Walkabout: The Amazing Professor Mac Levy, Part 1

Read Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6 of this story.

We have been trying to improve the human body since we became aware of its strength and beauty. Mankind has been exercising for a very long time. We may have started with “run for your life” being a literal cry to escape predators, but in the centuries that followed our trip from the cave to the city, that mantra is still popular, although perhaps “run for life” is more accurate.

The ancient Greeks and other civilizations glorified the perfect physical body, after all, they established the Olympics, and left an artistic record of their pursuit of the body beautiful, an ideal many still strive to reach. The Romans incorporated that ideal into their civilization, as they did so many of the ideals of their conquered foes.

The Dark Ages in Europe obliterated that Greco-Roman philosophy. Between plagues and religious zealotry regarding the sinfulness of the human body, physical perfection took a rest of a few centuries.

But the Renaissance restored the glorification of the body human, and as nations rose and fell, so too did the idea of fitness. Of course, the lower classes utilized physical strength much more than the upper classes, so those above were getting weak, compared to those below.

That did not go without notice, and over the course of the next few hundred years, various programs of physical fitness were delineated and put into practice in different countries and communities.

By the mid-19th century, the Germans were leading the physical fitness bandwagon. Most of that had to do with nationalism. Germany was a collection of city-states that were always fighting with each other, or with another part of Eu

rope, and it was seen as a matter of national pride to have a population of citizen soldiers who were up to the task of fighting and winning.

Several different German physical fitness proponents came up with a series of calisthenics and exercise routines that would work certain muscles and built strong and agile soldiers. The most famous of these men was Friedrich Jahn, today called the “Father of gymnastics.”

As far back as the 1820s, Jahn invented many of the pieces of gymnastic equipment we are still familiar with today, including the parallel and uneven bars, the horse, and the balance beam.

He came up with an elaborate regimen of strength training through gymnastics, naming his program and fitness philosophy turn verein, (pronounced tooorn fe-rahn) from the German verb “turen” meaning to perform gymnastic exercises, and “verein”, the word for club or organization.

He devised exercise routines that used his equipment, climbing ropes and floor exercises combined with mental exercises to increase clarity and perception. His philosophy of fitness would build the ideal German; strong, athletic, physically fit and mentally and morally strong.

Unfortunately, his rather jingoistic nationalist fervor got him into trouble, and he was jailed for many years. By the time he got out, his movement had been adopted by others, leaving him pretty irrelevant.

The Germans weren’t the only ones to come up with physical education regimens. The Swedish, French, Czechs, Poles and Spanish had programs, all emphasizing areas that the others did not, or coming at physical fitness from different perspectives.

The British cherry picked from these, and came up with their own programs which they introduced to their military, especially the elite upper class officers, as well as in many of the private boys’ schools.

Here in America, we owe much of our physical education philosophies mostly to the Germans. When thousands of them came to the United States in the 1850s, they bought their Turn Verein clubs with them, and soon established gymnastics and physical fitness clubs wherever there were German communities, and they spread, especially in the Midwest, but also here in New York.

Eventually German-style physical education was introduced into the schools, evolving into the programs we are familiar with today.

Most of the 19th century fitness programs were geared towards men and boys, but there were several that had special programs for girls and women.

Today, the pictures of well-to-do ladies in voluminous exercise clothing tossing medicine balls back and forth seems silly, but compared to the lack of physical movement without that, these women were getting more exercise than previous generations had had. They were also making it socially acceptable for women to be included in physical activities.

Religion even played a part here. 19th century Protestant man was out there conquering foreign lands for Christ. Churches were sending missionaries all over the world, especially to places like Africa, Asia, and the islands of the Pacific.

There were places where a missionary had to be physically strong, in order to establish missions in the jungle, deal with the natives, and to be physically fit to ward off exotic diseases.

“Muscular Christianity” was a real philosophy at the turn of the 20th century. The modern Christian man was physically fit, his body was a temple, and his mind was clear and filled with a zeal for the Lord.

Many ministers encouraged their flocks to get out there and exercise, and they led by example. Walking, bicycling, swimming, hiking, boxing; it didn’t matter. Just get out there and do something for yourself and the Lord.

