Two facts are clear: People were still using bone skates in Sweden in the nineteenth century (see pp. 143–145 of my Skates Made of Bone).Many people immigrated from Sweden to the midwestern United States in the nineteenth century. This combination of facts had led me to wonder whether Swedish immigrants to the Midwest used bone… Continue reading Did Swedish immigrants to the Midwest use bone skates?
The Paulsen brothers
Axel Paulsen made history in 1882, when he performed the jump that bears his name at a competition in Vienna. What's less well known is that his brother was also there. In fact, they skated together. Demeter Diamantidi wrote a nice article previewing the competitors for the Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung. It was published the day before… Continue reading The Paulsen brothers
Kemp’s bicycle skates
On January 1, 1876, the Sporting Gazette ran a notice about a new type of skate invented by one Mr. Kemp. These skates, which he called "bicycle skates," featured a large front wheel and a small rear wheel. They seem to have been intended for skating on roads normally traversed by bicycles. "The Bicycle Skate,"… Continue reading Kemp’s bicycle skates
Women in the European Championships
Frank Gillett, The Graphic, March 7, 1908, 325. Image copyright the British Library Board, courtesy of the British Newspaper Archive. Dorothy Greenhough-Smith's Wikipedia page notes that "[s]he never competed at the European Figure Skating Championship because the ladies event was not added to the program until 1930." That's true as far as it goes—Hines's list… Continue reading Women in the European Championships
Baseball before We Knew It
Baseball before We Knew It by David Block, 2005. I just read David Block's Baseball before We Knew It. As might be inferred from its title, this book is not about skating. It's still great. I found a lot of parallels to my work on skating history in it. It covers some of the same… Continue reading Baseball before We Knew It
The Curtis star
The Curtis star, retraced a few times. The Curtis star was a specialty of Callie Curtis, American champion from 1969 to 1874. Instructions for skating it are given in The Skaters Text-Book (with a diagram that seems backwards to me). In the third edition of A System of Figure Skating, Vandervell and Witham quote the… Continue reading The Curtis star
The myth of skating history
My new article, "The myth of skating history: Building elitism into a sport" has been published in a special issue of Leisure Sciences on myths and mythmaking. It's about the development of figure skating's origin story—that story about medieval Scandinavians traveling and hunting on bone skates that's at the beginning of pretty much every book… Continue reading The myth of skating history
H. E. Vandervell’s hypocycloid challenge
Henry Eugene Vandervell ends The Figure Skate with a challenge: to skate a hypocycloid. The hypocycloid is the most difficult of three curves he describes: the epicycloid, the cycloid, and the hypocycloid. All three are the designs made by a point on the edge of a circle being rolled along a line. For the epicycloid,… Continue reading H. E. Vandervell’s hypocycloid challenge
Junior and senior singles and pairs in 1906
The Figure Skating Club held competitions in single and pair skating at Prince's Skating Club on March 17 and 21, 1906. The Field reported that The inclusion of pair-skating in the club programme proved a great attraction, and a good entry was secured in both the senior and junior sections."The Figure Skating Club," The Field,… Continue reading Junior and senior singles and pairs in 1906
Mrs. Syers in the Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung
Header to the first issue available in ANNO (July 1, 1880). I recently discovered the Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung archive in ANNO: Historische österreichische Zeitungen und Zeitschriften at the Austrian National Library. Spanning 1880–1927 with a few gaps, it is a fantastic resource for skating history! (Provided you read German.) This newspaper was published in Vienna, home… Continue reading Mrs. Syers in the Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung