Title: Pedestrianism
Rating: 3 Stars
Once upon a time in America, there really wasn’t much need for mass organized sport. Most people lived on farms. Roads weren’t very good. People didn’t have much disposable money. Leisure time was a dream for most.
Sometime around the 1860s or so, some things started to change. People had just a bit more free time and a bit more money to spend. There was a hunger for leisure activities. People wanted to get together and share in some celebratory sporting event.
Into this void stepped…competitive walking?
Indeed for a ten to twenty year period, thousands of spectators would gather at large buildings to watch a small number of men walk around an oval track. For days on end. And this was entertainment. Arguably, this sport (known as pedestrianism) could be said to have ushered in the large scale sports that we enjoy today.
It all started in 1860. Two friends wagered on the Presidential election. One man, named Edward Payson Weston, was so convinced that Lincoln would lose the election that he bet that, if Lincoln won, Weston would walk from the State House in Boston to the Capitol in Washington. This was a distance of 478 miles. He’d do it over ten days and would arrive just in time to witness the inauguration ceremony.
He lost the bet, but history was made. He did the walk. He missed the inauguration by five hours. However, a natural promoter, he cashed in while walking. Even on this, the first walk, he had sponsors. Several companies gave him circulars to hand out as he walked. He arranged to have his itinerary published in newspapers on the way. This word of mouth ensured that he would have ample crowds as he walked. His exploits were reported far and wide. Weston knew that he was on to something.
The Civil War intervened and put a hold to Weston’s plans. Once it was over, he picked up again. In 1866, with the backing of a gambler, Weston bet another gambler $10,000 that he could walk from Portland, Maine, to Chicago in 30 consecutive days. This was a distance of 1,200 miles. This truly captivated the nation. In cities, a police phalanx had to be built around Wesley just so that he could walk without interruption. He won the bet with a day to spare.
This sparked an entire craze for distance walking. Some of the achievements can scarcely be imagined. A Scottish aristocrat named Captain Barclay made a wager. He bet that he could walk 1 mile an hour for 1,000 consecutive hours. Notice that this isn’t 1,000 miles over that period. It means that for every hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, that Barclay would walk one mile. That’s a period of time over 41 days. He came upon a plan where he’d walk one mile at the bottom of every hour and the next mile at its top. This gave him a period of somewhere around 90 minutes that he could try to sleep at a time before doing the next set.
As can be imagined, sleep deprivation is brutal when doing this. Once, having fallen asleep at the starting line, his servant had to beat with a switch to wake him up (probably a good day for the servant, I’d say). Be that as it may, he won the bet.
Not to be beaten, another person walked 1/4 mile at 15 minute intervals for 4,000 hours. How you can do that and not die seems mysterious to me.
Ultimately, such amateur sporting begat something much more professional. With Weston again at the forefront, the standard professional race became a six day race (since after all, the seventh day is a day of rest). A group of men would walk / run / crawl as many times around a track as they could in six days. Each man would put in a stake. There would be bonuses if certain goals were hit (eg 500 miles). It’d be open to spectators. Not only would the winner get the stakes and the bonuses, but would also get a portion of the gate receipts.
Thus birthed the modern sporting era. So many things that we see today were first in evidence even back then. I’ve already talked about sponsors. There are others.
There were the showman athletes and the deadly serious ones. Weston was a showman. He’d walk around in fine clothes and carrying a walking stick. He’d talk to the crowd. He was a musician and would play a cornet as he walked around.
His arch nemesis, Dan O’Leary, was the serious one. Looking only straight ahead, he’d grimly step onward with pumping arms. It probably goes without saying that the two men hated each other and would regularly trash talk each other publicly (140 years before Twitter!).
Nationalism raised its ugly head. There was much talk about the relative superiority between American and English pedestrians. When walking in England, American pedestrians would be harassed and vice versa. Dan O’Leary, an Irish immigrant to America, was claimed by both the US and Ireland.
Well before baseball, trading cards were created for the most popular walkers.
There were accusations of doping. In particular, Weston was accused of chewing coca leaves during his contests in England.
At one event center, an overcrowded balcony fell and gave way, injuring many, prefiguring some of the stadium disasters that have happened since from overzealous fans.
Much like soccer hooliganism, these events were the scenes of riots. Usually, it was fans frustrated that they couldn’t get in and would rush the doors. Police, already there in force, would beat them back with truncheons.
These events had concessions. Granted, they’re not exactly like what we have now. Instead of hot dogs and popcorn, the fare was more likely to be pickled sheep’s tongue, oysters, eggs, and clam chowder.
There were people that broke through the white man barrier. One of the most popular and successful walkers was Frank Hart, a black grocer from Boston. He won several races until his body broke down. Ada Anderson proved that women could also walk great distances (for some reason, instead of pedestrian, she was known as a pedestrienne). In an exhibition, she successfully walked 1/4 mile every 15 minutes for 1,000 consecutive quarter hours.
Finally, as with other sports, the morality police stepped in. Various religious leaders were angry that many of these competitions did not respect the Sabbath. Others were horrified at the spectacle of watching half-dead, delirious, wretched people shuffle around the track at the end of the fifth or sixth day.
This bad publicity certainly did not help the sport. Even worse was when the bike craze hit. When cycling became popular, six day races, except now on bikes, became all the rage. Considering the increased opportunities for mayhem that could result from having a group of cyclists go around on a small oval for six days, pedestrianism became, well, pedestrian.
Other sports like baseball also rose in popularity. Boxing, having adopted the Marquis of Queensbury rules that included such innovations as padded gloves and a standing eight count, moved out of the shadows and into mainstream.
Even so, all of these sports owe a debt to Edward Payson Weston and the sport of pedestrianism.
dorkenstein 