Katie Sandwina (born Katharina Brumbach and also known as Katie Brumbach; 1884 – 21 January 1952) was an

Austrian-American Austrian Americans (, ) are Americans of Austrian descent, chiefly German-speaking Catholics and Jews. According to the 2000 U.S. census, there were 735,128 Americans of full or partial Austrian descent, accounting for 0.3% of the population. The ...

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclist ...

strongwoman A strongwoman is a woman who performs feats of strength in a show or circus, or a woman who competes in strength athletics. Traditionally, strongwomen have had a special appeal, as women involved in demonstrated feats of strength were exceptions ...

Life in the circus

Katie Brumbach was one of fourteen children born to circus performers Philippe and Johanna Brumbach. In her early years, Katie performed with her family. Katie's father would offer one hundred

marks Marks may refer to: Business * Mark's, a Canadian retail chain * Marks & Spencer, a British retail chain * Collective trade marks, trademarks owned by an organisation for the benefit of its members * Marks & Co, the inspiration for the novel '' ...

to any man in the audience who could defeat her in

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

; no one ever succeeded in winning the prize. It was during one such performance that Katie met her husband of forty-two years, Max Heymann. In 1902 Brumbach defeated the famous

strongman In the 19th century, the term strongman referred to an exhibitor of strength or similar circus performers who performed feats of strength. More recently, strength athletics, also known as strongman competitions, have grown in popularity. Thes ...

Eugen Sandow Eugen Sandow (born Friedrich Wilhelm Müller, ; 2 April 1867 – 14 October 1925) was a German bodybuilder and showman from Prussia. Born in Königsberg, Sandow became interested in bodybuilding at the age of ten during a visit to Italy. After a ...

in a

weightlifting Weightlifting generally refers to activities in which people lift Weight training#Equipment, weights, often in the form of dumbbells or barbells. People lift various kinds of weights for a variety of different reasons. These may include various t ...

contest in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Katie lifted a weight of 300 pounds over her head, which Sandow managed to lift only to his chest. After this victory, she adopted the stage name "Sandwina" as a feminine derivative of Sandow. Sandwina worked in the United States with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for many years, until she was nearly 60. One of her standard performance feats was lifting her husband (who weighed 165 pounds) overhead with one hand. She performed many other feats, such as bending steel bars and resisting the pull of four horses. Sandwina's record of an overhead lift of 296 pounds (129 kg) stood for many years until being eclipsed by women's weightlifter

Karyn Marshall Karyn Marshall (born April 2, 1956 in Miami, Florida) is an American Olympic weightlifter who won the first women's world championship in weightlifting, held in 1987. She also set 60 American and world records in women's weightlifti ...

in 1987. Reporter

Marguerite Martyn Marguerite Martyn (September 26, 1878 – April 17, 1948) was an American journalist and political cartoonist with the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' in the early 20th century. She was noted as much for her published sketches as for her articles. ...

described her act when the circus came to

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

, in 1911:

At the moment she was twirling her husband about in dizzy circles above her head . . . . Carelessly, laughingly, she tosses her husband about as though he were not flesh and bone, but merely an effigy of inflated rubber. And he is no insignificant husband, either.

Family

The couple had two sons: Theodore Sandwina, born in

Sioux City, Iowa Sioux City () is a city in Woodbury and Plymouth counties in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 85,797 in the 2020 census, making it the fourth-largest city in Iowa. The bulk of the city is in Woodbury County, ...

, who was a champion heavyweight

boxer Boxer most commonly refers to: * Boxer (boxing), a competitor in the sport of boxing *Boxer (dog), a breed of dog Boxer or boxers may also refer to: Animal kingdom * Boxer crab * Boxer shrimp, a small group of decapod crustaceans * Boxer snipe ee ...

in the 1920s; and Alfred Sandwina, who was an actor.

Retirement and death

In her later years, Katie and her husband operated a bar and grill restaurant in

Ridgewood, Queens Ridgewood is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. It borders the neighborhoods of Maspeth, Middle Village and Glendale, as well as the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bushwick and East Williamsburg. Historically, the neighborhood s ...

, New York. They advertised it as belonging to the world's strongest woman and Katie would occasionally perform minor feats of strength to entertain their patrons, including breaking iron chains, bending iron bars, and using her husband as a human

barbell A barbell is a piece of exercise equipment used in weight training, bodybuilding, weightlifting, powerlifting and strongman, consisting of a long bar, usually with weights attached at each end. Barbells range in length from to above , althou ...

. Katie Sandwina died of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

on 21 January 1952.

References

External links

Talking with: The World's Strongest Woman
''Iron Game History,'' August 1991, reprinting (and possibly translating) from the German paper ''Woven Man Spricht,'' 8 December 1910, and posted at th
Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles
website *The Human Marvels presenting peculiar people
SANDWINA - Woman of Steel
* Article about and sketches of Sandwina by

, ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch,'' 4 June 191

*Jan Todd, "Center Ring: Katie Sandwina and the Construction of Celebrity," Iron Game History: The Journal of Physical Culture, 10 (1) November, 2007. https://starkcenter.org/igh/igh-v10/igh-v10-n1/igh1001c.pdf {{DEFAULTSORT:Sandwina, Katie 1884 births 1952 deaths Austro-Hungarian emigrants to the United States Deaths from cancer in New York (state) People associated with physical culture Entertainers from Vienna Strongwomen Circus strongmen and strongwomen