Movement is Life: The Intimate History of the Founder of the WomenÕs League of Health and Beauty and of its Origin, Growth, Achievements, and Hopes for the Future.
[ Stack, Mary Meta Bagot.] Cruickshank, Norah Blake] and Prunella Stack.
Published by London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1937.
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Michael R. Thompson Books, A.B.A.A., Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.
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Mary Meta Bagot Stack (1883 Ð 1935) established the WomenÕs League of Health and Beauty, which Jill Matthews describes in the Oxford DNB as Òthe first and most significant of the mass keep-fit movements of the inter-war period.Ó The league hosted exercise classes for women (combining dance, stretching, and calisthenics) and published a magazine that ran pacifist and feminist political articles. ÒThe league was a self-supporting commercial enterprise, with the motto ÔMovement is lifeÕ; its stated aim was Ôracial health,Õ later changed, in 1936, to the more explicit Ôracial health leading to peaceÕÉThe leagueÕs success was based on its judicious appeal to an older, class-bound, service-motivated, maternal femininity, while having a modern, mass-market, commercial style, mixed withÊStack'sÊshrewd business sense and flamboyant publicity.Ó By 1935, the league claimed about sixty thousand members, and over 170,000 by 1937. Prunella Stack (1914 Ð 2010), Mary StackÕs daughter, was a socialite and fitness instructor. Stack had cultivated a fan following for her daughter, boasting that Prunella was Òthe most physically perfect girl in the worldÓ as a testament to the success of the leagueÕs methods. Prunella carried on the management of the WomenÕs League of Health and Beauty after her motherÕs death and, in 1936, organized a display at LondonÕs Olympia with a troupe of five thousand league members. Norah Blake Cruickshank was PrunellaÕs aunt, though we could not locate much more information about her, including dates. She also wrote Health and Beauty for Children (1938). Octavo. [10], 3-240 pp. Eight plates, including photographic frontisportrait of Mary Meta Bagot Stack (1883 Ð 1935), founder of the WomenÕs League of Health and Beauty. PublisherÕs black cloth titled in silver on spine. Some rubbing to cloth and some dustsoiling to first and last few leaves. A near fine copy in the very good dust jacket, inscribed by Prunella Stack on the front flyleaf. First edition. OCLC records eight copies in North America: six in the United States (NYPL, UC Irvine, University of Kansas, National Library of Medicine, SMU, UT Austin Stark Center) and two in Canada (McMaster University, Toronto PL). Seller Inventory # 17694
Bibliographic Details
Title: Movement is Life: The Intimate History of ...
Publisher: London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1937.
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)
Edition: 1st Edition
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