The DARK History of the Treadmill

Did you know that early Treadmills were used to walk enslaved people in to submission

Join us while we talk about the History of the Treadmill. 

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Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/treadwheel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treadwheel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_treadmill https://daily.jstor.org/treadmills-were-meant-to-be-atonement-machines

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Imagine a machine so brutal that this mere existence since
sheers down the spine of those who dare to approach it. Today,
you might know of this adventure because it's associated with
health and wellness. It's a treadmill. So join us today
as we unraveled the chilling transformation from a dark tool
of torture into a celebrated emblem of wellness and the

(00:23):
collect stories like this. You can find more stories like
this at onemacstory dot com, also Colectable, the channel do
some of a lot of the tale Patreon page and
the scripture below. I have a new channel one MIC two.
Please check that out audio only episodes and let's get started.
In the early nineteenth century, an engineer by the name
of Sir William Cubitt observed a problem that captured his

(00:44):
innovative spirit. Born into a family of meal rights, Cubitt
was no stranger to the workings of machinery and to
the importance of our work. As he walked through corridors
of British prisons, he noticed something that troubled him deeply,
the idleness of prison. These men confined to these stone
walls had nothing to do all day but complement their misdeeds,

(01:04):
and Cuba believed that he could transform this wasted time
into something beneficial. So in eighteen eighteen, Cubit introduced the
world to a solution, the treadwheel, later known as the treadmill.
It was a large cylindrical structure much like a water
wheel turned on its side, but the wheel was not

(01:26):
designed to harness the power of water, but instead was
harnted by the steps of prisoners. This design was imposing.
Prisoners stepped along large wooden spokes, using their weight to
turn the wheel, and as they walked it was akin
to climbing an endless mountain. The wheel rotated and the
powerful machinery grinded corn or pumped water. Set Up in

(01:48):
places like breaks in prison, these treadmills could hold up
to twenty four prisoners at a time, side by side,
east lost in their own greedy battle against the wheel.
Competitive climbing was grueling. Prisoners worked up to ten hours
a day in the summer, and the sounds of labor
was a constant echo in the air. The wheel wasn't

(02:09):
just a machine, it was a test of mental and
physical endurance. Cuba's invention was rooted in the belief of
the eraror that horror labor could reform the wayward. However,
as years past the horsh realities of the treadmill's impact
began to surface. The intense, strained and drift monotony of
the task led to exhaustion, injury, even depth to those

(02:31):
condemned to its turns. What started out as a mission
to reform through labor morphed into a mere vehicle of punishment,
a cruel tool of enforcement disguised as virtue. And this
is when the treadmill takes an even more since the
time when it crosses to the Caribbean and the southern
United States of America, where it found a place on

(02:53):
plantations and enslaved labor camps, it was no longer even
a tool of reform. It became an instrument of torture.
Modifications were made to make the slopes steeper and the
sessions longer, all under the brutal overhead sun. Enslaved feared
the treadmill more than the overseers whip. It was a

(03:13):
public spectacle of pain, a stark reminder to anyone who
stepped out of line. Here you bleedy witness these horrors
and documented the ordeal of Susan and enslaved punished on
a Jamaican plantation for allegedly stealing apamento. Day after day,
for nine hours a day, Susan climbed inless steps of

(03:34):
the treadmill amidst the shouts and the relentless turning of
the wheel. Some figures, like Frederick Douglass, narrated the plight
of other enslaved people like Louis, punished for what was
termed laziness. Douglas described the extreme speed of the treadmill
and the danger that opposed any who couldn't keep up
with it would fall suffering under the relentless turning of

(03:57):
the remonstrous wheel. Their crime and punishment was meant to
teach obedience and docility, yet it only highlighted the cruelty
impolls upon them and many other enslaved people. According to
James Hardy, one of the operators of the history of
the Treadmill, apparatuss noradity is not because of its brutality.

(04:18):
It was not a dungeon torture device. Rather, it was
a relentless monotony inherent to the tread myth operation, not
as harshness that made it such a dreaded instrument of torture.
As the century turned, the treadmill continued unabated, from a
device used to eradicate idleness in British prison to subsequently

(04:40):
being transformed into a harsh instrument of punishment for disobedient
enslaved people. Although it never became its widespread here in
the United States as it did in Great Britain, its
punitive use persisted beyond even the ambolishment of slavery, notably
in places like Bellevue Hospital in New York, where they

(05:02):
hosted a treadwhill. However, in nineteen thirteen, a quiet revolution
occurred with the patenting of the training machine in the
United States, and this lay the humble beginnings for the
modern treadmill. The transformation of the treadmill wasn't overnight. For decades,
the shadow of the treadmill's tortures passed lingered, Yet the

(05:24):
only thing constant is changed, and by the mid twentieth century,
brought by pioneers like Robert Bruce and When Quinton, who
electrified the treadmill, transforming it once again, this time into
a tool to diagnose heart and lung diseases. Their work
was heralded as a new era where the relentless turn
of the treadmill belt mirrored the beating of the human heart,

(05:48):
both striving tirelessly in the pursuit of health. By the
nineteen seventies, the cultural revolution of fitness consciousness thrust at
the treadmill once again into the spotlight. It was no
longer a relative coortion, but a beacon wellness, a platform
upon which the athrations healthier generations would tread. Central to

(06:09):
this movement with doctor Kenneth Cooper, who advocated for aerobic exercises,
breathed new life into treadmill workouts, emphasizing their benefits and
promoting herd health and overall physical fitness. Today, the treadmill
stands reimagined not as a tool of coercion, but by choice.
It's emblematic of the personal goals and the universal quests

(06:33):
for just a healthy well being. Once a relentless task master,
it now spends under our feet as we chase our
own goals of health and fitness. Thank you. This has
been one Mike history, and this is the story of
the treadmill. Your life stories like this. You can find
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