Footnoting History
  • Home
  • Listen
  • About
  • Calendar
  • Archive
  • Teach
  • Shop
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Listen
  • About
  • Calendar
  • Archive
  • Teach
  • Shop
  • Contact
Search
Picture

The Only Running Footman

10/26/2013

4 Comments

 
Apple  |  Android  |  Spotify  |  Stitcher  |  RSS
​
Picture
Country roads were rough, tough, and uneven. But the agile, handsome, and (sometimes) opulently dressed running footmen traversed these treacherous roads to scout, deliver messages, and honor their masters with their ultramarathon endurance. Holding a staff, an egg, and maybe a little white wine, was the running footman the first professional runner of the modern age?

Podcaster: Esther

Further Reading:

Secondary Literature:
Anderson, Earl R. "Footnotes More Pedestrian Than Sublime." Eighteenth-Century Studies 14:1 (1980): 56-68.

Bovill, E.W. English Country Life, 1780-1830. Oxford University Press, 1962.

Radford, P.F. and A.J. Ward-Smith. "British Running Performances in the Eighteenth Century." Journal of Sports Sciences 21 (2003): 429-438. 

Primary Sources:
Depping, Guillaume. Wonders of Bodily Strength and Skill, in All Ages and All Countries. Translated by Charles Russell. New York: C. Scribner, 1871.

Frank Leslie's New Family Magazine, vol. IV, no. 1. New York, January 1859.

Morley, Henry. Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century. London: G. Routledge, 1891.

Walsh, William Shepard. A Handy Book of Curious Information.  Philadelphia and London: J.B. Lippincott, 1913.

Related Content

This episode is part of our Running in History Series

Music: "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (
www.incompetech.com)
4 Comments
John Hutley
10/27/2013 01:20:06 pm

I know than a US city calls itself "Kay Row" whilst the Egyptians & the real of the world pronounce "Cairo" differently. However using your subtitle, this episode mispronounced "Samuel Pepys", the famous diarist - should rhyme with "beets". Similarly the traditional place for public execution rhymes / pronounced "Tie Burn"

Reply
Esther
10/28/2013 05:18:30 am

Thanks for your comments, Mr. Hutley. I hope you enjoyed the podcast.

Reply
Curious
12/18/2013 10:40:15 am

What US city is pronounced "Kay Row"?

Also, it seems that it's not entirely settled that the pronunciation is "peeps." It could just as well be "pips."

See the letter in the New York Times from June 26, 1910 here:

query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F00C1EF83E5D12738DDDAF0A94DE405B898CF1D3

Reply
Curious
12/18/2013 10:41:22 am

Sorry, the complete URL is:

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F00C1EF83E5D12738DDDAF0A94DE405B898CF1D3




Leave a Reply.

Site Map

Home
Listen​
Calendar
Archive
About
​Contact
Shop
Media Kit

Series

Revolutionary France
​British Royals
Black History
Women's History
​Doggy History
Running in History
Film History
​Medieval Conspiracy Theories
 © 2013-2019 Footnoting History.  All rights reserved.
Footnoting History operates under a SAG-AFTRA New Media Agreement.
Logo design by Alica Desantis (@Desantis Design).
  • Home
  • Listen
  • About
  • Calendar
  • Archive
  • Teach
  • Shop
  • Contact