Our History

In the late 1930s, the leadership of the American Turners had a growing concern about the German heritage of the organization. There were new generations that no longer had strong ties to the country of their parents. In addition, the 1936 formation of the pro-Hitler German American Bund cast a shadow over the Turners.

In 1938, the ntional convention took a momentous step and changed the name of the organization and promoted a new slogan, “Turnerism is Americanism.”

To help publicize and popularize the transformation, the National Executive Committee created a host of AT related merchandise featuring the logo with the discus thrower. This widely-distributed catalogue included this advice:

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO USE THE AMERICAN TURNER PROMOTIONAL SUPPLIES

1. When used as prizes for a Membership Drive, place items to be offered in a glass case somewhere so that all of your members will be attracted to the case.

2. To be used as a stimulus to increase inter-society activities.

3. Particularly suited to increase the enrollment of gymnasium classes.

4. To be used as recognition awards for services rendered by Turners in their leadership in Society, Group Work, and Class Activities.

In 1924, Turner President George Seibel had a visitor – Theodore Ahrens, his old friend from Louisville and member of the Turner executive committee. Ahrens was president of the Standard Sanitary Company – at the time, the largest manufacturer of bathroom supplies in the world. The company pioneered the use of enameled porcelain for its one-piece toilets and tubs, while developing combination faucets (that mix hot and cold water). It would soon merge with the American Radiator Company – and if you look in your bathroom, you might have an American Standard fixture.

Through its 100 years, there have only been four chairmen: George Seibel, Rudolph Koenig, Henry Schroeder, and Frank Wedl. Under Frank’s leadership, with the help of his friend and trustee Hans Sammer, the Jahn Fund has grown into a substantial investment portfolio that continues to support the Turner philosophy. 

In 1945, George Seibel wrote, “Our organization will be a great power only if it produces men and women who will think — men and women who will not be afraid to tread new paths, seek new truths, set up new landmarks.” That still holds true.

In the summer of 1936, the world’s eyes turned to Berlin as athletes from across the globe prepared to compete before a regime eager to turn sport into propaganda. For the Philadelphia Turners, that summer carried a special meaning. Four of its members won places on the United States Olympic team. One of them, Pearl Perkins, had won the right to go to Berlin—and then she walked away.

Pearl was born in South Philadelphia to Russian Jewish immigrants, Benjamin and Sadie Perkins. A natural athlete, by age twelve, she had already won five swimming championships and had become a standout in track and field.

At the Turngemeinde Athletic Club—the Philadelphia Turners—Pearl found both training and a home. The Turner movement had long taught that physical strength and civic character belonged together. Pearl embodied that ideal. At South Philadelphia High School for Girls, she helped lead one of the city’s finest gymnastics teams. She continued to participate in Turner Festivals, often in the septathalon and diving in addition to apparatus.

Then came 1936. The Olympic Games had been awarded to Berlin in 1931, before Adolf Hitler came to power. By the time the Games arrived, the Nazi regime had stripped Jews of rights and citizenship and pushed Jewish athletes out of German sports organizations. For many Americans, the question was whether they should lend their presence to a regime built on hatred. The debate divided American sports. Some leaders urged a boycott while others argued that the United States should attend. In the end, the American team went to Berlin.

In 1936, at age twenty-one, Pearl won the Middle Atlantic AAU all-around title and earned one of only eight places on the U.S. Women’s Olympic Gymnastics Team. But her parents said no. Benjamin and Sadie Perkins would not allow their Jewish daughter to compete in Nazi Germany. Pearl accepted their decision and gave up the chance of a lifetime.

Her story did not end there. Pearl remained, as Turner Topics stated in 1938, “America’s outstanding woman athlete.” She became National AAU all-around champion in 1937, 1941, and 1943, and won national titles in horse and vault. But she missed her opportunity at the Olympics, which were not held during the war years.

Most Americans remember the 1936 Games through Jesse Owens, whose victories offered a powerful rebuke to Nazi claims of racial superiority. Pearl Perkins represents another kind of courage: the athlete who refused to appear at all.