The frenzy for physical culture, as it was called, was met by those who had devised their own philosophies and programs to best deliver this fitness.

As a group, these late 19th, early 20th century “physical culturists” were a grand and extravagant collection of showmen, athletes, gym managers, vaudeville artists, hucksters and celebrities, all rolled into one. They all had their methods, which were of course, the ONLY methods, and they all had their cults of followers.

Most of them also had an origin story that propelled them into the physical specimens they were today. This was their hook; the now-classic story of the weakling who got tired of getting kicked around and became a strongman who was respected and admired by both men and women.

Charles Atlas, (born Angelo Siciliano, in Brooklyn) is the most famous, but he was not the first, or the only one to capitalize on his physical transformation. Among them was another son of immigrants who did the same, and in his day, was one of the most famous and popular men in the New York area. His name was Professor Mac Levy.

He was born Max Levy in 1873, in Brooklyn, of course. His parents were Louis and Mary Schlang Levy. He was one of seven children. His father was born in Russia, and his mother was from Austria. The Levy family was pretty well off; Louis was in real estate, as was his father-in-law, and the family had two servants, according to census records.

Son Max was interested in physical culture at a very young age. He would later tell his clients and followers that he had been a small sickly lad of 15, always consumptive, when he got tired of being sick, and decided to become well and strong.

He began a series of exercises and strength training which resulted not only in better health, but physical strength. He became, as the papers said, “a young Hercules,” with impressive arm muscles and a strong chest and legs.

He was not a large man, but his body was perfectly proportioned, and he was as strong as an ox. By the time he was 19, he had perfected his regimen, and had taken it out on the road. He called himself “Professor Mac Levy,” and physical culture was his subject of expertise.

By the mid-1890s, Professor Mac Levy was getting established in Brooklyn. He had opened his first gymnasium on Union Street with money from his family, but needed to get customers. He realized that simply announcing his programs was not going to get the kind of attention or customers he needed, he needed to add a bit of showmanship to his self-promotion.

He began making the rounds of the upscale social clubs and events as a speaker. At one event, in August of 1896, he addressed a gathering of the Royal Arcanum, a popular fraternal order.

He took the podium and gave a short lecture on physical training for young men. By the end of the lecture, he had taken off his coat and shirt and showed the crowd what he could deliver.

The Brooklyn Eagle said the audience was his. He told them about being a weak consumptive, and then revealed what he was today. His bare chest and arms ripped with strength and his back and shoulders were those of a Greek god.

He performed a few exercises with rings, iron bars and dumb bells. He lifted a 140 pound barbell over his head with great ease and dexterity.

He then ended his lecture by taking the barbell, balanced a table across it, and had two members of the Arcanum sit on it, one on either end. He lifted them all, to the amazement and applause of the audience. They were signing up in droves.

Soon afterwards, he put an ad in the Brooklyn Eagle. It read, “Wanted, to assist at my training quarters – a young, strong, gentlemanly colored man.

Opportunity to learn business and become powerfully developed. Must furnish excellent references. Salary small to start. Address, letter, only. Professor Mac Levy, 281 Union Street, Brooklyn.” The Union Street address no longer exists. It would have been between Court and Clinton Streets.

Professor Mac Levy (his name almost always appeared this way, rarely Mac, or Levy, never Max) took to the vaudeville stage to drum up business. He appeared in shows all over Brooklyn as a strong man, performing acts of great strength similar to picking up the men and the table.

He also advertised as a personal private trainer. By 1897, at the age of 24, he was operating a summer gymnasium in Bath Beach, which was then still an upscale summer resort. He also had a winter gym at the Hotel St. George, the first gymnasium at that famous Brooklyn Heights hotel.

Professor Mac Levy was still performing in vaudeville shows, and trained boxers privately. It was a busy life. But nothing would propel him into the spotlight like what happened to him on the evening of January 2, 1898, when the most wonderful thing that could happen to a physical culturist and strongman could possibly happen. He got mugged.

(Illustration: 19th century strong man training. Heliograph.com)

Next time: Professor Mac Levy’s amazing story continues.