The Power and Beauty of Superb Womanhood, Physical Culture Publishing Co., 1901

The Power and Beauty of Superb Womanhood — subtitled How They Are Lost and How They May Be Regained and Developed to the Highest Degree of Attainable Perfection — is an early work by Bernarr MacFadden, published by the Physical Culture Publishing Co, copyright 1901. MacFadden was the most outspoken health reformer of his era, and this book was among his earliest and most provocative.

The thirty-seven chapters read like a manifesto against the constraints of Victorian womanhood: taking on corsets (seven full chapters), tight shoes, marital excess, medical surgery, and the suppression of physical play, while prescribing exercise, diet, fasting, massage, air baths, and breathing techniques as the path to health and beauty.

The book includes photographic plates of women in period exercise attire and in the nude from the waist up, used clinically to illustrate different physical conditions and their remedies. These early physical culture photographs are striking documents of how the female body was observed, categorized, and discussed at the turn of the century.

Dark maroon cloth hardcover with gilt spine lettering; Physical Culture Publishing Co. Pages toned with age; binding sound with some foxing to the gutter near the spine. Please review all photos carefully, and email me with any questions.