Pendergast T., Pendergast S. St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Volume 1: A-D
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The club’s membership continued to grow past the one million
mark by the end of the twentieth century as BOMC’s strength in the
book marketplace endured. BOMC selection has the power to sky-
rocket little-known authors to instant fame and lucrative book deals,
so the competition for a spot in the catalog has been fierce. Books are
carefully chosen based on criteria that weigh a book’s literary merit as
well as its likelihood of appealing to a cross-section of the member-
ship. For example, even books successful in the traditional market-
place might not succeed with BOMC if their content cannot be clearly
conveyed in the tight space of a catalog description. BOMC’s
selection process embodies the larger conflict in the publishing world
between quality and marketability. The club’s focus on the desires of
its subscribers forces an exclusion of both overly commercial titles
and the specialized, academic or literary material that would not
appeal to the general reader. This customer-focused approach has also
fueled a move at BOMC toward the industrywide trend of niche
marketing. By the late 1990s, there were ten specialty book clubs that
fell under the larger BOMC umbrella, in interest areas including
spirituality, cooking, money, and history.
Time, Inc. purchased BOMC in 1977, and as the era of mergers
and acquisitions in the 1980s and 1990s progressed, it brought major
changes to Harry Scherman’s original conception of a book distribu-
tion service featuring books selected by an elite group of literary
professionals. In 1994, under the ownership of media conglomerate
Time-Warner, the BOMC’s editorial board was dismantled altogether
in favor of a more market-driven approach to acquiring new titles.
This decision reflected the trend in the 1990s toward a ‘‘bestseller
mentality’’ in the publishing industry, under which editorial judi-
ciousness appeared to be almost a luxury.
With so much attention focused on the bottom line, it is not
surprising that the company ventured onto the internet to increase
sales, an unusual and risky move for a direct-mail marketer. Custom-
ers could begin going to the company’s website (www.bomc.com) to
decline the month’s selection online, and, the company presumed,
order additional titles at the same time. While the paper catalogs
mailed 17 times per year contain only about 200 selections each, on
the website customers may choose from over 3,200 selections.
The proliferation of online marketing, including many book-
sellers that offer discounted books via the internet, is certain to have
an impact on BOMC’s trademark approach to book distribution. In
the end, the internet may be the final step in the process begun by
Harry Scherman to promote widespread book distribution; customers
can choose from thousands of books from dozens of companies at the
click of a mouse. Regardless of the direction that the Book-of-the-
Month Club takes in the future, it will always be known as a
significant architect of twentieth-century literary taste.
—Caitlin L. Gannon
F
URTHER READING:
Lee, Charles. The Hidden Public: The Story of the Book-of-the-Month
Club. Garden City, New York, Doubleday, 1958.
Machlis, Sharon. ‘‘Web Page Beats Paper for Book Club.’’
Computerworld. February 23, 1998, 41-44.
Radway, Janice A. A Feeling for Books: The Book-of-the-Month
Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire. Chapel Hill,
University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
Rubin, Joan. The Making of Middlebrow Culture. Chapel Hill,
University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
Boone, Pat (1934—)
With his boyish charm, unfailingly cordial manners, and firm
beliefs in religion and the family, singer Pat Boone became the
parentally approved antidote to the sexually charged rock ’n’ roll acts
of the 1950s. The precursor to the ‘‘safe’’ teen idols of the late 1950s
and early 1960s, Boone has long been lampooned by critics and
historians for his squeaky-clean image, and because he rose to fame
by singing cover versions of tunes initially performed by black artists.
But by no means was Boone an untalented nor an irrelevant
musical force.
At the time that he was delivering renditions of Little Richard’s
‘‘Tutti Frutti’’ and Fats Domino’s ‘‘Blueberry Hill,’’ many main-
stream radio stations did not play so-called ‘‘race’’ artists. Certainly,
Boone’s versions were tame compared to the raw delivery of the
original artists, but they also allowed the music to be introduced to
audiences who otherwise wouldn’t have heard it. Moreover, once
Boone moved into pop ballads, with songs such as ‘‘April Love’’ and
‘‘Moody River,’’ he became a respected artist in his own right. The
mellow-voiced singer was unquestionably popular: following the
volatile Elvis Presley, Boone was the second top-selling artist of the
era. Since both Boone and Presley hailed from the South, and because
they appeared to be polar opposites, they were frequently pitted
against one another in the press. In truth, the men were friends; each
respected the other’s work. But where Presley was single and on the
prowl, Boone was a devoted family man who advised young women
of the day to refrain from premarital sex. In many ways they
represented the duality of the decade.
The great-great-great-great grandson of frontiersman Daniel
Boone was born Charles Eugene Pat Boone in Jacksonville, Florida.
Raised in Nashville, he grew up singing at picnics, ladies’ club
meetings, fraternal organizations, and prayer meetings. A high school
overachiever, he was captain of the baseball team, president of the
student body, and voted most popular in his class. At seventeen he
was singing on his own Nashville radio show. At eighteen he won a
talent contest which took him to New York, where he appeared on a
trio of Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour television shows. He was nineteen
when he married high school sweetheart Shirley Foley, daughter of
country star Red Foley. At twenty, following an appearance on TV’s
Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, he was contracted by Dot Records.
Boone enjoyed his first hit with a cover of Fats Domino’s ‘‘Ain’t
That a Shame,’’ which went gold. Ensuing tunes climbed the charts.
By 1956, Boone had signed a seven-year contract, worth one million
dollars, with Twentieth Century-Fox. He also had one million dollar
contract with ABC for his own weekly television series, The Pat
Boone Chevy Showroom, which premiered in October 1957, airing in
prime time for three years. Ever pragmatic, Boone also continued his
studies. Majoring in speech and English at Columbia University in
New York, he was graduated magna cum laude in 1958. By this time
he was the father of three daughters. There would later be a fourth.
Boone’s movie career began with the back-to-back 1957 teen-
oriented musical romances Bernardine and April Love. Both films
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generated number one singles, ‘‘Love Letters in the Sand’’ and
‘‘April Love,’’ respectively. With the latter, Boone made headlines
with his refusal to kiss leading lady Shirley Jones on the lips. In later
years, in more adult roles, he did kiss his female costars; but as an
actor, he was never able to transcend his image.
