Our Mission
The H. J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports is located within the Department of Kinesiology & Health Education, a division of the College of Education.
As an academic unit of The University of Texas—one of the nation’s major research universities—the Center is committed to:
- being a resource and research center in the fields of physical culture and sports,
- building the finest collections possible,
- preserving the history of physical culture and sports, and
- educating the public about the history of physical culture and sports.
Mission rationale:
For many decades, traditional libraries purchased very few journals and books published in the field of physical culture and alternative health care. Furthermore, few private individuals involved in these fields deposited their books, personal papers, and photography collections in public libraries. By establishing their collection at The University of Texas in 1983, Terry and Jan Todd hoped to: 1) create a permanent home at a major research institution for these culturally significant documents and, 2) find the means to make these documents available for research. The opening of the Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports is the fulfillment of their long-held dream. Further, by establishing—with the support of Professor Roy McLean—the Todd-McLean Physical Culture Collection, they hoped to encourage academic scholarship in such fields as the history of physical fitness, weightlifting, bodybuilding, naturopathy, athletic training, and alternative medicine.
Over the past twenty-five years, the Todd-McLean Collection has been used in just this way. Scholars from the United States as well as such countries as Canada, Italy, Bulgaria, Iceland, Germany, Scotland, Australia, England, and Norway have used the Collection for a wide variety of books and other academic projects. In recent years, for example, the Collection has served as a major research site for such books as: Dr. Carolyn de la Pena’s The Body Electric: How Strange Machines Built the Modern American [New York University Press, 2003]; Dr. James Whorton’s Inner Hygiene: Constipation and the Pursuit of Health in Modern Society [Oxford University Press, 2000]; Dr. John Fair's Muscletown USA, a biography of Bob Hoffman and the York Barbell Company [Penn State Press, 1998]; Dr. Jan Todd 's Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful: Women's Exercise in the Nineteenth Century [Mercer University Press, 1998]; Dr. James Whorton's most recent book, Nature Cures, The History of Alternative Medicine in America [Oxford University Press, 2002]; Maria Lowe’s Women of Steel: Female Bodybuilders and the Struggle for Self-Definition [New York: New York University Press, 1998]; and Charles Kupfer’s We Felt the Flames: Hitler’s Blitzkrieg, America’s Story [Sergeant’s Kirkland Press, 2003]. In addition, Kim Beckwith's dissertation, "Building Strength: Alan Calvert, the Milo Bar-bell Company, and the Modernization of American Weight Training" and Nick Bourne's dissertation, "Fast Science: A History of Training Theory and Methods for Elite Runners Through 1975" were both largely based on resources found in the Todd-McLean Physical Culture Collection.