Pearl Perkins reminds us that Turner ideals were never only about medals. They were about character—about the strength to know when conscience matters more than glory.

A striking stone building at 2431 West Roosevelt Road in the Douglas Park neighborhood of Chicago announces itself with carved limestone bearing the phrase Gut Heil — “Good Health” — alongside a portrait relief of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, who founded the Turner movement.

The Turnverein Vorwaerts, whose name translates roughly as “Forward Turners,” was established in 1867. Its campaign to bring gymnastics into Chicago’s classrooms dates to 1884, when the organization arranged for members of a Chicago Board of Education committee to attend a gymnastics exhibition conducted by William Zoeller. The Board subsequently engaged a Turner to construct a physical education curriculum for the city’s schools — essentially building the program from the ground up. Fourteen years later, in 1898, the Vorwaerts strengthened that commitment by supplying gymnastic equipment to six public schools that were in the process of establishing playgrounds.

The organization’s reach extended far beyond schools. Throughout the late nineteenth century, Chicago’s public parks catered almost exclusively to quiet pursuits — leisurely walks, carriage excursions, and riding on horseback. The Turnverein Vorwaerts was instrumental in pushing that vision aside. In 1895, its members produced detailed architectural plans for a playground and natatorium at Douglas Park, and gathered 56,000 signatures on a petition urging the West Park Commission to act. The Commission agreed, and construction was finished by October 1896 — delivering what came to be recognized as Chicago’s first formal public playground. The Turners’ presence in the parks continued for decades: member George Sonnenleiter held the position of Chicago’s Municipal Playground Director from 1902 through 1932, and eight additional Vorwaerts members served as directors of individual parks across the city.

In time, the Turnverein Vorwaerts joined with other Chicago Turner associations to become the Northwest Turners. The Roosevelt Road building has long since passed to other owners and now carries designation as a Chicago Landmark. Yet the inscription Gut Heil still greets passersby above the windows.

Few postage stamps in U.S. history had to fight their way into existence quite like US #979, the commemorative issued in honor of the 100th anniversary of the American Turners.

On March 4, 1948, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a joint resolution authorizing the issuance of a special 3-cent stamp commemorating the centennial of the organization’s founding. But Acting Postmaster General Joseph Lawler pushed back, citing a longstanding policy against issuing stamps for fraternal, religious, or sectional organizations — a policy that had previously denied stamps to the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, the YMCA, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Congress wasn’t deterred, and responded with an even stronger resolution backed by both the Senate and House, essentially directing the Postmaster General to issue the stamp.

The finished stamp featured a torch (symbolizing enlightenment), hanging rings, the dates 1848 and 1948, and the organization’s logo with the motto, “Sound Mind Sound Body.” Critics were not kind — Life magazine later described it as overcrowded, stating, “Now, to get all that on one stamp…was a great accomplishment; it must have destroyed the retinas of a dozen steel engravers.”

When we think of Turner gymnastics, the mind often jumps to parallel bars, vaulting horses, and the rigorous apparatus work that defined the movement. At its heart, however, were exercises that strengthened the core through the use of light weights and stretching.

This film, showing a New Jersey Turner doing a wand exercise, dates from February 1894. It is one of the earliest motion pictures made in the United States, using a technique called Kinetoscope developed by inventor William Dickson. He brought his process to Thomas Edison and established America’s first motion picture studio in West Orange, New Jersey.

Wand exercises involved coordinated movement drills using wooden or iron rods, typically performed in unison by groups of Turners. Positioned between pure calisthenics and heavy apparatus work, they built coordination, posture, flexibility, and upper-body strength.

Wand exercises were inclusive. Because they required no heavy apparatus and could be adapted for all ages and abilities, they were accessible to women and children as well as men. This made them a staple of the mass public displays and Turnfeste that were so central to Turner community life.

The Turner tradition of hand-apparatus work helped lay the foundation for what would eventually evolve into rhythmic gymnastics, and wand exercises played no small part in shaping physical education programs in American schools.