Charles B. Kastner's Books

The 1929 Bunion Derby

Johnny Salo and the Great Footrace across America

By: Charles B. Kastner

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The 1929 Bunion Derby

Johnny Salo and the Great Footrace across America

By: Charles B. Kastner

On March 31, 1929, seventy-seven men began an epic 3,554-mile footrace across America that pushed their bodies to the breaking point. Nicknamed the “Bunion Derby” by the press, this was the second and last of two trans-America footraces held in the late 1920s. The men averaged forty-six gut-busting miles a day during seventy-eight days of nonstop racing that took them from New York City to Los Angeles. Among this group, two brilliant runners, Johnny Salo of Passaic, New Jersey, and Pete Gavuzzi of England, emerged to battle for the $25,000 first prize along the mostly unpaved roads of 1929 America, with each man pushing the other to go faster as the lead switched back and forth between them. To pay the prize money, race director Charley Pyle cobbled together a traveling vaudeville company, complete with dancing debutantes, an all-girl band wearing pilot outfits, and blackface comedians, all housed under the massive show tent that Pyle hoped would pack in audiences. Kastner’s engrossing account, often told from the perspective of the participants, evokes the remarkable physical challenge the runners experienced and clearly bolsters the argument that the last Bunion Derby was the greatest long-distance footrace of all time.

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Page Count

328

Publisher

Syracuse University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

081565281X

ISBN 13

9780815652816

Bunion Derby

The 1928 Footrace Across America

By: Charles B. Kastner

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Bunion Derby

The 1928 Footrace Across America

By: Charles B. Kastner

The story of Charley Pyle's 3,400-mile cross country race and extravaganza and the men who endured 84 days of mountains, deserts, mud, and sandstorms to compete for a $25,000 grand prize.

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Page Count

268

Publisher

UNM Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0826343015

ISBN 13

9780826343017

Race across America

Eddie Gardner and the Great Bunion Derbies

By: Charles B. Kastner

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Race across America

Eddie Gardner and the Great Bunion Derbies

By: Charles B. Kastner

2020 Peace Corps Writers Paul Cowan Award for the Best Book of Non-Fiction On April 23, 1929, the second annual Transcontinental Foot Race across America, known as the Bunion Derby, was in its twenty-fifth day. Eddie “the Sheik” Gardner, an African American runner from Seattle, was leading the race across the Free Bridge over the Mississippi River. Along with the signature outfit that earned him his nickname—a white towel tied around his head, white shorts, and a white shirt—Gardner wore an American flag, a reminder to all who saw him run through the Jim Crow South that he was an American and the leader of the greatest footrace in the world. Kastner traces Gardner’s remarkable journey from his birth in 1897 in Birmingham, Alabama, to his success in Seattle, Washington, as one of the top long-distance runners in the region, and finally to his participation in two transcontinental footraces where he risked his life, facing a barrage of harassment for having the audacity to compete with white runners. Kastner shows how Gardner’s participation became a way to protest the endemic racism he faced, heralding the future of nonviolent efforts that would be instrumental to the civil rights movement. Shining a bright light on his extraordinary athletic accomplishments and his heroism on the dusty roads of America in the 1920s, Kastner gives Gardner and other black bunioneers the attention they so richly deserve.

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Page Count

338

Publisher

Syracuse University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0815654421

ISBN 13

9780815654421

Race across America

Eddie Gardner and the Great Bunion Derbies

By: Charles B. Kastner

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Race across America

Eddie Gardner and the Great Bunion Derbies

By: Charles B. Kastner

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Page Count

338

Publisher

Syracuse University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0815654421

ISBN 13

9780815654421

The 1929 Bunion Derby

Johnny Salo and the Great Footrace across America

By: Charles B. Kastner

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The 1929 Bunion Derby

Johnny Salo and the Great Footrace across America

By: Charles B. Kastner

Average ratings

N/A

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

328

Publisher

Syracuse University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

081561036X

ISBN 13

9780815610366

Book's by Charles B. Kastner

The 1929 Bunion Derby

The 1929 Bunion Derby

Bunion Derby

Bunion Derby

Race across America

Race across America

Race across America

Race across America

The 1929 Bunion Derby

The 1929 Bunion Derby

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