Bernarr Macfadden (1868–1955) was an American fitness advocate and publisher. He founded the magazine Physical Culture and spent decades promoting exercise and natural healing, gaining considerable influence in the American popular health movement of the early twentieth century. His representative work, Vitality Supreme, typifies his writing: it addresses ordinary readers on physical training, diet, and daily habits in plain, practical language with a clear persuasive and popularizing purpose. Public information about the details of his life is limited, and only one of his works is held in this collection, so a full picture of his output cannot be given here. It is clear, however, that through publishing and magazines he spread fitness ideas, bringing exercise and natural healing into the daily lives of more households and inspiring later popular health writing.