Known for the white buck shoes, which inadvertently became a
trademark, Boone never made any attempt to downplay his God-
fearing beliefs. For instance, the Pat Boone charm bracelet included
charms of a 45 rpm record, shoes, a TV set, and a tiny Bible. Nor did
Boone hesitate to moralize when he authored Twixt Twelve and
Twenty, the 1959 teenage advice book. The year’s number two
nonfiction best-seller, it sold an amazing 207,000 copies during its
first eight weeks. In discussing the subject of kissing, Boone wrote,
‘‘Kissing for fun is like playing with a beautiful candle in a roomful of
dynamite! And it’s like any other beautiful thing—when it ceases to
be rare it loses its value . . . I really think it’s better to amuse ourselves
in some other way . . . I say go bowling, or to a basketball game.’’ The
man who had married at nineteen also said he did not approve of
teenage marriages, ‘‘unless your maturity check sheet is literally
covered with gold stars.’’
Like many of his contemporaries, Boone saw his career go
stagnant in the midsixties, but he proved resilient, even taking his
wholesome singing act to Las Vegas showrooms. In the seventies, he
became heavily aligned with Christian ventures, including Jim and
Tammy Bakker’s PTL Club. He also poked fun at his goody-two-
shoes image by doing TV commercials for milk. Following the
success of daughter Debby Boone’s 1977 single ‘‘You Light Up My
Life,’’ father and daughter sometimes performed together.
The 1980s found the healthy-looking Boone delivering workout
tips to the over-forty crowd via the video Take Time with Pat Boone,
and he was a pervasive presence on Christian broadcasting venues. In
the nineties, he found eager audiences in the resort town of Branson,
Missouri, marketed an extensive line of Christian publications and
videos, and briefly reinvented himself with a turn as a heavy-metal
performer. In the 1997 album In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice
Guy, Boone delivered versions of Ozzy Osbourne’s ‘‘Crazy Train’’
and Mettalica’s ‘‘Enter Sandman’’ with big band arrangements and
guest musicians including Alice Cooper, Eddie Van Halen, and Slash.
To promote the venture, Boone appeared on TV in black leather and
wearing an earring. Not surprisingly, the novelty was off-putting to
some of his older fans, but the younger generation accepted it for what
it was: a grand put-on. The music world’s biggest square had pulled
off a hip act.
—Pat H. Broeske
F
URTHER READING:
Anderson, John. ‘‘Rock ’N’ Roll’s Great White Buck.’’ Rolling
Stone. January 29, 1976, 27-31.
Boone, Pat. Twixt Twelve and Twenty. New York, Prentice-Hall, 1959.
Bronson, Fred. The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. New York,
Billboard Publications, 1988.
‘‘Pat Boone Boom: He Sets a New Style in U.S. Teen-Age Idols.’’
Life. February 2, 1959, 75-81.
Torgerson, Ellen. ‘‘Pat Boone’s Cup Runneth Over—With Milk.’’
TV Guide. April 1, 1978, 32-34.
Whitcomb, Jon. ‘‘An Interview with Pat Boone.’’ Cosmopolitan.
November 1957, 66-71.
Borge, Victor (1909—)
Funny man of the piano, Victor Borge has enjoyed a seven-
decade-long international career as a witty pianist-raconteur and
popular radio, film, and television personality. His spontaneous
comic talents, slapstick comedy routines, and satirical spoofs of
classical music mannerisms made him one of the most popular and
highest paid entertainers during the early 1940s. His 1950s Broadway
show still holds a place in The Guiness Book of World Records as the
longest running one-man show in theater history. Borge’s ability to
make light-hearted fun out of ‘‘serious’’ concert music has endeared
him to audiences who might otherwise feel intimidated or bored by
the traditional decorum of classical music repertoire and presentation.
Børge Rosenbaum (his name before emigrating to the United
States) was born on January 3, 1909, in Copenhagen, Denmark. His
mother was a pianist, and his father was a violinist with the Royal
Danish Philharmonic and Opera orchestras for 35 years (‘‘When he
finally came home, my mother hardly recognized him!’’). A child
prodigy, Rosenbaum studied piano at the Royal Danish Music Con-
servatory, and later studied with Frederic Lamond and Egon Petri in
Berlin. Following his 1926 recital debut in Copenhagen, he became
one of Denmark’s most popular concert pianists during the 1930s.
Victor Borge
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Partly to circumvent his recurring stage fright, Borge developed
a performance style combining classical music and quirky comedy.
This appealing ‘‘cross-over’’ combination established him as a
leading nightclub, stage, and film personality in Scandinavia. He had
his revue debut in 1933, and in 1937 made the first of his six pre-
World War II Danish films. Because of his Jewish background and his
pointed satirical critiques of the Nazi regime, Borge was blacklisted
and forced to flee Europe when the Germans invaded Denmark in
1940. He traveled to New York with his first wife, Elsie Shilton, an
American citizen, and became a United States citizen himself in 1948.
This first marriage ended in divorce in 1951, and Borge married again
in 1953; he has five children and numerous grandchildren.
After an unsuccessful first appearance in a 1941 Broadway
revue, Borge’s comic talents were recognized on bandleader Rudy
Vallee’s radio show the same year. One of Borge’s earliest successes
was his trademark ‘‘phonetic pronunciation’’ act, in which non-
verbal sounds indicate punctuation marks in a recited text. This act led
to a regular slot on Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall radio show during
the next two years (totaling 54 appearances). In 1943, Borge spoofed
himself in a Hollywood film, playing con man ‘‘Sir Victor Fitzroy
Victor, K.B.O.B.E.’’ in RKO’s Higher and Higher, which also
featured Frank Sinatra in his first starring role. Borge had his own
NBC radio show in 1946, and his one-man Comedy in Music show
enjoyed a phenomenal run at the Golden Theatre in New York from
1953 to 1956, running a record-setting 849 performances.
Borge’s hilarious comedy routines include his demonstration of
how modern composers write song hits (by cutting and pasting music
from the old masters), his insertion of ‘‘Happy Birthday’’ into serious
classical piano works, his falls off the piano bench at the start of the
Tchaikovsky concerto, or his constant admonition to singers not to
lean on his instrument (which causes the grand piano’s curved
indentation). Raising the piano lid to begin a performance, he mutters,
‘‘Maybe we should get some fresh air in here.’’
Also known for saying that ‘‘the smile is the shortest distance
between people,’’ Borge has been called ‘‘The Great Dane’’ for his
charitable contributions and international goodwill efforts. To ac-
knowledge the heroism of Scandinavians who sheltered persecuted
Jews during the Holocaust, he founded the Thanks to Scandina-
via Foundation in 1963. Borge has been honored by the United
States Congress and the United Nations, and knighted by the five
Scandinavian nations.
