If you haven’t read part one of this history please do so here, as I’ll be referencing quite a bit from the earlier piece.
Now… where were we? Last time I discussed the history of Olympic weightlifting in the United States, I mentioned the early strongwomen, Minerva‘s weightlifting belt (awarded in the 1890s by Richard K. Fox), and I had discussed Pudgy Stockton’s first AAU-sanctioned weightlifting meet of the 1940s.
In this post, I’m going to take us from Pudgy’s competitions to 1981, when the first women’s nationals were held in the United States. Taking us there, we’re going to look at how/why Pudgy Stockton was a key figure in this story, the early efforts to get women on the platform and, most importantly, the build-up to the 1981 championship.
The Stockton Factor
Pudgy Stockton is, in my view, the single most important figure in the history of women’s weightlifting. That is a big claim to make but, Stockton provided inspiration, organization and dialogue for budding women weightlifters. Born in California in 1917, Stockton was, for many people during the 1930s and 1940s, the sole strongwoman of note. That is not to say that others did not exist, but rather that it was Stockton who seemed to gain the most attention in muscle magazines from the era.
What then, made Stockton so special? Without a doubt, her strength and physique. Part of the early muscle beach era, Stockton initially made her fame as a hand balancer on the beach where she, and her husband Les, were photographed doing incredible feats of callisthenic strength. According to the Strongman Project (which remains my favorite resource for factual Iron game materials)
At five feet, one inch tall and weighing 115 pounds, Pudgy possessed the strength to hold her 180-pound husband, in a high hand-to-handstand. Another impressive feat was the crowd-pleasing high press, with Pudgy hoisting a 100-pound dumbbell overhead, as she balanced atop Les’s upstretched hands
The First Contests
Critically, for us, Stockton was also an adept weightlifter. At the 1947 competition that Stockton organized (more on that later), Stockton was credited with 100 lbs. military press, a 105 lbs. snatch, and a 135 lbs. clean & jerk. This came at a time when Olympic weightlifting was split between the military press, the clean and the snatch.
Outside of lifting, Stockton penned a women’s weightlifting column in Bob Hoffman’s Strength & Health magazine. While she was not the first woman to do so, a point John Fair noted in his wonderful Hoffman biography MuscleTown USA, she was arguably more credible to others because of her strength prowess. Without getting into it too much, Fair noted that Hoffman’s wife, Rosetta Snell, penned the first column for women but that this was largely a ghostwritten by Hoffman himself.
Turning back to Stockton, she managed a women’s strength and physique column entitled ‘Barbelles’ in Strength and Health for several years during the 1940s and, in fact, the column provided additional support for her 1947 AAU-sanctioned weightlifting competition. In Barbelles women were given encouragement and training information, as well as a place to submit images of themselves or, to celebrate their strength gains.
While it would be incorrect to say that Stockton’s column completely revolutionized women’s weightlifting and gained the praise of all lifters, it was symbolically, and practically important for women. The practicalities are obvious – women had a space for information and inspiration. The symbolic importance is worth pausing on, however.
At the time of publication Strength and Health was undoubtedly America’s most important training magazine. While the Weider Brothers‘ budding bodybuilding empire was growing at this time, I would argue that they only overtook Hoffman in the 1960s. In any case, Strength and Health was clearly an important publication. Stockton’s columns were supported, and eventually, succeeded by Vera Christensen’s ‘To the Ladies‘ columns which ran from 1956 to 1986.
A reasonable question to ask, therefore, is what happened after Stockton’s competition? Jan Todd’s short but informative chapter on weightlifting noted a second contest, a Southern California Open Women’s Lifting Championship and, in 1950, the AAU sponsored its own National Weightlifting Championship. Todd also reported the best performance that day.
Shirley Tanny had the highest total of all contestants, with lifts of 47.2 kilograms (105 pounds) in the press, 52.6 kilograms (117 pounds) in the snatch, and 68.4 kilograms (152 pounds) in the clean and jerk
From Stockton and Christensen’s articles in Strength and Health, we know that women continued to lift weights after this period but, frustratingly, very little appears to have been done to progress the sport of Olympic Weightlifting. The next regional, or notable, competition, did not come until the mid-1970s.
The 1970s
Kim Beckwith, in a recent article on the pioneering women’s weightlifter Judy Glenny, highlighted the strained relationship women had with the weightroom in the 1960s and 1970s. Women were rarely, if ever, encouraged to lift and were often banned outright from entering the weightroom. While soom exceptions existed, American society was not welcoming of women’s weightlifting.
