Note 224 — Chapter XXII · THE “NEW GYMNASTICS” OF DIO LEWIS.

The oldest gymnastic society (Turnverein) of the German type in the United States was the Cincinnati Turngemeinde, organized November 21, 1848. By October of 1853 there were at least seventy in existence, and by September of 1856 ninety-six societies, with a membership of about five thousand, had united into a national body and at least twenty more were known to have been formed. At the outbreak of the Civil War there were a total of one hundred and fifty-seven societies, in twenty-seven states of the Union. See pp. 290 and 291.