—Ivan Raykoff
F
URTHER READING:
Borge, Victor. Victor Borge: An Autobiography (forthcoming Eng-
lish translation).
Borge, Victor, and Robert Sherman. My Favorite Comedies in Music.
New York, Franklin Watts, 1981.
———. My Favorite Intermissions. Garden City New York,
Doubleday, 1971.
Borscht Belt
The area of the New York Catskills called the Borscht Belt came
into being at the turn of the twentieth century and grew in popularity
through the 1970s. During summers and holidays, Jews—primarily of
Eastern European descent, from working to upper-middle class, and
frequently first generation Americans—flocked to the Borscht Belt,
where they enjoyed mainstream American leisure activities and
entertainment in a place where they knew they’d be welcomed as
Jews. Many people also came to the Borscht Belt to work—as waiters,
owners, chefs, musicians, comics, and busboys. Not only did many
students earn money for college by working summers in the Borscht
Belt resorts, but many nationally known entertainers, especially
comedians, got their start there. The Jewish culture that flourished in
the Borscht Belt gradually overflowed into the mainstream, where it
significantly influenced American popular culture.
The Borscht Belt was about 100 miles northwest of New York
City in Sullivan and Ulster counties in the foothills of the Catskill
Mountains. Sometimes known as the ‘‘Jewish Alps,’’ it covered an
area of about 250 square miles. Jewish farmers, encouraged by the
Jewish Agricultural Society, started settling this rural area beginning
in the 1820s. Prefiguring the ‘‘back-to-the-earth communes’’ of the
1960s, some Jewish settlers founded socialist agricultural communi-
ties, and some of the bungalow colonies fomented much left-wing
activity. In the Mirth Bungalow Colony, for example, ‘‘entertain-
ment’’ included political discussions and poetry readings.
As early as the 1870s, middle- and upper-class Jews began to
spend summers in this region, but as their numbers increased they
were excluded from many resorts due to anti-Semitism. By the late
1890s and early 1900s, farmers started to offer their places as Jewish
boarding houses and hotels that served kosher food. One of the largest
resorts, The Nevele, continued to be a working farm until 1938.
Eventually, most of the farmers realized it was more profitable to rent
to visitors than to farm and they completely gave up farming. In the
early 1900s, the Workmen’s Circle, a left-leaning Jewish group,
opened a sanitarium in the Catskills, providing ‘‘fresh air’’ for Jewish
tuberculosis patients excluded from other sanitariums because of anti-
Semitism. Unions such as the ILGWU opened up resorts where
workers could recuperate. And perhaps most significantly, Yiddish
actor Boris Thomaschevsky opened a resort with large indoor and
outdoor theaters, thus beginning the Borscht Belt’s influential
entertainment tradition.
The postwar boom of the 1950s greatly helped the growth of the
Borscht Belt. Not only did more people have disposable income, but
also many owned cars, and the government built more highways on
which to drive them. By 1952, there were 509 hotels and boarding
houses in Sullivan County. During this period of popularity, more
than a million people came to the Borscht Belt in the summers. The
general trend was for ‘‘stay-at home’’ mothers, grandparents, and
children to live in these rustic to resort dwellings all summer, while
‘‘working’’ fathers came for weekends. The larger resorts became
known for their grand (kosher) all-you-can-eat feasts and higher
caliber entertainers. However, whether small or large, all the estab-
lishments tried to feed the ‘‘American Dream’’ of leisure time and
excess: advertising exaggerated the caliber of entertainers, the quality
of food, and the size of basketball courts and other recreational
facilities. Conversely, Jewish guests who were trying to assimilate
into mainstream American culture sensationalized, to themselves and
others, what was really available to them.
Despite exaggeration, the Borscht Belt birthed innumerable
nationally known figures, especially in the entertainment world.
Many Jewish entertainers started in the Borscht Belt because of anti-
Semitism that excluded them from working in other venues. Addi-
tionally, their work included Jewish cultural references, not under-
stood outside the Jewish world. However, as these entertainers
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became nationally popular, the Jewish content of their work became
more familiar and understood in the mainstream and their work
became more mainstream—with less specific Jewish content. Jewish
life became known and integrated into American life and vice versa,
often because of Borscht Belt entertainers.
A plethora of well-known comedians got their start in the
Borscht Belt, including Henny Youngman, Milton Berle, Rodney
Dangerfield, Danny Kaye, Buddy Hackett, Lenny Bruce, and Sid
Ceasar. Five-year-old Jerry Lewis debuted at a Borscht Belt hotel
singing ‘‘Brother Can You Spare A Dime.’’ Others started out as
comedians but moved to other areas of the entertainment world,
especially TV. Jack Barry, for instance, was a standup comedian who
met and teamed up with Dan Enright in Borscht Belt clubs. They
started Winky Dink and You, a children’s show known for the special
transparent covers children had to put over the TV screen so they
could draw the ‘‘hidden pictures’’ during Winky’s adventures. Barry
and Enright were also instrumental in producing and hosting early
game shows, such as Concentration and Tic Tac Dough.
Cultural changes beginning in the late 1970s brought on the
downfall of the Borscht Belt. As airplane transportation became more
affordable, it was both easier and more enticing to travel to places
further than the Catskills. Women, especially middle-class women,
again entered the work force en masse, which prevented them from
spending entire summers in the resorts. Many Jews became more
assimilated and felt less of a need to be in separate establishments.
Anti-Semitism lessened and many Jewish entertainers did not need to
start in Jewish-only establishments.
By the 1980s and 1990s, only a few of the large hotels remained,
and their cultural influence was virtually non-existent. Some smaller
establishments were burned for insurance and some were sold as
meditation centers, ashrams, or drug rehabilitation centers. Bungalow
colonies were bought and occupied by Orthodox and Hassidic Jews,
whose lifestyle necessitated separate communities. Some Yiddish
culture, however, periodically still came alive in the Catskills through
the 1990s. For example, Klezkamp is a weeklong annual event held in
the Catskills at the end of December. Although primarily billed for
Klezmer musicians, Klezkamp is attended by many families of all
ages who go to Yiddish classes, lectures, cooking classes, dances,
concerts and more, to experience and preserve rich Yiddish culture.
While some are critical of the term Borscht Belt—believing it to
be pejorative—whatever the name, clearly the specific Jewish culture
born there affected popular culture for many decades.
