What’s your favorite cold-weather activity? Building snowmen? Making snow angels? Maybe something a bit more athletic — ice skating perhaps? For those of us from the New York/New Jersey area, the winter season brings with it memories of window shopping on 5th Avenue and, of course, ice skating at Rockefeller Center.
Today, ice skating is one of the most popular winter sports, but it wasn’t always this way; it’s popularity, particularly in America, really takes off with a child named Charlotte.
Born in Berlin, Germany in 1898, Charlotte Oelschlägel was a talented musician who could play the harp, lute, mandolin, and piano. At just 7 years old, she began performing with the Berlin Philharmonic. However, at age 10 she developed growing problems, and when medications didn’t seem to help, her doctors recommended figure skating to strengthen her physique. She began skating as a duo with her brother Fritz, and by 1909 she was performing in ice ballets in Germany, but in just a few years would be bringing her talents to the United States.
Though ice skating has been around for centuries, it only came into its current form and fashion in the mid-19th century and was still taking shape as a professional and competitive sport when Charlotte took up the activity.
In 1915, Charlotte became the first performer to star in a Broadway ice show at the New York Hippodrome called “Hip-Hip-Hooray!” She went on to perform around the United States in a variety of performances, even occasionally writing choreography for the productions.
By this time, Charlotte felt she could encourage more Americans to take up the exciting winter activity, either as healthful exercise or as leisure activity. So, the same year she appeared on film, Charlotte published The Hippodrome Skating Book. This was no mere fluff book; while it does contain photographs of Charlotte performing and in costume, it really was a more serious work. Charlotte was sure to include detailed information about necessary equipment, the basics of skating form, and advanced tricks illustrated with diagrams.
In addition to choreographing some of her earlier performances on the road, she also was an innovator within the sport. There are two moves in particular which are associated with Charlotte: the “Charlotte spiral” also called the “fadeout,” and the “death spiral,” which has become a well-known staple in pairs skating routines. “Skating is a sport for everybody,” she explains, “girls and boys, young and old people.”
Interestingly, the copy of this work in the Rare Book & Special Collections Division, comes from the Harry Houdini Library. What might Houdini have been doing with this work? It doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the works in his collection, which focus mostly on magic, spiritualism, and related occult topics. But Houdini was always a performer, who got his start in vaudeville and on the stage, and had, by the time Charlotte’s book came out, acted in a silent film in Paris, and was on the cusp of starting his own silent movie company in the 1920s.
Charlotte’s The Hippodrome Skating Book will be on display as a part of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division’s winter mini exhibit. Come by the Reading Room (LJ-239) to see this and other winter-themed items from the collections.
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