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Title: Bunion Derby
Subtitle: The 1928 Footrace Across America
Author: Charles B. Kastner
Narrator: Andrew L. Barnes
Format: Unabridged
Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
Language: English
Release date: 05-20-15
Publisher: University Press Audiobooks
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 5 votes
Genres: History, 20th Century
Publisher's Summary:
On March 4, 1928, 199 men lined up in Los Angeles, California, to participate in a 3,400-mile transcontinental footrace to New York City. The Bunion Derby, as the press dubbed the event, was the brainchild of sports promoter Charles C. Pyle. He promised a $25,000 grand prize and claimed the competition would immortalize US Route 66, a 2,400-mile road, mostly unpaved, that subjected the runners to mountains, deserts, mud, and sandstorms, from Los Angeles to Chicago.
The runners represented all walks of American life, from immigrants to millionaires, with a peppering of star international athletes, included by Pyle for publicity purposes. For 84 days, the men participated in this part-footrace, part-Hollywood production, which incorporated a road show featuring football legend Red Grange, food concessions, vaudeville acts, sideshows, a portable radio station, and the world's largest coffeepot, sponsored by Maxwell House, serving 90 gallons of coffee a day.
Drawn by hopes for a better future and dreams of fame, fortune, and glory, the bunioneers embarked on an exhaustive and grueling journey that would challenge their physical and psychological endurance to the fullest, while Pyle struggled to keep his cross-country road show afloat.
The book is published by University of New Mexico Press.
Members Reviews:
A Corridor of History
Bunion Derby is a wonderful look back through time at a slice of America, with a new Route 66 and the unique energy of the 1920's. Individual aspirations and striving play out along a foot race course that takes the individyal runners through a natural landscape of mountains and deserts and a social landscape of racism and class divides.
The Bunion Derby, the life and times . . .
Any additional comments?
The Bunion Derby, the life and times, American history alive.
Byline: The Book Reviewer
Title of Book: The Bunion Derby
Author: Charles B. Kastner
Narrator: Andrew L. Barnes
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Date of Publication: 2015
Time: 6 hours and 36 minutes
99 bottles of beer on the wall,
99 bottles of beer,
and if one of those bottles should happen to fall,
98 bottles of beer on the wall . . .
- Drinking Song
The Bunion Derby, a timepiece of American history, tells the story of a footrace from San Francisco to New York City along Route 66 in 1928. But this was no ordinary footrace, advertising the newly built across-America roadway, the event would take 84 days, covering 3,400 miles through extreme and varied terrain including deserts, windstorms, mountains, rain and mud on a road that was largely hardbake and only paved in rare spots, for a grand prize of $25,000 ($3 - $4 million in todays monies). The event was an extravaganza, bigger than any Hollywood Production with a travelling carnival, convoy of cars and busses with 2 huge 24,000 lbs. busses for journalists and the organizers, a cast of sports stars, the promotion of products (the Maxwell House coffee company created the world's largest coffee pot serving 90 gallons of coffee a day, and paid $5,000 for the promotion), and a huge tent city was put up and taken down every day. A chronology of athletes, time and place, a retelling of each day includes a description of countryside and towns, who was ailing, who won that day and how many men were still in the race.
