Word: bernarr
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Mary Williamson was only a Yorkshire millhand until Bernarr ("Body Love") Macfadden, the "Father of Physical Culture," put a tape around her torso (bust 38½, hips 39). After that, life speeded up for Mary. First, in a nationwide contest, Macfadden crowned her "Great Britain's Perfect Woman"; then he gave her the star turn in his physicultural demonstrations-that of springing nightly off a high table and landing "with both feet together on his breadbasket."* Between springs he poured into her astonished ear the truth about the breadbasket-how the Macfadden stomach revolted against breakfasts, steaks and alcohol...
...Second Reformation. By then, Mary and Bernarr were beginning to drift apart. It was all very well for him to dream, as he slept on the floor encased in "The Macfadden Body-Free Blanket Rib," of becoming the "first Physical Culture President of the United States," but Mary blanched at the thought of becoming known as the "Constantly Pregnant First Lady." She had borne him four daughters under the "no-doctors" rules of Macfadden birthmanship, and now he felt that four sons (conceived by following the Macfadden rules of sex determination) would nicely round off "The Perfect Family." Mary obliged...
Fasting for Impurity. Bernarr and Mary traveled a good deal. It was on a trip to France that Bernarr composed the mam 'hymn" of his "religion of happiness," which he taught his disciples to bellow to the tune of Jingle Bells...
...only after they settled down in the U.S., Bernarr's homeland, that Mary awakened to the full range of his genius as health philosopher, promoter and publisher. At his editorial peak, Macfadden published such sure sellers as Liberty, True Story and Physical Culture, plus some 20 other magazines, with a combined circulation of 16 million a month. His employees included the fabulous John Russell coryell, creator of Nick Carter and author of romantic novels signed "Bertha M. Clay" and articles on "the benefits of fasting" under the name "H. Mitchell Whatchet." Another great Macfadden ally was Mother Teats...
...Identify the birds . . ."). Others included an apparatus for sluicing "pure Macfadden air" over the skins of fully dressed businessmen while they sat working at their desks, and a narrow-gauge railroad with open flatcars for the use of customers in department stores. ("It will revolutionize Macy's," said Bernarr. "Then Gimbels.") Most staggering of all, though never completed or put to use, was the mammoth freezer into which the unemployed were to be put in times of depression "and defrosted when employment becomes plentiful again...