Judy Glenney in Training source.
Without getting bogged down too much (which is what my eventual book on the topic will be bogged down on), the passing of Title IX legislation in educational settings allowed women more freedom when it came to school sports and, critically, school-based training. Beckwith explained it as follows
Also helpful to the cause of women’s weightlifting was the passage of Title IX in 1972. Educational institutions that received federal money of any sort had to provide equal sporting opportunities for men and women. Even though the AAU’s Weightlifting Committee did not fall under this educational umbrella, it brought attention to women’s non-participation in various sports due to the lack of opportunities and, it looked wrong
The spirit of Title IX centered on preventing discrimination based on gender. It was, and is, a vital piece of legislation. Its creation was fuelled by the second-wave feminist movement, which originated in the 1960s (actually this is a gross simplification as waves imply that feminism didn’t exist outside of these waves, or that it wasn’t present. Again – the book deals with this but feminist historian Nancy Hewitt uses the analogies of radio frequencies over waves which I enjoy).
In a sporting context, the spirit of the times in the United States proved more open for women or, at the very least, more open for women to challenge previously male-dominated sports. In a weightlifting context, it is thus possible to find women competing in weightlifting competitions during the early 1970s. Judy Glenny, who is one of the most influential figures in legitimizing women’s weightlifting, first competed in 1971 or 1972.
What did this look like? From my research, women often competed in one of three ways. They were either put in the same division as younger or lightweight lifters. This was a prevalent method later in the 1970s. Another option was that they could compete as a sort of exhibition lifter – in between or after the men’s competition. The final, and rarer, option, was that they could compete in a women’s championship. These paths largely held true until the 1980s when a national competition was held.
Part of the problem here was that, officially, the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), did not recognize female athletes. The IWF was the sport’s governing body and, until 1983, the IWF’s rulebook spoke only of male lifters. No ambiguity whatsoever – it was not athletes, competitors, or weightlifters, but male weightlifters.
Bill Clark and the Turning Point
Women’s weightlifting in the early 1970s was at a weird point. Women were clearly competing but governing bodies did not recognise them. A turning point came in 1976 when Bill Clark, the AAU weightlifting representative in Missouri, decided to host a competition. He did this for the next five years and, critically, Clark also kept records.
Around this time Mabel Rader, the wife of Iron Man magazine editor, Peary Rader, developed an interest in women’s weightlifting. Together Rader, and US weightlifter Judy Glenny, began pushing for greater recognition of women’s weightlifting. This included petitioning the US Weightlifting Federation to host a national competition and to recognize the status of women weightlifters.
They found an ally in then President of the US Weightlifting Federation, Murray Levin. In 1980 Levin put forward an item to the Federation concerning the recognition of female athletes and, more importantly, a plan to host an official national championship. So contentious was his petition that it split the Federation down the middle – with one half in favor of supporting women’s weightlifting and the other against.
Yes this is a still image from 1950s classic 12 Angry Men. And yes, I do think there were likely overlaps with this debate!
The vote actually came to a tie-breaker, which Levin broke in favor of women’s weightlifting. Soon after Rader, Glenny, and Levin began to set in motion plans for an official, and national, weightlifting championship for 1981. This came two years before the International Weightlifting Federation officially recognized female weightlifters!
In Waterloo, Iowa, 29 women competed at the first USWF-sanctioned National Championship. Writing retrospectively weightlifting coach Bob Tekano reflected on the competition and its organizer Joel Widdell as follows
Joel Widdell was a nationally ranked competitor in the 56 kg class who regularly finished on the medal stand. I guess Joel became aware of the few women around the country who were entering lifting meets and took the bold step forward of holding the first women’s nationals in 1981. He held them in Waterloo, Iowa and attracted a field of 29 women. This number probably surprised a lot of lifting fans. Looking back I feel that Joel never got credit for getting things started. The number probably got some people to sit up and take notice that there were women who were serious about this sport. Judy Glenney emerged as the first star of the sport.
Conclusion
1981 was a significant milestone in the development of women’s weightlifting but it was not the last. In the final installment of this series, I am going to trace how the sport evolved from 1981 to its eventual inclusion in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
As I mentioned in part one, please do get in touch if you have personal or family stories to share. As always… Happy lifting!
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