, construction and road closures, and the intangible human factors. Pedestrian Dynamics: Mathematical Theory and Evacuation Control clearly delineates the derivation of mathematical models for pedestrian dynamics and how to use them to design feedback controls for evacuations. The book includes: Mathematical models derived from basic principles Mathematical analysis of the model Details of past work MATLAB® code 65 figures and 400 equations Unlike most works on traffic flow, this book examines the development of optimal methods to effectively control and improve pedestrian traffic flow. The work of a leading expert, it examines the differential equations applied to conservation laws encountered in the study of pedestrian dynamics and evacuation control problem. The author presents new pedestrian traffic models for multi-directional flow in two dimensions. He considers a range of control models in various simulations, including relaxed models and those concerned with direction and magnitude velocity commands. He also addresses questions of time, cost, and scalability. The book clearly demonstrates what the future challenges are and provides the tools to meet them.
Download or read book Pedestrianism written by Walter Thom and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2023-11-02 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Pedestrianism" by Walter Thom. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
Download or read book Rights of Passage written by Nicholas Blomley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-10-18 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although a powerful form of governance, pedestrianism tends to be obscured by grander and more visible forms of urban regulation.
Download or read book King of the Peds written by P. S. Marshall and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did you know that in the late 1800's athletes walked up to 100 miles per day for 6 days?! Famous sporting personalities have been around for a long time. However, few will be aware that during the 1870's and 1880's, professional pedestrians or "peds" as they were fondly referred to, competed against each other in gruelling races for up to six days - and nights - on indoor sawdust tracks, getting just a few hours rest per day in makeshift huts beside the track, literally "eating on the trot" and undergoing tremendous hardships, all in the name of sport This book provides a fascinating insight into this hugely popular 19th century sport where massive amounts of prize money, a share of the gate receipts, and dazzling ornamental gold belts, were offered to successful athletes by ruthless promoters who made lucrative livings from the thousands of people who flocked to see them perform. You will journey into a world where men competed in appalling conditions, but exhibited unbelievable courage. This is a world which attracted the likes of to take each other on in front of thousands of screaming fans. This is a world which could provide incredible riches, but at a terrible price for those willing to push themselves to the limits of physical endurance. This is a world influenced by money and suffering; a world which had to end because its limits had been reached. After considering all the evidence, I invite you the reader to decide who deserves to be crowned King of the Peds
Download or read book Right of Way written by Angie Schmitt and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2020-08-27 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The face of the pedestrian safety crisis looks a lot like Ignacio Duarte-Rodriguez. The 77-year old grandfather was struck in a hit-and-run crash while trying to cross a high-speed, six-lane road without crosswalks near his son’s home in Phoenix, Arizona. He was one of the more than 6,000 people killed while walking in America in 2018. In the last ten years, there has been a 50 percent increase in pedestrian deaths. The tragedy of traffic violence has barely registered with the media and wider culture. Disproportionately the victims are like Duarte-Rodriguez—immigrants, the poor, and people of color. They have largely been blamed and forgotten. In Right of Way, journalist Angie Schmitt shows us that deaths like Duarte-Rodriguez’s are not unavoidable “accidents.” They don’t happen because of jaywalking or distracted walking. They are predictable, occurring in stark geographic patterns that tell a story about systemic inequality. These deaths are the forgotten faces of an increasingly urgent public-health crisis that we have the tools, but not the will, to solve. Schmitt examines the possible causes of the increase in pedestrian deaths as well as programs and movements that are beginning to respond to the epidemic. Her investigation unveils why pedestrians are dying—and she demands action. Right of Way is a call to reframe the problem, acknowledge the role of racism and classism in the public response to these deaths, and energize advocacy around road safety. Ultimately, Schmitt argues that we need improvements in infrastructure and changes to policy to save lives. Right of Way unveils a crisis that is rooted in both inequality and the undeterred reign of the automobile in our cities. It challenges us to imagine and demand safer and more equitable cities, where no one is expendable.
Download or read book Proceedings Fourth Annual Pedestrian Conference written by and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pedestrian safety and design issues were the subjects jointly discussed at the Fourth Annual Pedestrian Conference held in Boulder, Colorado, September 20-23, 1983. The conference was divided into two 2-day meetings. The conference had two basic objectives: to disseminate tested engineering, education, and enforcement techniques to reduce the incidence of pedestrian accidents, and to present a variety of approaches utilized in the United States, Canada and Europe to create visually attractive, functional, and highly used urban pedestrian spaces. These proceedings present the findings, workshop presentations, case studies, design techniques and overall summaries of the meetings.
Download or read book The Pedestriennes America s Forgotten Superstars written by Harry Hall and published by Dog Ear Publishing. This book was released on 2014-06-26 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Pedestriennes: America's Forgotten Superstars" tells the little-known story of a handful of late 19th century female athletes who dazzled America with their remarkable performances in endurance walking. Frequently performing in front of large raucous crowds, pedestriennes walked on makeshift tracks set-up in reconfi gured theatres and opera houses. Top pedestrennes often earned more money in one week than the average American took home in a year. Newspapers reported on their achievements and interviewed the champions. Their walking outfi ts became fashion plates, their pictures were sold in stores and they made personal appearances as national celebrities. The pedestriennes' exploits reshaped the country's attitudes about what women could accomplish and established the foundation for modern sports, the revival of the Olympic Games and the suffragist movement. About the Author In his 20 year writing career, Harry Hall's work has appeared in several publications, including Runner-Triathlete News, Mayborn magazine and The Dallas Morning News. Along the way, Harry interviewed celebrities such as Robin Roberts, Earl Campbell, Jim Courier, and Chuck Norris. He's covered a variety of amateur and professional sporting events, including the Byron Nelson Golf Tournament, US Olympic Track and Field Trials, and the Boston Marathon. A long-time public speaking instructor, he wrote a book on overcoming the fear of public speaking, "Help! Everyone is Staring at Me." A one-time syndicated columnist and radio talk show host, Harry was named the Texas Dietetic Association's Media Personality of the Year, and is a member of the Mayborn Author's Guild.
Download or read book The End of Amateurism in American Track and Field written by Joseph M. Turrini and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combining social and institutional history and incorporating the recollections of the athletes and meet directors on the front lines, The End of Amateurism in Track and Field shows how the athletes thoroughly transformed their sport to end the amateur system in the early 1990s---changes that allowed the athletes to market their potential, drastically increase their earning possibilities, and improve their quality of life. --
Download or read book The Last Great Walk written by Wayne Curtis and published by Rodale Books. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1909, Edward Payson Weston walked from New York to San Francisco, covering around 40 miles a day and greeted by wildly cheering audiences in every city. The New York Times called it the "first bona-fide walk ... across the American continent," and eagerly chronicled a journey in which Weston was beset by fatigue, mosquitos, vicious headwinds, and brutal heat. He was 70 years old. In The Last Great Walk, journalist Wayne Curtis uses the framework of Weston's fascinating and surprising story, and investigates exactly what we lost when we turned away from foot travel, and what we could potentially regain with America's new embrace of pedestrianism. From how our brains and legs evolved to accommodate our ancient traveling needs to the way that American cities have been designed to cater to cars and discourage pedestrians, Curtis guides readers through an engaging, intelligent exploration of how something as simple as the way we get from one place to another continues to shape our health, our environment, and even our national identity. Not walking, he argues, may be one of the most radical things humans have ever done.
Download or read book Streets in Motion written by Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-31 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book studies the social production of motion in a capitalist urban context. In the city of capital, motion refers to a fetish. The bourgeois order posits motion as a metaphor for energy, positivity, and progress – a norm – and obstruction (motion's dialectical opposite) as delinquency. The book uncovers the social tectonics of spatial mobilization and thus demystifies motion. Who and what set spaces on the move? How did various classes of city dwellers activate, experience, and negotiate it? Streets in Motion develops an approach to urban history by theorizing and historicizing the 'street' as an apparatus of city-making and subject formation. It works at two registers – a local history of Calcutta in colonial and post-colonial periods, and a theorizing of the logistical and political-cultural centrality of the street within this rubric. It is argued that the street is politics in as much as politics is the production of space.
Download or read book The emergence of footballing cultures written by Gary James and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of Manchester football, by leading football historian Gary James, considers the sport’s emergence, development and establishment through to its position as the city’s leading team sport. The period from 1840 to 1919 saw football in Manchester develop from an inconsequential, occasionally outlawed activity, into a major business with a variety of popular football clubs and supporting industry. This book makes a distinct and original contribution to the historiography of sport. It is the first academic study into the development of association football in Manchester, and is directly linked to the current state of knowledge and debates within sports history on football’s origins. It adds regional focus to inform the wider debate, contextualising the growth of the sport in the city and identifies communities who propagated and developed football. Robust research should ensure that this becomes the benchmark study of regional football.
