Lifting up women: Life and press appearances of Ivy Russell

Intro

Black-and-white photo of Ivy Russell standing outside and facing the camera. She is holding a loaded barbell on her right shoulder, and her left arm is stretched out. She is wearing a dark swimsuit-like training costume and white shoes. She has short dark hair and is smiling.
Miss Ivy Russell holding a barbell on her right shoulder. Image via Stark Center 2021.

Early years

Clipping from a newspaper featuring a photo of a reverse human pyramid consisting of 7 people. Ivy Russell is at the bottom and has another woman sitting on her shoulders and 2 children standing on her thighs. That other woman has a child sitting on her shoulders and 2 children standing on her thighs. Caption: “”THE WEAK SEX.” Miss Ivy Russell, of Croydon, who was recently declared the British woman weight-lifting champion, carrying a heavy load with ease. She now has boxing ambitions.”
The Daily Mirror 1932a: Miss Russell at the bottom of a reverse human pyramid (and a spoiler for the next section). Image via The British Newspaper Archive.

1932 Women’s Weight-Lifting Championship of Britain

The Daily Mirror 1932b: An article on the upcoming championship between Miss Russell and Miss Tinmouth and a photo of Miss Russell lifting two boys on a bar. Images via The British Newspaper Archive.
Clipping from a newspaper featuring an article with a heading “126 Pound Girl Lifts 300 Pounds” and a subheading “Prodigious Feats of Slim Amazons”.
The Sheffield Independent 1932: An example of British press coverage of the weight-lifting contest between Miss Russell and Miss Tinmouth. Image via The British Newspaper Archive. Re “…neither girl fainted or required smelling salts”: not sure if the unnamed author was being ignorantly sexist here or, conversely, extraordinarily well-informed (jk, I am fairly sure). Because you can, in fact, faint on a particularly strenuous deadlift, and also, many lifters today do use smelling salts, a.k.a. ammonia inhalants, before heavy lifts, because they believe ammonia can improve their performance, although the latter conjecture is not currently supported by scientific evidence (see, e.g., Pritchard 2020 for an overview of existing research on the use and effectiveness of smelling salts). Not that Miss Russell was at any risk of fainting. The 300lb. she pulled was quite lower than her previously established lifts (e.g., The Daily Mirror 1932b); she simply decided to stop after her second attempt (out of five permissible), since she had already won by a substantial margin by then (Lowry 1932a).
Clipping from a newspaper featuring an article entitled “British Domestic Wins Weight-Lifting Contest’”.
The Binghamton Press 1932: An example of US press coverage of the weight-lifting contest between Miss Russell and Miss Tinmouth. Image via Newspapers.com. “Ivy explained that she lifted the weight in what is called a “dead lift””, known in American English as a “dead elevator”. In other translation news, the original quote from Miss Russell, as reported in British newspapers, said, “I weigh only 9st.”
Page from a magazine featuring an article entitled “Give Us a Chance, Mr. Lowry!” and a subheading “Miss Ivy Russell, in this Letter to the Editor, Appeals to the Governing Body to Give Lady Lifters a Hearing”. The article is accompanied by a photo of Ivy Russell holding a barbell in the top position of the deadlift. There is a trophy cup on a pedestal behind her. The caption below the photo reads, “MISS IVY RUSSELL, who, in the article on this page, pleads the cause of lady lifters.”
Russell 1932: Miss Russell’s letter to the editor of ‘Health and Strength’, in which she “pleads the cause of lady lifters”. Full typed-up text here.
Black-and-white photo of two women, Ivy Russell (right) and Tillie Tinmouth (left), sitting on the shoulders of two standing men and surrounded by nine more standing men. The women are shaking hands. Ivy Russell is holding a trophy cup.
Miss Tillie Tinmouth and Miss Ivy Russell (right) shaking hands after the 1932 9st. Amateur Lady Weight-Lifting Championship of Great Britain. Image via Stark Center 2021.