—tova gd stabin
F
URTHER READING:
Adams, Joey. The Borscht Belt. New York, Bentley Publishing, 1973.
Brown, Phil. Catskill Culture: A Mountain Rat’s Memories of the
Great Jewish Resort Area. Philadelphia, Temple University
Press, 1998.
Evers, Alf, and Elizabeth Cromley, Betsy Blackmar, Neil Harris,
editors. Resorts of the Catskills. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1979.
Frommer, Myrna Katz, and Harvey Frommer. It Happened in the
Catskills: An Oral History in the Words of Busboys, Bellhops,
Guests, Proprietors, Comedians, Agents, and Others Who Lived
It. New York, Harcourt Brace, 1996.
Gold, David M., editor. The River and the Mountains: Readings in
Sullivan County History. South Fallsburg, Marielle Press, 1994.
Kanfer, Stefan. A Summer World: The Attempt to Build a Jewish Eden
in the Catskills from the Days of the Ghetto to the Rise and Decline
of the Borscht Belt. New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1989.
Lavender, Abraham D., and Clarence B. Steinberg. Jewish Farmers
of the Catskills: A Century of Survival. Gainesville, University
Press of Florida, 1995.
Richman, Irwin. Borscht Belt Bungalows: Memories of Catskill
Summers. Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1998.
The Boston Celtics
Perhaps no other team in professional sports is as respected,
revered, and successful as the Boston Celtics. The Celtics controlled
the ranks of professional basketball in the late 1950s and during the
1960s, overshadowing the entire league. Not until the Chicago Bulls
of the 1990s has a team even come close to the heights the Boston
Celtics reached at the peak of their success. The team produced some
of the most memorable moments in sports history on its way to a
record 16 NBA World Championships.
Created as one of the original members of the Basketball
Association of America (BAA) on June 6, 1946, the Celtics found
hard times in their initial years because Bostonians were much more
interested in baseball and hockey in the early years of the franchise.
However, their opening home game on November 5, 1946, proved
exciting. Future actor and star of The Rifleman Chuck Connors broke
a backboard with a slam-dunk, delaying the game. The BAA became
the National Basketball Association (NBA) after the 1949/50 season,
and with the hiring of coach Arnold ‘‘Red’’ Auerbach in 1950, the
Celtics started on their road to sports history at the dawn of a new and
consolidated league.
The Auerbach years of the Celtics were some of the most
magical in all of sports. He revolutionized the way basketball was
played by emphasizing the concept of the fast break and the sixth
man. In the process, he built one of the most dominant teams in the
history of professional sports. The Celtics also made history in the
1950s by drafting the first black player in the NBA, Charles Cooper.
In 1956, big man Bill Russell joined the Celtics, thus giving them the
most amazing player of the times. Russell also contributed to change
in the way basketball was played, doing things on the court that no
other player of his size had ever done. Combined with star guard Bob
Cousy, Russell led a strong supporting cast of players to the 1957
NBA Championship, the franchise’s first, but far from last, victory.
Starting in 1959, the Celtics won the next eight NBA titles in a
row, and a total of 11 in a 13-year span. During this stretch, they at one
time had three future basketball Hall of Fame members who didn’t
even start. The Celtics finished off the decade with victories in 1968
and 1969 after which, by their high standards, the team declined
somewhat. Nonetheless, they won another pair of NBA titles in 1974
and 1976. Larry Bird, one of the next generation’s dominant players,
joined the Celtics for the 1979/80 season and, along with teammates
Robert Parrish and Kevin McHale, returned the Celtics to their former
glory and dominance by leading them to championship seasons in
1981, 1984, and 1986. Some of the greatest players basketball has
known wore the Celtic green, among them John Havlicek, K.C. Jones,
Dave Cowens, Don Nelson, Tom Heinsohn, and Frank Ramsey.
The Boston Celtics defined what it means to be a dynasty in
sports. Their appeal as a hard-working, blue-collar team under Red
Auerbach appealed to the city of Boston and gained widespread
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323
support, giving definition to the term ‘‘Celtic Pride.’’ The familiar
parquet floor, the leprechaun mascot, and Celtic green have become
familiar images to all followers of basketball, as well as sports fans
in general.
—Jay Parrent
F
URTHER READING:
Fitzgerald, Joe. That Championship Feeling: The Story of the Boston
Celtics. New York, Scribner Publishing, 1975.
Heinsohn, Tommy H. and Leonard Lewin. Tommy, Don’t You Ever
Smile? The Life and Times of Tommy Heinsohn and the Boston
Celtics. Garden City, New York, Doubleday, 1976.
Henshaw, Tom. The Boston Celtics: A Championship Tradition.
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, 1974.
Boston Garden
One of the most beloved landmarks in New England, the Boston
Garden opened in 1928. It was best known as the home court of the
Boston Celtics, who won 16 titles while playing there. When the
Garden closed in 1995, its bricks and seats were sold as mementos.
The arena’s parquet basketball floor was its most famous feature.
Because of post-World War II lumber shortages, the floor had to be
made of small squares of wood which were then pieced together. The
floor was notorious for dead spots and warped boards which the
Celtics used as an advantage over visiting teams.
—Austin Booth
Boston Marathon
The Boston Marathon is one of the greatest racing events in the
world. The idea for the Marathon began in the late nineteenth century
when United States Olympic team manager, John Graham, wanted to
establish a counterpart to the Olympic Marathon held in Greece in
1896. He wanted to do this in his adopted city of Boston, Massachu-
setts. Graham drove his horse carriage outside of Boston to try to find
a place that resembled the Grecian terrain. He found it in Ashland and
began making plans for laying out the course that would stretch to
Boston. The Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) was the official
organizer of the event. The running of the inaugural Boston Marathon
occurred on April 19, 1897, Patriot’s Day in Massachusetts. There
were only eighteen competitors. The Boston Marathon helped bring
distance running to the forefront of the American sports world.
Equally important, the race has grown into a legitimate event that tests
the waters of Olympic and international competition. Even though
women were initially banned from the event the Marathon paved the
way for the impressive expansion of women’s distance running, as
well as wheelchair racing, beginning in the 1970s.
In the 1920s the official start of the Marathon would be moved to
Hopkington. That town and the surrounding area became quickly
absorbed into the marathon world and residents became captivated by
the popularity of the event. One negative trait during the first seven
decades of the Boston Marathon was that women were not allowed to
compete. There were ‘‘reports,’’ however, over the years about
women running incognito. The Boston Marathon would ultimately
have its share of winners, losers, legends, and notorious individuals.
