In the 2018-19 school year, I enrolled in a full year honours seminar, HIST 598: American Empire, taught by Professor Shanon Fitzpatrick. I had the opportunity to write a 35-page thesis, and had never worked on such long term project before. As an editor for the McGill Tribune and an English Literature and History major, most of my work either took the shape of 5-page academic essays or 600 word articles. When Professor Fitzpatrick told me she had funding through ARIA to contribute to a manuscript she had been working on, I saw an opportunity not only to work with a Professor who I greatly admired, but also to contribute to a long form and ongoing project and continue exploring American empire in depth.
Professor Fitzpatrick’s manuscript, which is based on her Ph.D. dissertation, follows the life of Bernarr Macfadden, an eccentric bodybuilding champion turned publishing mogul who was born in Missouri at the turn of the nineteenth century. Macfadden’s life and career provides a fascinating lens for exploring the growth of American Empire in this period. His obsession with physical fitness, particularly with strong, white male bodies, reflects the image of American masculinity and domination that the United States sought to export abroad. For my ARIA project, I studied how Macfadden’s bodybuilding magazines, against his will, found resonance in queer communities, as gay men admired the physically fit, scantily clad athletes featured in his publications. I also looked at how magazines like Physical Culture circulated internationally.
This process was reciprocal, with Physical Culture influencing communities abroad, and foreign readers also writing in their own experiences, inspiring Macfadden as he travelled around the world. Macfadden would also go on to produce magazines not exclusive to bodybuilding, such as True Story, a confessional publication that solicited readers’ personal experiences for print. In recounting stories of underdogs, outcasts, and young girls struggling to make it in a modern world, and with the help of a design strategy utilizing bright colours and engaging fonts, True Story built a unique readership combined of the working class, immigrants, and women. These readers not only saw themselves reflected in the magazine, but were themselves able to contribute, with the possibility of compensation. Advertisers in True Story targeted marginalized communities’ class and social anxieties, offering products that promised to make them whiter and richer. I studied how True Story created a new market of national consumers, which would shape the future of American advertising. Macfadden’s career is a fascinating microcosm for the broader themes of masculinity, industrialism, internationalism, and consumerism at play as the United States sought to expand its empire at the turn of the 19th century.
Through my ARIA project, I gained invaluable research skills. I was introduced to new software, including Zotero, and met with librarians to explore digital archives I had never known existed throughout my undergrad. I had the opportunity to examine dozens of hard copy editions of True Story Magazines from the 20s through the 40s. I visited the Jewish Public Library’s extensive reference section, an invaluable resource I had lived beside throughout my four years in Montreal, but had never thought to explore. I also sharpened my editing skills by reviewing drafts for Professor Fitzpatrick’s manuscript. Most importantly, I learnt how to independently schedule and execute a wide scale research project. Whereas my classes at McGill were punctuated with an onslaught of deadlines, forcing me to schedule my time accordingly, with ARIA I was left to my own devices. This prospect was daunting, but I ultimately developed the organizational skills and discipline necessary to work independently. While the resources and databases I encountered were fascinated, I believe these intangible skills of time management and independence will be most valuable in whatever career I choose to pursue.