1934 Women’s Wrestling Championship of Britain

Miss Russell putting an opponent in a wrestling hold and the description on the back of the photo. Images via Stark Center 2021. To fellow linguists: “Submission & Dislocation” would be a great name for another BDSM-themed generative syntax theory, like Government and Binding. Please take note.
Clipping from a newspaper featuring an article entitled “Why shouldn’t a Woman Wrestle!” and a subheading “by Ivy Russell, who next week is wrestling for the women’s championship”. The article is accompanied by a very poor quality photo of Ivy Russell wrestling with another person. The caption below the photo reads, “Ivy Russell (upright) demonstrates a hold.”
Russell 1934: Miss Russell’s piece in ‘John Bull’, advocating for women’s wrestling. Image via The British Newspaper Archive. Full typed-up text here.
A page of a magazine featuring four photos with captions, two of them relevant. The top photo shows Ivy Russell and Peggy Parnell wrestling on the floor, and a man standing next to them. The left bottom photo shows Ivy Russell, standing, holding a kneeling woman in a wrestling hold.
Pix 1939: The 1934 wrestling contest between Miss Russell and Miss Parnell featured in an article on women’s sports in the Australian magazine ‘Pix’. Image via Trove.

Later appearances

Chicago Daily Tribune 1937: The 1937 weight-lifting contest between Miss Russell and Miss Carquest as covered by ‘Chicago Daily Tribune’. Image via Newspapers.com.
The Daily Mirror 1939: A report of the car accident involving Miss Russell, including the picture of the crash site. Image via The British Newspaper Archive.
2 pages from a magazine, featuring an article entitled “WORLD’S STRONGEST WOMAN?” The left page has 2 photos with text. Top: Russell performing a bent press with a barbell. Bottom right: Russell from the chest up in an evening attire. The right page has 4 photos with text. Top left: Russell doing a stomach vacuum. Top right: Russell having her coach in a wrestling hold. Bottom left: Russell holding a woman on outstretched arms. Bottom right: Russell holding a woman overhead on her right arm.
Pix 1938b: A feature article on Miss Russell in the Australian magazine ‘Pix’. Image via Trove.

Press on Miss Russell, womanhood, and femininity

Blatant misogyny

Focus on ~f e m i n i n i t y~

2 pages from a magazine featuring an article entitled “The WORLD’S STRONGEST WOMAN”. The left page has 3 photos with text. Top photo: Russell in a three quarter back double bicep pose. Below it: Russell at the top position of the deadlift. Bottom left: Russell in a back pose with both arms stretched above her head. The right page has 2 relevant photos with text. Top left: Russell in a three quarter back single bicep pose. Top right: Russell wearing a house dress and lifting one side of a piano.
Pix 1938a: Another feature article on Miss Russell in the Australian magazine ‘Pix’. Image via Trove. “Muscles and close-cropped hair make her appear like a man” — this author calls it as they see it. Also, what changed between Pix 1938a (April) and Pix 1938b (November) that made them add a question mark to “world’s strongest woman”? Also also, pianos will make another appearance later, so stay tuned

The fear of the muscle

Miss Russell doing physique poses. Images via Stark Center 2021. Miss Russell: no muscles to see here, move along.

“Ivy has no time for boy friends”

Clipping from a newspaper featuring two pictures, one of Ivy Russell from the waist up in back double bicep pose and the other of her face, and an article. The heading above the pictures reads, “AND THEY CALL HER’S THE WEAKER SEX!” The article is preceded by the headings “Strongest Woman. IVY HAS NO TIME FOR BOY FRIENDS. By a special correspondent.”
The Daily Mirror 1937b: An article on Miss Russell in anticipation of her weight-lifting contest against Miss Carquest. Image via The British Newspaper Archive. Miss Russell: I do not care for men. Journalist: IVY HAS NO TIME FOR BOY FRIENDS.
Clipping from a newspaper of an article entitled, “The world’s strongest woman says I’ll never have a baby!” The article is accompanied by two photos, one of Ivy Russell in a crouch start position and the other of her holding another woman on outstretched arms. The latter has a caption saying, “She carries another girl with the greatest of ease!” There is also a cartoon depiction of a man’s head with a speech bubble that reads, “What’s all this I hear about women being the weaker sex?”
Russell 1937: An article by Miss Russell on her personal life. Image via The British Newspaper Archive. Full typed-up text here. “Perhaps I’m quietly nursing someone’s baby when an SOS arrives from a few doors up the street: “Please can Ivy come and move our piano, as mother wants to dust behind it.” The pianos I’ve shifted!” — From now on, I intend to use ‘The pianos I’ve shifted!’ as my go-to example of English nominal exclamatives in all my work.

Outro

Ivy Russell, lifting up women since the 1920s. Images via Stark Center 2021.

Endnotes

References

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linguist at UniKn (she or they)

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