Americans like champion-runner Clarence DeMar dominated the
Marathon during the race’s early period in the 1910s and 1920s.
Americans made their mark as sufficient competitors in the world’s
athletic stage. Yet, some people criticized the Marathon for the lack of
foreigners participating in it. But even as early as 1900 the Boston
Marathon had an international flavor to it as Canadians competed
along with Americans and did extremely well, winning the event.
The 1920s were significant years for the Boston Marathon. The
race, for example, witnessed its first European-born winner as Greek
national Peter Trivouldas crossed the finish line ahead of everyone
else. In 1920 a radio station began broadcasting live coverage of the
Marathon. People could now tune-in and receive up to the minute
reports and results of the race. It was also announced in that decade
that the Boston Marathon would be accepted as the American
Olympic Trials to see which American distance runner earned the
right to compete in the Olympic Marathon. The ‘‘foreign invasion’’
really began in earnest during the post-World War II era. In fact, from
1946 to 1957 Americans would not win the Marathon. Over the next
several decades Boston Marathon winners would include Asians,
Europeans, Africans, and Latin Americans making it a true interna-
tional competitive race.
The groundbreaking years for the Boston Marathon were the
1970s. In 1972, the 76th running of the Boston Marathon, women
were officially allowed to compete. Women ran the Boston Marathon
during the previous decade but they were not officially acknowledged
as entrants or competitors. In 1966, for instance, 23 year-old Roberta
Gibb became the first woman to complete the distance. She had
applied for entry during that year but was denied so she decided to
take matters into her own hands. Before the race she stood on the curb
with her hood over her head and patiently waited for the start. When
the race started she began running with the hood still over her head.
Several miles into the race she took the hood off and felt more
comfortable as the crowds acknowledged her and even cheered her
on. She finished in under three and a half hours. The Marathon
reached another milestone in the 1970s. In 1975, it became the first
significant marathon in the country to allow wheelchair athletes to
compete. As the number of wheelchair entrants increased in the
succeeding years so did the quality of competition and the equipment
which the wheelchair racers used. During these years the Marathon
became home to the National Wheelchair Marathon Championships
and, soon after, wheelchair athletes achieved a tremendous feat by
breaking the two-hour barrier. Ever since the 1970s both women and
wheelchair racing at the Boston Marathon has grown in popularity
and have received tremendous support.
Yet, the Boston Marathon is also filled with controversy. Take,
for instance, the infamous Rosie Ruiz episode in 1980. Ruiz is
considered a villain of the Marathon. She jumped into the race with
about a mile to go and claimed victory despite the fact that no one had
seen her at the mile markers and the water stations, nor had the
cameras picked her up as well. Ruiz was ultimately stripped of her
title a week after she ‘‘won’’ the event because of cheating. She was
disqualified from the B.A.A. Her case though was not an isolated one
in the history of the race. Cheating had been attempted twice before
BOSTON STRANGLER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
324
during the early twentieth century and, in both instances, the men
were promptly caught and suspended or disqualified by the B.A.A.
In the late twentieth century the Boston Marathon opened the
door for many foreign athletes to display their athletic talents in front
of America and the world. It has become common for foreigners to do
well at Boston. This trend can be seen in other American marathons
such as the New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles Marathons.
The Marathon has become a major trendsetter in American society,
helping advance distance running in the wake of the physical
fitness craze.
To understand the growth of American road racing over the
years one only has to look at the gradual but sure emergence of the
popularity of the Boston Marathon in the United States. The two run
parallel to each other and, naturally, complement one another. The
Boston Marathon itself is an institutional icon in the sports world. No
other race is representative of the overall trends, both positive and
negative, that have occurred in American society. The Marathon
shaped women’s running allowing them to compete in a distance
event that draws females from around the world in what one hopes to
be ‘‘friendly,’’ yet very intense, competition. Similarly, wheelchair
athletes also enjoy the spotlight that is cast upon the people who run in
the Marathon. Both women and wheelchair racing, as a consequence,
have grown into legitimate forms of racing divisions that have
Olympic ramifications. With regard to the men, the Marathon show-
cases the best the world has to offer in the sport of running and racing.
Winning times seem to get lower which each passing year. The
greatest influence the Marathon has on American society is that it
inspires many individuals, both young and old, to enter the race. It has
become a personal challenge to Americans to enter and finish the
event, with a little hard work along the way of course, not necessarily
to win it. The identity and lure of the Marathon, then, permeates
throughout society and satisfies America’s free-spirited fascination
with self-gratification.
—David Treviño
F
URTHER READING:
Connelly, Michael. 26 Miles to Boston: The Boston Marathon Experi-
ence from Hopkington to Copley Square. Hyannis, Massachusetts,
Parnassus Imprints, 1998.
Derderian, Tom. Boston Marathon: The First Century of the World’s
Premier Running Event. Champaign, Illinois, Human Kinetics, 1996.
Falls, Joe. The Boston Marathon. New York, Macmillan, 1977.
Higdon, Hal. Boston: A Century of Running: Celebrating the 100th
Anniversary of the Boston Athletic Association Marathon. New
York, St. Martin’s Press, 1995.
Hosler, Ray, ed. Boston, America’s Oldest Marathon. Mountain
View, California, Anderson World, 1980.
Krise, Raymond, and Bill Squires. Fast Tracks: The History of
Distance Running since 884 B.C. Brattleboro, Vermont, The
Stephen Greene Press, 1982.
Boston Strangler
The term ‘‘Boston Strangler’’ refers to the person or persons
who committed a series of thirteen brutal murders of women in
Albert DeSalvo (aka The Boston Strangler).
Boston and the surrounding area in the early 1960s. Although Albert
DeSalvo did eventually confess to the killings, neither he nor anyone
else ever went to trial for them.
The murderous activities of the Boston Strangler began in June
of 1962 and lasted until January of 1964. In twelve of the thirteen
murders, the victim was strangled, and some of the victims were also
struck violently on the head and/or stabbed. One victim was stabbed
repeatedly in the throat and breast in lieu of strangulation. The victims
were usually attacked sexually, and the bodies were generally left in
degrading positions. The first six murder victims were between 55
and 85 years of age, as were two of the later ones. Five victims were
between the ages of 19 and 23.
