Ballyhoo!
eBook - ePub

Ballyhoo!

The Roughhousers, Con Artists, and Wildmen Who Invented Professional Wrestling

  1. 316 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Ballyhoo!

The Roughhousers, Con Artists, and Wildmen Who Invented Professional Wrestling

About this book

Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2024
 
Ballyhoo! The Roughhousers, Con Artists, and Wildmen Who Invented Professional Wrestling is a history of professional wrestling's formative period in the U.S., from roughly 1874 to 1941, and the contested interplay of wrestlers and promoters who built the "sport" as we know it. During this period, the major conventions that would define wrestling to the present day were perfected and codified, as wrestling morphed from a rough sport practiced on farms and at town gatherings to melodramatic mass entertainment that reliably drew large crowds in cities across the nation.

The narrative uses the life and career of Jack Curley—a boxing promoter whose fortune took a turn for the better when he began promoting wrestling matches—as a compass as it charts the development of wrestling. By the late 1910s, Curley's shows were selling out Madison Square Garden monthly. Ballyhoo chronicles his competition with the other promoters, as well as the lives of colorful athletes like "Strangler" Ed Lewis, Frank Gotch, the "Masked Marvel," Jim Londos, "Gorgeous George" Wagner, "Farmer" Martin Burns, and "Dynamite" Gus Sonnenberg.
 

Frequently asked questions

Yes, you can cancel anytime from the Subscription tab in your account settings on the Perlego website. Your subscription will stay active until the end of your current billing period. Learn how to cancel your subscription.
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
Perlego offers two plans: Essential and Complete
  • Essential is ideal for learners and professionals who enjoy exploring a wide range of subjects. Access the Essential Library with 800,000+ trusted titles and best-sellers across business, personal growth, and the humanities. Includes unlimited reading time and Standard Read Aloud voice.
  • Complete: Perfect for advanced learners and researchers needing full, unrestricted access. Unlock 1.4M+ books across hundreds of subjects, including academic and specialized titles. The Complete Plan also includes advanced features like Premium Read Aloud and Research Assistant.
Both plans are available with monthly, semester, or annual billing cycles.
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Yes! You can use the Perlego app on both iOS or Android devices to read anytime, anywhere — even offline. Perfect for commutes or when you’re on the go.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Ballyhoo! by Jon Langmead in PDF and/or ePUB format. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Half Title Page
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright Page
  5. Dedication
  6. Contents
  7. Prologue: The Kingfish Takes a Powder
  8. Part I. The Sporting Whirl (1874–1917)
  9. Part II. In This Way, The Hippodrome May be Continued Indefinitely (1918–1941)
  10. Epilogue: Paradigmatically Fake for Real
  11. Acknowledgments
  12. Notes
  13. Bibliography
  14. Index