Every once in a while, the #stampoftheday marks something odd. Today is one of those days, as the #stampoftheday is a 3-cent stamp, issued on November 20, 1948, that commemorated the 100th anniversary of the American Turners Society.

Until I saw the stamp, I had never heard of the American Turners Society. And unlike some organizations I’ve never heard of, there’s nothing in the name that really told me what it is. So I was left to speculate. Was it:

a) A group of woodworkers who “turned” things on lathes,
b) A group of potters who turned things on wheels,
c) Some sort of ballroom dance society in which people twirl each other around?
d) A network of square dance groups that also focused on swinging their partners?
e) A singing society whose repetoire consisted only of songs with the word “turn” in it, such as “Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Round” or “Turn, Turn, Turn” (even though Pete Seeger wouldn’t write that song until 1959)?

The correct answer, is (f) none of the above.

The American Turners were an organization of German-American gymnasts who promoted physical fitness, Germanic culture, and social reforms. The first American Turners gymnastic union was established in Cincinnati on November 21, 1848. But the movement dated back to the early 1800s when Germany was occupied by French forces led by Napoleon. At that time, a teacher in Berlin, began staging outdoor physical education classes to strengthen his students and give them a sense of national pride in preparation for a war against France. Over the next few decades, similar gymnastic organizations were founded throughout the separate states that made up the German Conferderation. These groups focused on physical education, particularly activities that used gymnastic apparatus such as parallel bars, the rings, the balance beam, the horse, and the horizontal bar. But they also promoted democratic reforms in the government, which the leaders of the German states opposed.

Many Turners supported the unsuccessful Rebellion of 1848, which sought to bring more democratic reforms to the German states. The conservative forces that put down these efforts began cracking down on the Tuners. As a result, many members emigrated to the United States, especially to the Ohio Valley region. After its start in Cincinnati, the Turner movement in America spread quickly to other major cities. And in 1850, American Turners from around the country met in Philadelphia to establish a national organization.

The Turners became very active in American politics, fighting the “Know-Nothings” who were calling for restrictions on immigration. Many Turners were strong supporters of Lincoln’s first campaign and served as the President’s bodyguards at his inauguration and in the Union Army during the Civil War. After the Civil War, the national organization took a new name, Nordamerikanischer Turnerbund, and supported German-language teaching in public high schools, as well as gymnastics. By 1894, the organization had 317 societies and about 40,000 adult male members, along with 25,000 children and 3,000 women.
Since they were rooted in Germanic culture and themes, the Turners were targeted during World War I when Americans attacked anything associated with Germany. And in the 1920s the group tended to downplay some of it Germanic roots but in the 1930s, it began to reemphasize those connections. In 1937, for example, Carl Weideman, the recently elected president of the national organization, wrote, “. . . we are coming back into our own, we are coming back into the time when it is going to be a matter of pride to be a German, when some of us who have shirked our duty in the past will be proud to stand up and tell all of the heritage, the cultural contributions, of the Germans.”

As the Nazi regime grew more powerful, some German-Americans and German-American groups were publicly supporting the Nazi regime. Turner leaders, however, actively pressed an opposite course. In 1938, Weideman wrote: “We are distinctly an American movement.” And the group adopted a more American name.

In the years immediately after World War II the organization increased its emphasis on gymnastics. And in 1948, it adopted a new set of principles that abandoned calls for specific social reforms in favor of general statements supporting liberty and equality and emphasizing the organization’s athletic, cultural and social programs.

It appears that as part of these efforts, the Turners also began to press the Post Office Department to issue a stamp honoring it founding. Harold Youngblood, a one-term Republican Congressman from Michigan, took up their cause and in March 1948 convinced the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a resolution authorizing the issuance of the desired stamp.

But Acting Postmaster General Joseph Lawler rebuffed the effort, writing in May that “it has been the consistent policy of the Post Office Department to decline approval of postage stamps commemorating fraternal, religious, educational, charitable, or sectional organizations or groups. In the recent past, approval has been denied to such worthy organizations as the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, the Young Men’s Christian Association, Knights of Columbus, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.”

Moreover, he added, “other subjects . . . of greater national significance and appeal” had not received commemorative stamps. “There are so many subjects in that category that it would not be practicable to comply . . . and selection of one or a few” would lead critics to contend thqt the Post Office Department was “showing favoritism or discrimination.”

Backers were undeterred and in August got both the House and Senate to agree to a resolution stating ” the postmaster general is authorized and directed” to issue the American Turner stamps, using a design suggested by the organization.

The Post Office Department relented and scheduled the stamp’s release for November. The announcement puzzled many people, including the postmaster of Butte, Montana, who wrote to a senior official requesting “the reason for issuing this stamp and who Mr. Turner might be, or what the American Turners Society represents.”

Critics also took aim at the stamp itself, which includes images of: a torch, a pair of hanging rings, the dates 1848 and 1948, the words “One hundredth anniversary of the,” the American Turners’ emblem with its motto, “Sound mind sound body,” an athlete about to throw a discus, a wreath, two oak branches and a profusion of ribbon-work, shields and other ornaments. As Life magazine later noted, “to get all that on one stamp…was a great accomplishment; it must have destroyed the retinas of a dozen steel engravers.”

Responding such criticism, Lawler merely noted that the stamp and its design were “was not the idea of the Post Office Department. It was released in response to legislation passed by the 80th Congress, and the design approved as submitted by the president of the organization.”

For its part, the national Turner movement had a modest resurgence, growing to about 25,000 members. But it has declined since then. Today there only are about 45 local Turner organizations, most of them in the Upper Midwest and in the Mid-Atlantic states. And most of the most active organizations primarily focus on gymnastics with little or no political or cultural activities.
As the wrong answer to the quiz above reminds, “to everything” – including the Turners – “there is a season.” For the most part, it appears that this once influential group’s season has passed.

Be well, stay safe, fight for justice, and work for peace.