The serial killings greatly frightened the community. Respond-
ing to public concern, Edward Brooke, the Attorney General of
Massachusetts, created what was popularly called a ‘‘Strangler Bu-
reau’’ whose mission was to hunt down the murderer(s). A Medical-
Psychiatric Committee was constituted in order to develop a profile of
the criminal(s). The Committee came up with a multiple-strangler
theory, positing one man (‘‘Mr. S’’) as the killer of the older victims
and another man or men as the killer of the younger women. The
profile described Mr. S to be a man suffering from impotence and an
oedipal complex, both of which supposedly drove him to murderous
rages against his victims. This profile did not match DeSalvo, causing
the science of profiling to lose esteem in criminal justice circles,
although more sophisticated profiling techniques would subsequently
be developed.
The Strangler Bureau even called in a Dutch psychic who
claimed to be able to learn about people from being in their presence
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
325
or touching items associated with them. The psychic gave a descrip-
tion of the killer, allegedly based on the auras given off by items
associated with the murders. Again, the killer described by the
psychic did not match DeSalvo’s characteristics.
Neither psychological nor psychic investigation was able to
solve the case. Then Albert DeSalvo, a man with a long criminal
history, confessed to being the Strangler. After serving time in a
juvenile home, he committed a string of burglaries until he joined the
Army at 17. While serving in the American forces in Germany, he met
and married a German woman, and also became the Army’s middle-
weight boxing champion. He was also accused of molesting a nine-
year-old girl, but he was not convicted because the child’s parents did
not want to pursue the matter. DeSalvo was awarded an honorable
discharge in 1956, and brought his wife back with him to the
United States.
Convinced that his wife could not satisfy his sexual needs,
DeSalvo started visiting the apartments of young women, gaining
entrance by pretending to be from a modeling agency. Using this ruse,
he tried to fondle the women. Police knew DeSalvo as the ‘‘Measur-
ing Man’’ because he pretended to take the measurements of the
women he was molesting. He served a few months in prison for
breaking and entering, and soon after his release his activities
escalated from molestation to rape. This time, he was known as the
‘‘Green Man’’ on account of the color of the clothes he wore while
seeking victims. It was as the Green Man, not as the Boston Strangler,
that DeSalvo was finally arrested in 1964.
DeSalvo confessed to being the Strangler while awaiting trial in
a psychiatric facility at Bridgewater. The confession was quite
detailed, displaying a knowledge of details about the murders that
were not available to the public. Either DeSalvo had been fed the
information by police, or else he was describing crimes he had
actually committed. In 1967, DeSalvo went on trial for the Green Man
sexual assaults. He was represented at trial by the nationally famous
Boston attorney F. Lee Bailey. The jury convicted DeSalvo on a range
of charges, and he was sentenced to life in prison for the Green Man
crimes. He was never charged with the Strangler killings, however. In
1973, DeSalvo was killed by a fellow-inmate.
In addition to the obligatory true-crime book, the murders
inspired a 1968 movie entitled The Boston Strangler, with a cast that
included Tony Curtis as Albert DeSalvo, and Henry Fonda. In 1971,
the Texas House passed a resolution that commended Albert DeSalvo
for his work in the area of population control. The resolution was a
practical joke by a legislator who wanted to demonstrate how little
attention his colleagues paid to the bills they passed.
—Eric Longley
F
URTHER READING:
‘‘Boston Strangler’’ (video). Great Crimes and Trials of the Twenti-
eth Century. Arts and Entertainment Network, 19992.
DeSalvo, Albert. Confessions of the Boston Strangler. New York,
Pyramid Books, 1967.
Frank, Gerold. The Boston Strangler. New York, New American
Library, 1966.
Kelly, Susan. The Boston Stranglers: The Wrongful Conviction of
Albert DeSalvo and the True Story of Eleven Shocking Murders.
Secaucus, New Jersey, Carol Publishing Group, 1995.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra
At the beginning of the 1880s, America had no symphony
orchestra to equal the great European ensembles. Major Henry Lee
Higginson would permanently change that situation by creating the
Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), which not only set musical
standards and became a model for other American orchestras but
demonstrated that large audiences could be attracted to what was
considered ‘‘elitist’’ culture.
The New York Philharmonic, the nation’s oldest orchestra in
1880, had been organized some 40 years earlier. It offered only six
concerts and six public rehearsals a season. Players elected conduc-
tors and sent last minute substitutes for concerts if more lucrative
engagements became available. In fairness to the players, member-
ship dues and fines levied on absentees at concerts served as the
orchestra’s financial mainstays. Earnings from ticket sales were
appallingly low. In 1878, each musician earned only $17.50; in 1886,
a relatively good year, each earned just $225.
Audiences responded to the haphazard nature of the enterprise
by becoming boisterous, especially if players were openly contemp-
tuous of the conductor. Newspaper accounts discouragingly noted an
‘‘ebulliency of animal spirits [that] sometimes overcame . . . [any]
sense of decorum.’’
Except possibly for the behavior of audiences, symphony or-
chestras fared no better in Boston. Which was why a March 1881
notice in local newspapers, placed by Higginson, generated immedi-
ate interest. He called for: ‘‘The Boston Symphony Orchestra in the
Interest of Good Music.’’ Higginson emphasized that ‘‘Notwith-
standing the development of musical taste in Boston, we have never
yet possessed a full and permanent orchestra, offering the best music
at low prices, such as may be found in all the large European cities, or
even in the smaller musical centres of Germany.’’
The real problem was how to finance such an ensemble. Higginson
advised that during the course of a season he would present ‘‘sixty
selected musicians’’ in 20 concerts and sell subscriptions for ‘‘either
$10 or $5, according to position,’’ and single tickets at 75¢ or 25¢
each. In addition, tickets would be available for a public rehearsal
during ‘‘one afternoon of every week.’’
Higginson understood that ticket sales alone could not finance
the orchestra. He was personally worth $750,000 and forthrightly
declared that he would provide up to $50,000 of an estimated annual
$100,000 budget. The rest of the operational budget would come from
ticket sales and from selling the orchestra’s services to opera compa-
nies—in the summer of 1885, Higginson announced a series of
concerts of ‘‘lighter music,’’ which became famous as the Boston
Pops. Economically inclined, he decided against a pension plan for
musicians and would not even entertain the idea of a musicians’ union.
As for repertory, Higginson thought ‘‘anything worthy could be
put on programs, which were to be relatively brief, an hour and three
quarters being the upper limit.’’ He defined ‘‘unworthy’’ as the
‘‘trash . . . heard in the theatres, sentimental or sensational non-
sense.’’ Wagner could be performed, but the composer was not
among the Major’s favorites. Late Beethoven, possibly ‘‘the work of
a lunatic,’’ could also be played, since as a fair-minded person, the
Major could not see barring ‘‘serious music.’’
Higginson’s first choice for conductor turned out to be a mistake.
Georg Henschel, a young local musician, allowed regional loyalties to
BOUTON ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
326
figure in his recruitment of players, so it was an easygoing band of
Bostonians who performed in the city’s Music Hall on Saturday
nights for the relatively high fees of $6 per concert and $3 per
rehearsal. Henschel departed Boston in 1884. Higginson’s later
choices won the approval of critics but were not without controversy.
Thus, Arthur Nikisch was described in the local press as having an
‘‘undue passion in comparatively passionless melody.’’
What could not be questioned was that the quality Higginson
demanded of his musicians had an enormous impact on audiences.
From the very first concert, BSO subscribers clamored for tickets.
More than 83,000 people attended the first season, and as early as
1886, the orchestra earned $100,000 in five days of advance sales for
24 concerts and 24 public rehearsals of the ‘‘severest classical music.’’
By October 1900, just 19 years after its founding, the orchestra
had inspired such confidence in its stability that donors gladly made
possible a permanent home after Higginson threatened that if a hall
was not built, he would disband the ensemble. In 1903, a pension fund
was established by and for the musicians, for the benefit of which
Higginson permitted a special concert annually.
By the time the BSO was 25 years old, in 1906, it had served as a
model for orchestras in Chicago, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh. Higginson
was constantly sought out for advice and solicited for donations to
various enterprises. As he lengthened the BSO season, he tried to keep
ticket prices as low as possible to attract audiences of all classes. As
late as the 1907-08 season, subscriptions were still only $18 and $10.
Higginson himself paid the highest price of all for attendance; up
to June 1893, he is known to have contributed $250,000. His players
appreciated his generosity. The orchestra’s fourth conductor, Emil
Paur, declared, ‘‘The reason why the Boston Orchestra plays better
than all other existing orchestras is—besides the excellent quality of
the men—the comfortable living the men are able to enjoy.’’
After Higginson’s retirement at the age of 82, the only major
change in the BSO’s operations occurred in the early 1940s, when the
American Federation of Musicians threatened to boycott the orches-
tra’s broadcasts and recordings, prevent guest conductors and soloists
from appearing with it, and blacklist concert halls in which it
appeared while on tour, unless it unionized. This time forces arrayed
against management were too strong. In 1942, the BSO, the only non-
unionized ensemble in the nation, came to terms with the union
and joined.
—Milton Goldin
F
URTHER READING:
Goldin, Milton. The Music Merchants. New York, Macmillan, 1969.
Johnson, H. Earle. Symphony Hall, Boston. Boston, Little, Brown, 1950.
Shanet, Howard. Philharmonic: A History of New York’s Orchestra.
New York, Doubleday, 1975.
Bouton, Jim (1939—)
Right-handed pitcher Jim Bouton concluded his unspectacular
major league career in 1978 with a record of 62-63. But it was the
impact he made off the field, with his bestselling clubhouse memoir
Ball Four, that earned him a place in baseball history. As a New York
Yankee between 1962 and 1968, the urbane Bouton was an uneasy
presence on one of the hardest-living 25-man squads in the majors.
Apparently he was taking notes. Ball Four, published in 1970, pulled
no punches in describing the drinking and carousing of some of the
game’s most idealized figures, including Mickey Mantle. The tight-
knit ballplayer’s fraternity, enraged over Bouton’s betrayal of confi-
dence, ostracized the pitcher for decades. Scandalous at the time, Ball
Four is considered tame in comparison to subsequent tell-all ac-
counts. Nevertheless, the book was selected by the New York Public
Library as one of the ‘‘Books of the Century.’’
—Robert E. Schnakenberg
F
URTHER READING:
Bouton, Jim. Ball Four (20th Anniversary Edition). New York,
Macmillan, 1990.
Bow, Clara (1905-1965)
With her performance in the 1927 silent movie, It, rising film
star Clara Bow transformed herself almost overnight into the Jazz
Age icon called ‘‘the ‘It’ Girl.’’ The movie’s record-breaking popu-
larity turned the single word ‘‘It’’ into a national euphemism for sex
appeal, and helped make Bow, two years later, the highest paid female
actor in Hollywood. Writer and Hollywood trendsetter, Elinor Glyn,
first coined the expression in her novella, It, then selected Bow as its
embodiment in the role of Betty Lou Spence. As ‘‘the ’It’ Girl,’’ Bow
became the dominant sex symbol of the 1920s and 1930s, and a
singular identity within Hollywood history as the first wholly Ameri-
can vision of erotic appeal. Before Bow, depictions of bold female
sexuality were associated with foreignness, as in the career of the
1910s’ star, Theda Bara, whose studio-manufactured image feigned
Arabic heritage. Bow’s portrayals expressed unabashed attraction to
men in ways that American-identified female stars, such as ‘‘virgin-
al’’ Lillian Gish, eschewed. Bow’s spontaneous style of acting
exasperated camera crews of the day, but her abandonment and
intuitive skill were the qualities that translated as ’It’ to spectators,
and to directors like It’s Clarence Badger, who learned to ‘‘explain
the scene to her and just let her go.’’
With her natural red hair, cupid bow lips and hourglass figure,
Clara Bow’s persona mirrored the liberated decade itself. Onscreen
and off, she epitomized the high living, carefree and carnally-
emancipated ‘‘flapper.’’ Sporting bobbed hair, glittery dresses falling
above the knee, and headbands, ‘‘flappers’’ were 1920s good-time
girls who smoked, drank, frequented jazz clubs and reveled in the
nation’s prosperity by flouting turn-of-the-century rules for feminine
behavior. F. Scott Fitzgerald, the writer who dubbed the decade ‘‘the
Jazz Age,’’ observed, ‘‘Clara Bow is the quintessence of what the
term ‘flapper’ signifies as a definite description: pretty, impudent,
superbly assured, as worldly-wise, briefly-clad, and ‘hard-berled’ as
possible. . . . there are thousands more patterning themselves after her
girls, all sorts of girls, their one common trait being that they are
BOWENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
327
Clara Bow
young things with a splendid talent for living.’’ Many novice actress-
es, including Joan Crawford, also viewed Bow as a role model and
imitated her screen type.
Bow’s acting ability was innate, but her ‘‘talent for living’’ was
acquired. Born July 29, 1905 to impoverished parents eking out an
abject existence in the tenement slums of Brooklyn, Bow’s childhood
was marked by brutal neglect. Her mother, Sarah Bow, née Gordon,
struggled with severe mental illness and despised her primarily absent
husband, Robert Bow. Oppressive emotional and economic con-
ditions affected Bow the way many a movie star’s bleak back-
ground did: she sought escape in movie houses and moving picture
fan magazines like Motion Picture Classic and Photoplay. Poring
over stories of ‘‘America’s Sweetheart,’’ Mary Pickford, and the
swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks, Bow vowed to join their ranks.
When she confided her dreams of stardom to her mother, Sarah
castigated her desires as a prostitute’s. Bow’s conflict with her mother
was not unique. As Nickelodeons across the country gave way to
theatrical movie houses in the 1910s and 1920s, movie-going united
cross-segments of the culture. But this new entertainment activity
also provoked 1920s sensibilities concerned with religious virtue and
threatened by perceptions of movies’ degenerate influence on youths.
This gap between the public’s values and Hollywood’s profligate
spending, depictions of moral laxity, and offscreen scandals like the
rape trial of Fatty Arbuckle, features as a constant in the history of
American movie culture. For example, a related outrage over movie
violence spurred 1996 Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole
to attack the industry as part of his campaign. To impugn his
opponent, President Clinton, Dole accused him of being a ‘‘Holly-
wood insider.’’ Had she lived to witness it, Bow’s mother would have
been horrified by ‘‘the ‘It’ Girl’s’’ appearance in movies titled Wild
Party, Daughters of Pleasure, Dangerous Curves, Kiss Me Again and
Call Her Savage.
Bow established a professional Hollywood reputation as hard-
working, kind-hearted and unpretentious. She also developed a noto-
riety that blurred with her fun-loving screen personality and shaded
into promiscuity. Her lovers included co-stars Gary Cooper, Gilbert
Roland, Frederic March, and director Victor Fleming. Her stardom
occurred simultaneously with the increasing popularity of scandal
sheets, and the press tracked her every dalliance. What Americans
loved onscreen, appalled them in tabloid reports of Bow’s refusal to
BOWIE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
328
marry. Involved in several financial scandals, she diminished further
in the Depression-era public’s esteem when details of her spending
were publicized during a trial involving a personal secretary, who had
attempted to blackmail Bow based on records she secretly kept of
Bow’s bedroom visitors.
Bow ended her film career in 1933, in response to her loss of
fans’ affections and a career sagging under the weight of stock roles in
uninspired films. Having discovered the Clara Bow formula, Para-
mount studio exploited it and her unequalled popularity by sticking
her in a series of low budget, predictable vehicles co-starring un-
knowns. Despite reviewers’ praise for 1933’s Hoopla, constant
typecasting as the seductive girl with endless self-confidence—
dimensions lacking in her own increasingly fragile identity—disgust-
ed Bow. Her retirement also coincided with the emergence of the
‘‘talkies.’’ Though she completed several successful movies requir-
ing dialogue, and her voice did not doom her as it did other stars
attempting the silent-to-talkie transition (e.g. Pola Negri and John
Gilbert), the strain of controlling her Brooklyn accent and memoriz-
ing lines took its toll. She abandoned her film career for marriage and
motherhood. As other seminal Hollywood personalities like Greta
Garbo would, Bow fled Hollywood and entered into seclusion.
Despite her escape from the fishbowl pressures of fading stardom, she
experienced severe breakdowns requiring hospitalization.
Bow disappeared from the public eye, but ‘‘The ‘It’ Girl’s’’
legend resurfaced in various cultural expressions. In the 1950s, Life
magazine featured a photo spread of Marilyn Monroe made up as
Bow. In the 1980s, entertainer Madonna billed herself as the new
‘‘‘It’ Girl,’’ and musician Prince featured Bow’s picture on the cover
of an album. In 1998, a cover of Vanity Fair posed the question of
whether Hollywood newcomer, Gretchen Mol, might not be the next
‘‘‘It’ Girl.’’ Bow herself identified with Marilyn Monroe, saying of
her death, ‘‘A sex symbol is a heavy load to carry when one is tired,
hurt, and bewildered.’’
—Elizabeth Haas
F
URTHER READING:
MacCann, Richard Dyer. The Stars Appear. Metuchen, Scarecrow
Press, 1992.
Morella, Joseph, and Edward Z. Epstein. The ‘‘It’’ Girl. New York,
Delacorte, 1976.
Stenn, David. Runnin’ Wild. New York, Doubleday, 1988.
Bowie, David (1947—)
David Bowie is a performer on the cutting edge of music culture,
whose glamour, fluid sexual identity, and mystery influenced musi-
cians such as Michael Jackson and Culture Club. Bowie shifted like a
chameleon over a career spanning seedy British club performances in
the 1960s to successful and extravagant world tours in the 1980s. His
incarnations include androgynous space messiah Ziggy Stardust, film
roles in art house movies, music videos with Mick Jagger and
collaborations with electronic music pioneer Brian Eno. He incited
David Bowie
outrage with frank interviews about his bisexuality and his appear-
ance in a dress on the LP cover of the hard rock album The Man Who
Sold the World (1970). In the 1990s, the artist invented himself anew
as a suave, elegant eccentric and faded from the music mainstream,
but he continues to be a style icon and reference point.
—Petra Kuppers
Bowling
Bowling, the sport of throwing a heavy ball down a lane and
knocking over pins, has been around for centuries, and has become
one of America’s most democratic pastimes. Often referred to as the
‘‘great cultural leveler,’’ bowling is affordable, allows for the partici-
pation of both genders, all ages, skill levels, and classes, and encour-
ages a social camaraderie rare in other competitive sports. In fact, an
instructional book written in 1987 said that ‘‘one of the greatest
benefits of bowling is the development of friendships.’’
Bowling became widely popular almost as soon as it reached the
shores of America, in the early 1800s. The Dutch, Germans, and
English helped establish the sport in American colonies. English
bowls, or lawn bowling, a sport for blue-bloods, was played outdoors
on a bowling green. But the modern form of American bowling
derives mainly from the German game of Kegelspiel, or kegeling,
which used nine pins set in a diamond formation. By the 1800s,